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Author Topic: 2 question about the Leslie  (Read 7082 times)

Offline RMS2003

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2 question about the Leslie
« on: July 26, 2004, 08:12:26 PM »
I have 2 questions about the Leslie speaker. The first one deals with speed. I'm gonna say the leslie at my church is a 122 since it has choral/tremolo. When chorale is turned on (slow) the speaker rotates slowly. Several years back for some reason the horn would stop completely but the bottom rotars would continue to spin slowly when chorale was on. The reason I say "for some reason" is because we've never had any organ experts at our church who have an experienced ear for an organ sound (for the most part anyway, some of its just common sense). I was wondering what could be done with our speaker that would make the horn stop rotating completely but keep the bottom rotars on when using chorale and obviously everything speed up when tremolo was used. What kind of process would I have to go thru and how easy can it be accompllished?

My second question deals with speaker location. When our sanctuary was first built in 1989, we started out with 2 organ speakers, one on each side of the sanctuary (both were off the platform) after about a year or so, I believe, they removed one organ speaker and moved the other one on the platform next to the organ (on the left side of the organ). I'm guessing that happened when we purchased our first digital piano. The leslie remained in that location until about 5 years ago when we expanded our platform and rearranged instruments to make room for praise singers. The leslie was moved directly behind the organ and has remained there ever since. I am wondering, is this the best located a leslie speaker could be? What is the recommended spot for a leslie speaker? I've noticed on SEVERAL occasions when I've played the organ, I could turn the volume up all the way and barely be able to hear it over the praise singers, drums (which are next to the organ) and piano but apparently when I have done that, the piano player can't hear themself play because the organ drowns the piano out.

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2 question about the Leslie
« Reply #1 on: July 26, 2004, 08:41:59 PM »
if your leslie used to go only slow and fast now it only goes stop and fast chances are that the relay switch is burned out and needs to be replaced by a qualified technician.
  If you need more volume from your leslie speaker simply place a microphone about six to eight inches from the upper and lower rotors and run it thruogh the Church's PA system. This should solve that problem.

Offline RMS2003

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2 question about the Leslie
« Reply #2 on: July 26, 2004, 09:23:18 PM »
Quote from: sircold
if your leslie used to go only slow and fast now it only goes stop and fast chances are that the relay switch is burned out and needs to be replaced by a qualified technician.


It's the opposite, it used to be stop (horn stops not bass rotars) and fast but now is slow and fast. Now that I recall, listening to old tapes, this happened several times over the last several years. I would be too young to remember so I'm just guessing but judging from the sound, the horn would stop rotating  but the bass rotars would continue to rotate slowly. I don't think it was because of anything being burned out because even when they had 2 leslies hooked up, the horn of both leslies would stop rotating when chorale was turned on. Assuming this was just a preference of sound and not a machanical problem, what's involved in making the horn stop rotating but keeping the bass rotars rotating slowly when chorale is one?

Offline Wil

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Leslie Fast to Stop Positions
« Reply #3 on: July 26, 2004, 09:33:52 PM »
If you have an older 122 and you want the leslie motors to go into the stop position instead of slow (White Plug). All you would need to do is unplug the slow motor from the amp on the leslie. Then you would need to move the fast motor plug over place where the slow motor was plugged in. I have a 142 which is the short leslie version of the 122. The only difference between the 122 and 142 is the cabinet height. I unplugged my slow motors because I like the fast to stop instead of fast to slow. The new 122 leslie's will not allow you to do that because it has a different kind of hook up to the amp from the motors. If you have ever listen the Safiest Place in the Whole wide world on the Karen Clark cd. They have a leslie that goes from fast 2 stop. It gives you a nice when you switch from fast to slow.

Offline Wil

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Leslie motor speeds
« Reply #4 on: July 26, 2004, 09:43:51 PM »
If you want your 122 to go from Fast to Stop instead of Fast to Slow. All you will need to do is unplug your slow motor (White Plug) form the amp. Then you will need to move the fast motor Plug (Brown Plug) over to where you unplugged the white from. This will cause the leslie to go from Fast to stop. Just leave your white pluggs hanging. The reason that they go from fast to slow is because they are 2 speed motors. The old 22H, 21H, 31H, etc, leslies, they have single speed motors which means fast to stop. By unplugging the slow motors on the leslies will dis-able the slow motors. If you have ever listened the to organ on the Karen Clark CD song called Safiest Place in the whole wide world, They are using either one the older leslies mentioned above of the 122 with the slow motors unplugged. This only works with the older version of the 122. The new 122's that are made now will not do it because they have different hook ups at the amp

Offline bug

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Leslie
« Reply #5 on: July 26, 2004, 11:44:05 PM »
When ever I have a chioce. I like to put the Leslie next to me. If I can't hear it I'm in trouble. I knew Jack McDuff casually before he passed. He always put his speaker next to him. He would face his amplifier, when ever he played keyboards toward him. He was one of the best. I knew Don Patterson very well, before he passed. He put the Leslie directly behind him. Don played stops better than Jimmy Smith and all the rest of the organists. He could make an organ cry. He could make an organ sound like something other than an organ.
The greatest mistake most amateur musicians make is giving up.  Don't give up !!!

Offline RMS2003

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2 question about the Leslie
« Reply #6 on: July 27, 2004, 02:06:37 AM »
I forgot to mention about the location of leslie. Someone said to put a couple of mics toward the cabinet. We are actually talkin about getting all our instruments some how wired to the PA. Currently our bass and organ are just going on 1 speak alone (the main source) and our drums are acoustic so they're going to do whats necessary in the next 2 or 3 months to get everything hooked up. I honestly cannot wait for this because not only will this allow the organ to be heard but our tapes will so SOOOO much better with the full crew being heard on tape.  8)

Offline RMS2003

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2 question about the Leslie
« Reply #7 on: August 01, 2004, 01:38:52 PM »
Wil, I did what you said however when I did that, fast speed the the only thing I could use, if I switched it to slow, it would stay fast.. At first I tried this combination - I kept the horizontal plugs in their correct plugins but unplugged the vertical plugs and put the brown plug where the white on was. The result was the bass speaker changed speed as normal but the horn wouldn't spin at all, whether the switch was on slow or fast.  I also checked and written on the back of the leslie was 122L. I'm not for sure why it didn't work. But when I got everything plugged back into their orginal plugins, the top horn will only spin slow, but the bass speaker spins like normal. I checked the plugins again, and secured them. I know I didn't get them mixed up because you can tell where they plug in to by how far they stretch. So everything is where they should be, brown plugs on the left and white plugs on the right.

Offline Wil

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2 question about the Leslie
« Reply #8 on: August 02, 2004, 01:42:41 PM »
all you need to do is make sure that your brown cable didn't stretch and come unpluged from the upper motor. Just pull that back of the leslie off and trace the brown plug to the upper motor and make sure it is still plugged in to the motor. That is probably what your problem is.

Offline desi15477

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2 question about the Leslie
« Reply #9 on: August 02, 2004, 10:04:42 PM »
Actually if you had a 3 position switch for the leslie, the positions would have been fast, slow then stop. that sounds more like what it could have been becuz if u unplug one of the chords to the leslie then it will only spin on the speed connected and not slow down or stop.



The Leslie should be near the organist and caddy-cornered if possible to increase the bass in the organ. As far as the sound of the whole band you may need to run the insruments through a sub-system and give the musicians their own monitors.

Offline RMS2003

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2 question about the Leslie
« Reply #10 on: August 03, 2004, 01:19:49 AM »
Okay, I think I realized what happened, where the top rotors plugs are plugged into, there are 3 plugins, instead of just 2. I didn't know that at the time and may have accidently plugged the white plug into that 3rd plugin, causing the top rotor to remain in chorale. And actually now that I recall, when I first plugged both plugs, I probably plugged the brown plug into that 3rd plug (thinking it was where the white plug was originally) and when I tried it out, the top rotor wouldn't slow down. Would this a correct assumption?

Offline RMS2003

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2 question about the Leslie
« Reply #11 on: August 03, 2004, 01:32:08 AM »
Just to note, currently the brown plug is in plugin 1 and the white plug is in plugin 3. That was before I left church Sunday night, before then the brown plug was in plugin 2, and white in 3. Both of those resulted in the top rotor remaining in chorale. I'll change the plugins as necessary Wednesday night.

Wil, I do have one question. Why is it necessary to plug the brown plug (fast) into where the white plug (slow) was plugged into. Wouldn't it be as simple as just unplugging the white plug and leaving the rest alone? I'm sure you know more about leslie's than I do, so thats why I'm asking you  :D

Offline RMS2003

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2 question about the Leslie
« Reply #12 on: August 05, 2004, 08:44:41 PM »
We had a bad storm come thru, soon after church had ended and lost power so we didn't have practice and I didn't get a chance to make any changes. Anyway, I'm still waiting on an answer.

Offline RMS2003

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2 question about the Leslie
« Reply #13 on: August 08, 2004, 12:57:05 PM »
I unplugged the white plug from the 3rd plugin and tried playing with just the fast plug, plugged in and now I have that stop/fast function I was wanting. I didn't have to change where the brown plug was at like you said to do Wil, not sure why it worked that way but it works so I'm happy with the effect I got.

Offline Wil

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2 question about the Leslie
« Reply #14 on: August 08, 2004, 08:02:53 PM »
Sorry about the late response. I was on vacation all last week. But I am glad to here that you have the stop and fast function. That is the best sound to me. To answer your question when you unplug the white cables without moving the brown plugs over, the circuit becomes dead. To you have to use the active circuit which is the slow one to recieve power for the brown plugin's.

Offline RMS2003

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2 question about the Leslie
« Reply #15 on: August 08, 2004, 09:46:25 PM »
It's quite alright, everyone needs a vacation from time to time  :lol: Is it necessary to move the brown plug where the white one was? Will it hurt the motor if I don't. As I mentioned above I was able to get the stop/fast function without moving the brown plug, I just simply unplugged the white plug and that seemed to work.

Having the top motor stop and the bottom spin slow really mixes well I think.  8)

Offline Wil

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2 question about the Leslie
« Reply #16 on: August 08, 2004, 10:02:53 PM »
I will not hurt anything. If it is working fine like it is, that is fine. Some amps require you to move it over. In this case, yours is fine. So I would leave it just like it is.

Offline RMS2003

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2 question about the Leslie
« Reply #17 on: August 09, 2004, 12:05:32 AM »
I apologize for all the questions but I do have one last question. Is there any way to control the rate of the rise and fall speed? Rise being how fast it speeds up and fall being how fast it slows down.

Offline Wil

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2 question about the Leslie
« Reply #18 on: August 09, 2004, 09:21:29 PM »
No problem. Ask any or how many questions you want to. You can change the speed of the upper tremelo by moving the belt to the upper portion of the pulley on the motor. It is real easy. If your leslie has back on the tremelo area which is the top on the back. Take the back board off while the leslie is off. Then you will see a belt coming from the motor to the tremelo horn. On the motor if the belt isn't already on the top pulley then put it on the top pulley. The pulley has 3 different positions for the belt. I always run all my leslies with the belt on the top pulley. It gives the leslie a nice fast speed and coast down speed. On the new 122 Leslies you have to change to speed on the circuit board. I hate those leslies.

Offline RMS2003

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2 question about the Leslie
« Reply #19 on: August 10, 2004, 02:44:47 AM »
Is there a way to change the rise/fall rates on the lower speaker?

Yes our leslie does have a full back cover on it, so all I have to do is pull it out? Or is there screws to take out first?

Thanks for the info you've given me so far, its nice to know a few things about these speakers.  8)
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