nacho459
Well-known member
Don Leslie, creator of the Leslie rotating organ cabinet has passed away.
http://www.hammond-organ.com/html/Don_Leslie.htm
http://www.hammond-organ.com/html/Don_Leslie.htm
RIP Don Leslie
- Thread starter nacho459
- Start date
Help Support GroupDIY Audio Forum:
I have on occasion wondered how any of us would know if one of the members of the "group" passed away. This is the group that first sparked my interest in electronics... inspired me to study (actually reading text books once again :grin: ) electronics, and helped me create things I thought were once beyond my grasp of understanding. That was a few years ago; fast forward to now and I can't stop reading and learning all that I can about electronics. Checking in on this forum is practically an hourly ritual (luckily, or strangely enough, my wife understands :thumb
. As cliche as it might sound, it has contributed to my life in great ways.
Of course the ones that remain foremost in my thoughts are those that I've pestered throughout the years (ya guys know who ya are!~), but this group as a whole is unlike any other. It would be a very sad day when I hear that any one of us has passed.
To health and longevity! :guinness: :sam:
-Ethan (...and his sentimental monologue of the month...)
. As cliche as it might sound, it has contributed to my life in great ways.Of course the ones that remain foremost in my thoughts are those that I've pestered throughout the years (ya guys know who ya are!~), but this group as a whole is unlike any other. It would be a very sad day when I hear that any one of us has passed.
To health and longevity! :guinness: :sam:
-Ethan (...and his sentimental monologue of the month...)
Ethan,
Woow! This is more or less what i wanted to write down here, albeit that i'm a little behind you on learning and reading. Any good books you recommend?
1 minute of silence for Don Leslie,
responsible for bringing us gear that gives me goosebumps whenever played right, time after time...
Cheers,
Tony
Woow! This is more or less what i wanted to write down here, albeit that i'm a little behind you on learning and reading. Any good books you recommend?
1 minute of silence for Don Leslie,
responsible for bringing us gear that gives me goosebumps whenever played right, time after time...
Cheers,
Tony
Flatpicker
Well-known member
[quote author="tony dB"]1 minute of silence for Don Leslie,
responsible for bringing us gear that gives me goosebumps whenever played right, time after time...[/quote]Yes, with emphases on ?played right?! :wink:
responsible for bringing us gear that gives me goosebumps whenever played right, time after time...[/quote]Yes, with emphases on ?played right?! :wink:
Mbira
Well-known member
from the link:
Other patents awarded to him included radio control of model trains, control and chlorination systems for swimming pools. He was a long time resident of Pasadena
I never knew that!
To Mr Leslie! :guinness:
Other patents awarded to him included radio control of model trains, control and chlorination systems for swimming pools. He was a long time resident of Pasadena
I never knew that!
To Mr Leslie! :guinness:
> I have on occasion wondered how any of us would know if one of the members of the "group" passed away.
On another, much older, forum, I've seen it happen. Clyde was a regular from 1990 to 1997. His posts lessened to zero, and after a couple years someone got curious. He died, his office cleared-out and re-rented. We never got to say goodbye.
OTOH Fred knew his time was coming and dropped me (forum leader and personal nemesis) a note to clear up loose ends. It was personal and I didn't spread it in public for a few years when several folks started asking "Where's Fred?".
Marlin was a regular and very busy for a while, when he could get a connection out of the farm town he was in. He dropped some hints about his health but seemed lively on-line. I have not seen him in years and don't expect to.
And there was John. Retired from military contracting but very active as forum librarian. And then he wrote that his leg swelled-up and he was going to the doctor. The docs got the swelling down and sent him home. It came back a month later and he went in hospital. He was in coma for days, then well enough to write and say he expected to be out soon. Next message came from his brother. John had passed away, and had asked his brother to write to the forum (via me) if he couldn't. I shared that with some of John's close forum-friends who expressed their best-wishes and feelings, and passed that back to John's brother and family.
On another, much older, forum, I've seen it happen. Clyde was a regular from 1990 to 1997. His posts lessened to zero, and after a couple years someone got curious. He died, his office cleared-out and re-rented. We never got to say goodbye.
OTOH Fred knew his time was coming and dropped me (forum leader and personal nemesis) a note to clear up loose ends. It was personal and I didn't spread it in public for a few years when several folks started asking "Where's Fred?".
Marlin was a regular and very busy for a while, when he could get a connection out of the farm town he was in. He dropped some hints about his health but seemed lively on-line. I have not seen him in years and don't expect to.
And there was John. Retired from military contracting but very active as forum librarian. And then he wrote that his leg swelled-up and he was going to the doctor. The docs got the swelling down and sent him home. It came back a month later and he went in hospital. He was in coma for days, then well enough to write and say he expected to be out soon. Next message came from his brother. John had passed away, and had asked his brother to write to the forum (via me) if he couldn't. I shared that with some of John's close forum-friends who expressed their best-wishes and feelings, and passed that back to John's brother and family.
SSLtech
Well-known member
I read an interview with Dol Leslie back in 1989 while I was in Los Angeles. There were pictures of his early 'developments' of the idea of a single "spinning speaker"... one early idea was along the "if some is good, then more must be better" line of reason, and the picture showed two stacked, offset octagonal drums, with 8 cone speakers in each. the resulting 16-speaker drum reportedly sounded awful, and the eventual development was the crossover with seperate rotating flares on single-drive unit top & bottom units.
It was fascinating to read in the postwar era how Hammond tried to prevent the leslie speaker ever taking off! -Apparently the organs made Hammond little money, since they were so technically involved to build. Where Hammond really scored was with the speaker cabinets, and so when they though that people might start ordering organs without speaker cabinets, they pulled every dirty trick in the book to try and sabotage Leslie.
Eventually, Don organised a mass-demonstration at his showroom (on Wilshire blvd?) to the gathered ranks of the organ press, and Hammond -who naturally got to hear of it- sent 'plain-clothes spies' into the demonstration to spread comments about how awful the sound was compared to a Hammond cabinet, and how this sound was unnatural, in the hopes of influencing the reports.
When people (understandably) began to crave the sound of a Leslie, Hammond adopted the position that connecting the output of a Hammond to any other device -specially one as "complicated" as a Leslie speaker- would invalidate the warranty on the organ, and they further complicated matters by repeatedlt and frequently changing the multi-pin connector, switching pins in order to caiue damage to the Leslie units... of course this apparently also blew up a few Hammond tone cabinets when people tried to connect a newer Hammond to an older Hammond speaker cabinet with a different pinout...!
In the end Hammond accepted that trying to stop the Leslie from taking off was like lying down in front of a steamroller driven by a blind man... -in so far as you can make the symbolic gesture, but it won't stop anything, you'll end up being destroyed, and people will laugh at you afterwards!
All along, Don Leslie wanted Hammond to just sell them through their showrooms, but Hammond had wanted none of it, forcing Don to set up a not just a manufacturing facility, but sales & distribution networks. By then it was too late and Leslie would always be its own thing.
This is from memory after 15 years, so please forgive any slight inaccuracies... I think that all the above is accurate though.
Dr. Hammond himself was a clockmaker, I've been told, who wanted to make himself a home organ, and built the first tonewheel organ simply becasue it was the only way he could think of doing it...
Marvellous.
Let's all celebrate the great men.
Keith
It was fascinating to read in the postwar era how Hammond tried to prevent the leslie speaker ever taking off! -Apparently the organs made Hammond little money, since they were so technically involved to build. Where Hammond really scored was with the speaker cabinets, and so when they though that people might start ordering organs without speaker cabinets, they pulled every dirty trick in the book to try and sabotage Leslie.
Eventually, Don organised a mass-demonstration at his showroom (on Wilshire blvd?) to the gathered ranks of the organ press, and Hammond -who naturally got to hear of it- sent 'plain-clothes spies' into the demonstration to spread comments about how awful the sound was compared to a Hammond cabinet, and how this sound was unnatural, in the hopes of influencing the reports.
When people (understandably) began to crave the sound of a Leslie, Hammond adopted the position that connecting the output of a Hammond to any other device -specially one as "complicated" as a Leslie speaker- would invalidate the warranty on the organ, and they further complicated matters by repeatedlt and frequently changing the multi-pin connector, switching pins in order to caiue damage to the Leslie units... of course this apparently also blew up a few Hammond tone cabinets when people tried to connect a newer Hammond to an older Hammond speaker cabinet with a different pinout...!
In the end Hammond accepted that trying to stop the Leslie from taking off was like lying down in front of a steamroller driven by a blind man... -in so far as you can make the symbolic gesture, but it won't stop anything, you'll end up being destroyed, and people will laugh at you afterwards!
All along, Don Leslie wanted Hammond to just sell them through their showrooms, but Hammond had wanted none of it, forcing Don to set up a not just a manufacturing facility, but sales & distribution networks. By then it was too late and Leslie would always be its own thing.
This is from memory after 15 years, so please forgive any slight inaccuracies... I think that all the above is accurate though.
Dr. Hammond himself was a clockmaker, I've been told, who wanted to make himself a home organ, and built the first tonewheel organ simply becasue it was the only way he could think of doing it...
Marvellous.
Let's all celebrate the great men.
Keith
orson whitfield
Well-known member
This is weird, I guess. I mean I thought about this scenario too. We really have a kinship of sorts here, do we not? Sometimes fading away is the best way to go. Anyway, cheers to Don Leslie. Hey what happened to the days where you could graduate high school and know how to do all the things he could? Now kids can't read after high school!
I have never heard a real Hammond in tandem with a Leslie speaker cabinet. THe hammond sounded very distinct and enjoyable and I can only imagine what that "heavenly" sound must be like when two Leslies are put in tremelo simultaneously. I gotta give the Don much credit. His creation sounds like a very cool concept. I am glad he lived a long time.
I have never heard a real Hammond in tandem with a Leslie speaker cabinet. THe hammond sounded very distinct and enjoyable and I can only imagine what that "heavenly" sound must be like when two Leslies are put in tremelo simultaneously. I gotta give the Don much credit. His creation sounds like a very cool concept. I am glad he lived a long time.
SSLtech
Well-known member
Ah. Much of what I posted is apparently true, though some inaccuracies.
For a more authoratitive account, read this.
Two leslies on a Hammond, eh?
This is where I used to work. -If you peer down to the far end of the room, you can make out a C3 (the B3's big, heavy brother!) and two leslies. -Thanks to Peter Coghlan, they have a modular, daisy-chained synchronised control system, and DI inputs that feed through.
Mighty.
Mighty mighty.
Keith
For a more authoratitive account, read this.
Two leslies on a Hammond, eh?
This is where I used to work. -If you peer down to the far end of the room, you can make out a C3 (the B3's big, heavy brother!) and two leslies. -Thanks to Peter Coghlan, they have a modular, daisy-chained synchronised control system, and DI inputs that feed through.
Mighty.
Mighty mighty.
Keith
T
tubejay
Guest
I just recorded a huge ass Hammond with a massive Leslie cabinet that sounded absolutely stunning. His contributions will certainly never be forgotten! :guinness: :guinness:
This got me thinking: how did he ever dream up the idea in the first place? What problem was he trying to solve? Or was he simply wondering what a rotating speaker would sound like?
Whatever - the thing sure is cool. I can't think of many other devices like it: a new sound cut whole from cloth. The Hammond organ was an attempt at an electric version of a pipe organ, the first fuzztones were an attempt to make a guitar sound like a sax. Electric guitars and electric pianos sound different than their acoustic parents, but there's no mistaking the family resemblance.
On the other hand, the Leslie cabinet, like the Moog and Theremin, wasn't built as a metaphor for anything else (to the best of my knowledge). Here's something that provided timbres to the organ that weren't available before. It changed the way the instrument was played and added a new physicality to the sound.
-n
Whatever - the thing sure is cool. I can't think of many other devices like it: a new sound cut whole from cloth. The Hammond organ was an attempt at an electric version of a pipe organ, the first fuzztones were an attempt to make a guitar sound like a sax. Electric guitars and electric pianos sound different than their acoustic parents, but there's no mistaking the family resemblance.
On the other hand, the Leslie cabinet, like the Moog and Theremin, wasn't built as a metaphor for anything else (to the best of my knowledge). Here's something that provided timbres to the organ that weren't available before. It changed the way the instrument was played and added a new physicality to the sound.
-n
b3groover
Well-known member
The idea behind the Leslie was two-fold. One was to add vibrato to the Hammond sound. Hammond organs have vibrato but it's really cheesy sounding. Leslie wanted to improve it (which he did) which is probably why Laurens Hammond didn't like him... Mr. Hammond had quite the ego.
The other idea was to give the sound some "motion". Since the Hammond was originally invented to simulate a pipe organ, and in a church the ranks of pipes are all over the place, the sound of the Hammond by itself is quite small and dull. The slow speed of the Leslie gives it some interest and motion and size.
The HUGE Leslie tubejay is speaking of is probably a model 31H. They are a little over five feet tall and have amazing bass. The treble sometimes leaves a little to be desired due to blown Jensen horn drivers and the crossover losing a little of it's mojo due to age (caps drying out) but they still sound awesome. They use field coil woofers like the 21H, which is the same size as the imfamous 122 and is my favorite Leslie speaker of all.
All those old Blue Note records with Jimmy smith starting in RVG's Englewood studios is Van Gelder's C3 with a 21H Leslie (using the field coil woofer). Amazing sound. I have a 21H with vintage Tung Sol tubes in it and it sounds absolutely killer.... blows any 122 out of the water. When I save up a little money I'm going to put a new motor control circuit in it to give me the chorale speed.
RIP, Don Leslie. Little known fact, he also invented Mercotac.
The other idea was to give the sound some "motion". Since the Hammond was originally invented to simulate a pipe organ, and in a church the ranks of pipes are all over the place, the sound of the Hammond by itself is quite small and dull. The slow speed of the Leslie gives it some interest and motion and size.
The HUGE Leslie tubejay is speaking of is probably a model 31H. They are a little over five feet tall and have amazing bass. The treble sometimes leaves a little to be desired due to blown Jensen horn drivers and the crossover losing a little of it's mojo due to age (caps drying out) but they still sound awesome. They use field coil woofers like the 21H, which is the same size as the imfamous 122 and is my favorite Leslie speaker of all.
All those old Blue Note records with Jimmy smith starting in RVG's Englewood studios is Van Gelder's C3 with a 21H Leslie (using the field coil woofer). Amazing sound. I have a 21H with vintage Tung Sol tubes in it and it sounds absolutely killer.... blows any 122 out of the water. When I save up a little money I'm going to put a new motor control circuit in it to give me the chorale speed.
RIP, Don Leslie. Little known fact, he also invented Mercotac.
[quote author="b3groover"]Little known fact, he also invented Mercotac.[/quote]
One google search later and, ha, makes perfect sense.
http://www.process-controls.com/Modtronics/Mercotac_products.html
-n
One google search later and, ha, makes perfect sense.
http://www.process-controls.com/Modtronics/Mercotac_products.html
-n
rlaury
Well-known member
Hey Group
There's nothing like a B3. I guess if it wasn't for Don the B3 would have faded by now. Check out this solo on a project I did with Ron Levy (Rounder) playing. It's a 1949 B3 with after market precussion installed. and a 147 Leslie. I totally rebuit the set just before the session. Inside the back panel of the organ the label read "Hammond ClockWorks" I bought the Organ and Leslie both for $600.00 in 1982. The organ had a shorted output transformer and rats had eaten the 15 woofer cone in the Leslie. I later sold the pair for $1500.00 and thought I was rippin the guy off. I wish I still had it. BTW the Leslie was just pushed in the lobby of the studio with an RE-20 on bottom and a 451 on top. I didn't have a way to ISO it.
This one's for you Don!
Click on the "Little Jimmy King" album cover to hear. (streaming)
The solo is about a 1/3 into the song.
http://www.nashaudio.com/AboutMe.htm
RonL
There's nothing like a B3. I guess if it wasn't for Don the B3 would have faded by now. Check out this solo on a project I did with Ron Levy (Rounder) playing. It's a 1949 B3 with after market precussion installed. and a 147 Leslie. I totally rebuit the set just before the session. Inside the back panel of the organ the label read "Hammond ClockWorks" I bought the Organ and Leslie both for $600.00 in 1982. The organ had a shorted output transformer and rats had eaten the 15 woofer cone in the Leslie. I later sold the pair for $1500.00 and thought I was rippin the guy off. I wish I still had it. BTW the Leslie was just pushed in the lobby of the studio with an RE-20 on bottom and a 451 on top. I didn't have a way to ISO it.
This one's for you Don!
Click on the "Little Jimmy King" album cover to hear. (streaming)
The solo is about a 1/3 into the song.
http://www.nashaudio.com/AboutMe.htm
RonL
