From frederick.somerville@gmail.com Sat Mar 24 11:27:55 2012
Subject:Real Leselie / Miked Leslie / Simulator in PA / Simulator in Phones

Lets carry on the "Something new" thread under this subject.

A Real Leslie has some unique features.
The Chambers top and bottom comb filters the sound (so does any room with walls also).

The comb filtering effect is constantly changing since sound it being thrown in different directions.

When you sit 1 - 2 meters from a Leslie it sounds different as opposed to if you sit 30 cm from it.
When you are one meter from it the reflection pattern has had time to build up.

Most ppl are used to hearing a close miked Leslie. This is what you get on most recordings. However if you are used to hear a Hammond in church chances are that you have hard the Leslie in the room. Although most churches are becoming more high tech these days.

A close miked Lelise using two mikes will give you two pulses at even intervalls if mike 180 degres or uneven intervalls if miked more than 0 degress but less than 180. This has its own sound but it is not what you hear in a room with no mikes. There you hear a very even and pleasant vibrato (vibrato being a pitch modulation of the tone - in addition you also have ampliture modulation).

I think most simulators go for the close miked sound - the one you would hear in a PA.
The VB3 if you increase the distance / ambience / spread gives you a very nice roomy Leslie sound.
The new Nord C2d has two models of 122. One close miked and one with a lot less modulation.
Since I have compared the C2d sim to what i hear 1 meter from my Leslie 145 I feel that for my taste the new Nord C2d sim is very good.
I have tried it in church and was happy with it - As happy as with my 145 you might ask? No but that is physically impossible. But it was good enough to justify not taking the 145 and straining my back.

The other use of a simulator is in headphones for practicing - here a sim is an ideal solution to not waking the house up.

I have also tried the MotionSound pro3x - it takes a little tweaking but combined with a small good bass amp it is a very light and convenient solution. Good for rehearsals. It plays surprisingly loud combined with a 90 W amp.

One other good thing about a sim is that you can give the stereo feed to the soundtechie. That way they can't mess up the sound to bad.

Regards Frederick