Topic: Tech Support for the Leslie (Read 3593 times)

jkelly · « **on:** January 20, 2004, 02:37:24 PM »

Hey all,

I noticed about 2 Sundays ago at church that the Leslie wouldn't do anything when I hit the switch. It makes a small noise when I turn it on like it is actually trying to turn on but when I go over to it and look through the slits I can't see anything rotating. I checked to see if its plugged in and it is so I don't know what else to do. You see I've been playing piano for some years plus but I've only been seriously playing the organ for a few months now so I don't know anything about servicing them. I was going to tell the pastor about it tonight so he can have the organ tech folks come and check it out. But I'm also aware that alot of folks fix some things on their organ themselves. Has anyone ever experienced anything like this? Is it a small problem that I can fix myself and save a couple of bucks for the church? Is their a website that has tips on fixing Leslies? I thought that I had seen something like this on this site before but I couldn't find it. If someone could please point me in the right the direction I would really appreciate it. I would like to have it fixed by this Sunday because I'm getting tired of just using the vibrato :lol:

B3Wannabe · « **Reply #1 on:** January 20, 2004, 04:35:51 PM »

Call an organ tech. It's safer that way, and you'll most likely get it fixed faster.

TwinkieClarkFan · « **Reply #2 on:** January 20, 2004, 08:18:13 PM »

The same exact thing happened to our C3 at church on last month. I didnt know how to fix it, but our organist went inside of the leslie and I think he secured the leslie switch wire connection inside the leslie and that fixed the problem for ours...I was glad b/c I got tired of using the virbrato too..lol :lol:

jkelly · « **Reply #3 on:** January 21, 2004, 01:26:52 PM »

Quote from: B3Wannabe

Call an organ tech. It's safer that way, and you'll most likely get it fixed faster.

Yeh I agree.........I wouldn't want to mess it up even more and have the pastor upset at me.

ee_guy · « **Reply #4 on:** January 22, 2004, 11:24:58 AM »

Organ tech's love it when the untrained try to fix Leslies! It can add several hundred dollars to the bill!

Get a tech - he's worth whatever he charges.

BTW - there is not enuf information in your post to even guess at a diagnosis... What model Leslie? - really makes a difference! Older models don't have choral. Some Leslies have upper and lower rotors, some only have lower

Also, remember that the upper rotor turns at 400 RPM! It won't take a finger off, but it will break one just fine! (The lower can do this also...but normally has a dust cover, which will limit how much you can get hurt - hopefully.)

LordAlvin · « **Reply #5 on:** January 23, 2004, 10:32:23 PM »

I had never worked on a hammond until this month. I rebuilt a completely trashed A100 with a 251 leslie. Both had been neglected and had mice living in them. It took me a few days to do it, but I was surprised at how simple these things are. If you are at all handy you should at least take a look to see if there is anything obvious that you can do to fix the problem. I saved many hundreds of dollars by just opening up the organ and looking inside. My total cost for the rebuild was just thirty-two dollars.

jkelly · « **Reply #6 on:** January 26, 2004, 12:39:09 PM »

Quote from: ee_guy

BTW - there is not enuf information in your post to even guess at a diagnosis... What model Leslie? - really makes a difference! Older models don't have choral. Some Leslies have upper and lower rotors, some only have lower

Also, remember that the upper rotor turns at 400 RPM! It won't take a finger off, but it will break one just fine! (The lower can do this also...but normally has a dust cover, which will limit how much you can get hurt - hopefully.)

Thanx everyone for their replies, I appreciate it.

ee_guy, the info you provided makes perfect sense now. The Leslie model is a 122. The youth choir had a musical yesterday afternoon and one of my friends came by after his service and played the drums for me (none of the other musicians could stay). Anyway, he also plays the organ very well and has been playing it longer than I have even been playing piano :lol: so I knew he could confirm what's wrong with the Leslie. Well he sat down and naturally pulled out some drawbar settings completely different from mine and I could hear the Leslie rotating. He did say though that its not very noticable and that's probably because of the rpm that it is rotating at. He said that my ear is probably use to hearing a SLOW setting which our leslie doesn't have, just stop/fast. I went and looked inside the Leslie and did see the rotor spinning pretty fast. Then I asked well is there any way I can make it slow down :lol:

So I guess it was just my imagination and me being a novice to the instrument. I'm gonna continue working out some combinations to get a better Leslie sound since that is a major factor too.

ee_guy · « **Reply #7 on:** January 27, 2004, 03:32:06 AM »

jkelly, I hate to tell you this, but a 122 has tremolo/choral (fast/slow) - it's a 2 speed unit.

If you don't have the slow speed, it's broken.

Sorry,

ee_guy

Author Topic: Tech Support for the Leslie (Read 3593 times)