From tonysounds@yahoo.com Sat Apr 15 02:11:20 2006
Subject:mini leslie on the gig

Well, tonite was the first gig ever for a Speakeasy (insert name here) mini leslie. I took my Toyota Highlander 4cylinder (yay! cuz it was 102miles round trip), and I managed to fit my Motif8 in Gator case, XK3 in Calzone case, Speakeasy mini leslie, Yorkville 300k, a 4space rack with Speakeasy preamp and Roland M120 line mixer, pedal board case, and cable case, Ws550 with my instand 2nd tier, and keyboard throne into my car.

To preface this, I should say that Steve and I had been talking about this mini leslie, and I was of the firm opinion that for those who never owned a leslie, this new Speakeasy product was going to blow them away. But for those of us who have owned or own leslies, we're a tougher sell, cuz naturally we're gonna side-by-side these things. And in doing so, I felt that in order to get me to buy one, we/he needed to accentuate the horn a bit more. The minileslie sounded great, but with the frontloaded 12", I thought the low end was slightly overpowering the horn. (And who would have thought of a 12" bass speaker as being overpowering?!?) And I thought cutting the power to the 12 was the way to go. It's not that I missed the lower rotor, because I really didn't, but I felt the horn just needed to be underlined a bit more. And to quote Nigel Tufnel, "it's just that little something extra to push it over the cliff." I believed this was already a great box, but it needed
just a tweak or two. I was probably being nitpicky, but to make me an owner, I knew this would half to be addressed for me. The next day Steve called me to tell me, he had a better solution and it was en route. He built a new crossover which really changed the way things sat in this box. Without knowing where things are crossed, all I can say is, when I plugged it in, I was stunned! Not only had the horn now been underlined, capitalized and boldfaced for me, but the bass and mids were even SMOOTHER than before! I played the mini leslie for a while and took it to rehearsal, and really really loved it. But then I took it to the gig.....

We played at Mickey Finns, and the load in has 7 stairs before the elevator. It was nice being able to lift that mini leslie by myself!

First off....holy sh!t was this thing loud!!! The organ was just B R U T AL!!!!!!!
I had no trouble being heard ANYWHERE on the stage, even with a Twin Reverb being pushed to the max. The low end was tight and guttural; the highs were super smooth, and the mids were pleasantly in the front. With the Xk3, this mini-leslie just screamed. I used my Speakeasy preamp with the Xk3 mod (a small pad that steps down the hot 1/4" output of the XK3) full open, treble, bass and volume all the way up.
I ran the tone knob on my XK3 at about 10:00-ish. And when I wanted more grind, I just turned the tone knob up higher. (The volume on the Xk3 was set to max.) 0800000000 sounded magnificent; 83534438 was that smooth Gregg Alman sound with C3, and 8888888888 was just punishing! 8888 with perc on was an attention getter, and that woody "thunk" sounded better through the mini-leslie than it did through the Bulldog. It was HUGE! My bass player kept looking at me all night long and nodding at the mini leslie with a "that thing is the $hit!" look. And he was right.

And of the night, the band all came to look this thing over. Only slightly larger than a Pro 145, it didn't have that sharp midrange, it sounded like a fullsize hotrodded 122. They couldn't believe all that sound came out of that little box. Frankly neither could I!!!! This thing had me smiling all nite long. The sound guy was flabbergasted. I could go from loud but mellow organ tones, and just pulling out the drawbars and stepping on the pedal, I was in Greg Rolie/Jon Lord territory. Turn up the tone knob, and I could Keith Emerson's organ tones pretty easily; because of the front loaded 12", key click is a little more noticeable. I particularly liked it, but if I didn't, I could easily dial it down on the Xk3.

Between the versatility of the Xk3, my Speakeasy preamp, and this new mini-leslie, I could get a myriad of archetypical organ sounds without ever turning to the preamp. UNBELIEVABLE!!!!!!!!!

There is absolutely nothing in this size and weight class that even comes close to touching the Mini Leslie. FREAKIN FEROCIOUS!

Steve Hayes and the guys at SpeakeasyVintageMusic, you geniuses should be proud of yourselves. Aint nothing like this anywhere.

Now to go get a cover for it. (More to save the inside of my car than the leslie itself, I use covers on everything!)

I'm still stunned at the power and tone of this box.....
T


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