From goffmac747@aol.com Wed Apr 13 00:35:50 2011
Subject:Re: Why no mini-Leslies?Oh Yeah?

Mark,
Thank you. I, to add to your comment about muddying up the band mix,
also remember watching Gregg Rolie from behind the B use less of the
first 888 and brought it down to like 455 while playing live and saving
the top bars for certain parts of a solo and ramp-up build. The fact
that his Leslie is mic'ed and in the hands of an engineer who
understands the music, Gregg was confident, he didn't need a monster
Leslie and was running a stock 40 watt 122 but he knew when he pushed
the expression pedal, his "frail" bar registrations would be heard and
would mix with the rest of band specially when he had monster timbales
players beating the crap out their drums. It further reinforced my
discovery through years in the studio and working with pros doing live
concerts, that what we think these guys did on records was not
accurate.

Gregg has grown over the years as well and he came to the same
scientific conclusions. I grew up being influenced by Gregg as many of
us did but when we went to emulate his tone we, for lack of a better
way, thought that more bass was the way it should be done.

I know clones are a difficult thing to amplify. For one, the art of
making a clone is still new and not final and it seems the clone makers
are not amp or mixer makers. Keep in mind the Hammond and the Leslie
were independently designed of each other and a sheer Eureka of a
serendipitous accident that they were used together. An unholy
marriage, had Laurens his way. So until these devices start seeing eye
to eye, we will be left groping in the dark for a definable clone sound
that gets our desired sounds. But controlling your bars to fit into the
sound of the band and hopefully you get to play with like-minded
players, makes you realize why the word "dynamics" means so much in
playing live with a band or recording even.

Mixing in the studio/live is all about locking in pieces of a puzzle
and each instrument, together with a good musical arrangement, being
"shelved" sonic-ally, allows it to stick out more. The solo button on a
mixer is a useful tool as it allows you to realize hearing the
instrument while in "solo" what its tone shape is so that when you drop
it back into the mix, you get the idea that covering all the
frequencies is never a good thing, that a more "skeletal" approach is
more affective. And often it sounds awful in solo but you learn to
realize that if you pay attention to it, that its wimpy,
wet-chicken-little sound is actually the inverse when it sits in the
mix. Once you realize what a good skeleton for each instrument might
be, you then become intuitive on how this all interrelates and locks
with each other.

I attend many sound checks for the greats and you would be surprised
how the engineers these great bands bring with them, tweak a mixer
getting tones for each instrument. And I have heard these better
(famous) engineers complain they didn't get it the way they wanted
after the gig. So I guess we are all in good company.

Goff

-----Original Message-----
From: mark k
To: CloneWheel@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wed, Apr 13, 2011 9:20 am
Subject: Re: [CWSG] Why no mini-Leslies?Oh Yeah?

Goff,

As one of the "boys" in live performance terms your comment was one of
the most
informative articles on keyboard live performance I have ever read. It
confirms
what I have always suspected about keyboards fitting in the with mix.
To my
ears 88800000 in the lower 2 octaves muddies up the band mix except in
some
rare cases where the arrangement makes room for it e.g. Santana's Evil
Ways. My
current challenge is eliminating occasional shrillness in the upper
octaves
before the signal hits a lower end PA. Still looking for the ideal
small format
mixer which seems to be the most practical solution.

Mark