From goffmac747@aol.com Wed May 27 20:09:56 2009
Subject:Re: Gregg Rolie's Santana sound?

It was a B3 and his special brand of drawbar usage. He did go thru a period of multi leslies and frankenleslies but that was later on, I surmise.. But after all these years he's still able to get his sound from a regular B3 and 122 leslie. I saw him a few years ago with "Santana" without Carlos and since Gregg did most of the vocals for early Santana, it was almost the same without the massive presence of Santana himself of course. I sat behind Gregg during the concert and observed his style which over the years I know most of us have been confused as to what his settrings were. I was surprised to see that he understated his bars so that he could create headroom with his top bars, meaning his lower bars were set at 3-4, not the traditional 888 we have come to believe. This gave him more high bar power ( 2 2/3',1 3/5', 1 1/3', 1') on Jingo, e.g., so that as he pulled the upper bars there was more gain and then he spins the leslie on fast so that the upper bars accentuate the ramp up....As soon as I got home I tried to duplicate what I remembered seeing and it was "his" sound..He would floor the leslie of course so that it would distort. From what I saw he was running a stock leslie miced top and bottom set 30 feet behind him. He wore in-ear monitors to hear the organ. Got to talk with him after the show and that's what he told me. I ran into an organ tech down San Diego some time ago, long before the Santana concert I've mentioned as the tech was servicing my B3 at home. He told me he had been out to Gregg's house to look at a frankenleslie that Gregg was working on, said Gregg complained of a huge hum in the leslie. Don't know what happened to it but from what I saw last it was a stock looking 122. Think about this for a second. Back in the 60's there was no such thing as mods on a hammond and one would think that if Gregg had any device on his equipment when he recorded all those hits, we may have heard about it. Gregg went on his trek for the massive super leslie as we all have or imagined but this was after

he hit with Evil Ways... I think he just has this ear and touch that allows him to finger the keys as he gets in between the rotation of the rotors and feeds the leslie in such as way that it creates his signature sound. But copying his drawbar regs was most of the ingredient, come to find out and I was using my VK8m without a leslie that night after the concert and I got his sound after all these years..... I was amazed that his sound was still there live after all these years. Unlike others you see live that don't sound like their records. Gregg did and without smoke and mirrors. A true testament to the man's abilities.

Goff



-----Original Message-----

From: jeray31 <jeray31@comcast.net>

To: CloneWheel@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Thu, 28 May 2009 10:13 am

Subject: [CWSG] Greg Rolie's Santana sound?








I've been listening to some early Santana and have been blown away by Greg Rolie's Hammond sound ("Soul Sacrifice", Hope You're Feeling Better", etc). Do any of our learned forum members know what setup he was using at this time (Hammond model, amplification, Leslie, effect boxes, etc)? That Hammond sounds so sweet! I'd like to duplicate it with my Korg CX-3 as near as possible.......

Thanks everyone






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