Anybody use a Leslie for Accordion amplification?
M. Gregory Holmes
30+ years). Now I'm wondering if anybody has tried using a Leslie (organ
amplifier) with their accordion, and how they liked the sound.
Also, what type of pick-up would be required for a 41/120 student accordion?
Thanks,
Greg Holmes
Ralph Stricker
I have used a Leslie 147 RV since 1969. I first used it with my Bell Duovox on organ sound . I
have used it with a MIDI (the Bell was retro-fitted by a friend)I use/d it with a Voce organ sound
module. I wouldn't play organ sounds without the Leslie. IMHO
Regards
Ralph Stricker
Ralph Stricker "Silver Fox"
M. Gregory Holmes
Duovox on organ sound . I
> have used it with a MIDI (the Bell was retro-fitted by a friend)I use/d it
with a Voce organ sound
> module. I wouldn't play organ sounds without the Leslie. IMHO
> Regards
> Ralph Stricker
Ralph,
What about with traditional non-electronic accordion sounds? I also have a
Hammond C-3 that I use for organ sounds....
Greg Holmes
Sparky
"M. Gregory Holmes" <tickle...@home.com> wrote in message
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Ralph Stricker
"M. Gregory Holmes" <tickle...@home.com> wrote:
It is OK if you slow the rotor, or shut it off. With the rotor going you will have a vibrato and
makes the sounds sound like underwater.
M. Gregory Holmes
Thanks for the feedback. One of my Leslies is a 46-W which is a single
speed model (fast or off). Sounds like the off setting will work OK. I'll
give it a try, once I get a pickup for the accordion.
Thanks Again,
Dan Lavry
<966rsl$1rb$1...@slb6.atl.mindspring.net>...
> It is OK if you slow the rotor, or shut it off. With the rotor going you
will have a vibrato and
> makes the sounds sound like underwater.
> Regards
> Ralph Stricker
Better yet, start with some strong musette accordion, than add the Leslie
vibrations, and do not forget to also shake the listener real fast. You get
vibrations to the third power :-)
On the more serious side, I can see someone doing it with a dry tune
accordion, or single reed, but my guess is that it will get annoying after
a while, at least it is not to my taste. It was interesting effect for a
couple of minutes out of an hour, but I found it to systematic (mechanical
like). It tend to hide the real bellow expression, which is much of the
beauty of the instrument. Of course, it is a question of personal taste.
Personally I do not like drum machines, the over use of reverb, flange and
so on. There are times that a touch of reverb may do well, of some EQ....
but I think the tendency is to overdo it, in my opinion.
But as always, do not forget to use your own ears to decide what you like
best.
Best Regards
Dan Lavry
\
M. Gregory Holmes
Thanks for the feedback....
Since I'm new to the accordion, I was just dreaming about how to combine
various instruments/amplification I already use. I think that for now I'll
focus on learning how to play the instrument, as the bass buttons and
bellows technique are still totally foreign to me.
I do agree that the tremolo speed of a Leslie would be a bit much,
particularly combined with the natural beating of 2 reeds playing
simultaneously. I also think that the warm tube sound of a Leslie in the
"stopped" mode might prove interesting.
Either way, It'll be a while before I'll require amplification (my wife is
wishing we had a basement about now), but thanks again for your response....
Greg Holmes (future accordionist)
David Batty
<Aiya...@aiyyai.yai> writes
>Hammond & a Leslie - a match made in Heaven...
was told it was suitable for a small church or for a social club so
without seeing it I decided it sounded perfect for my living room. I
have to make sure my neighbour is out when I play it on any decent
volume, without turning it up the sound goes through various brick walls
and across to his living room where he can't hear his TV. The Leslie is
the one that seems to take the bass and transmit it throughout the house
and neighbourhood.
David Batty
***************************************
Visit Leyland Accordion Club Website at
http://www.accordionclub.co.uk
email da...@accordionclub.co.uk
Our ICQ Number 106787612
***************************************
David Batty
Gregory Holmes <tickle...@home.com> writes
>Ralph,
>
>Thanks for the feedback. One of my Leslies is a 46-W which is a single
>speed model (fast or off). Sounds like the off setting will work OK. I'll
>give it a try, once I get a pickup for the accordion.
If you are mechanically minded it is possible to alter the speed of the
Leslie, it is belt driven with two pulleys, if you change the pulley
ratio you can slow it down. You can get various schematics and repair
manuals for the Leslie speakers on Hammond's site on the web and sites
like the Hammon Organ Museum site.
David Batty
Gregory Holmes <tickle...@home.com> writes
>I do agree that the tremolo speed of a Leslie would be a bit much,
>particularly combined with the natural beating of 2 reeds playing
>simultaneously. I also think that the warm tube sound of a Leslie in the
>"stopped" mode might prove interesting.
The tremolo on a Leslie is too much for an accordion, at least it is
with mine, I do however have an echo setting and a chorus setting which
both sound great.
Tony T. Warnock
controlled rotation. The other switched the trebble mikes to the Leslie
from the regular amp. The bass always went through the Leslie.
Ventura
welcome to the world of Accordions... good luck
> I also think that the warm tube sound of a Leslie in the
> "stopped" mode might prove interesting.
actually, it's time to change your ideas on stuff like
this... stop and think about it:
you really want a 75 pound tone control which
is not controllable, will alter over time,
and never give you predictable, repeatable results?
This kind of thinking works for electric guitars and
stuff, but there is no value in using tube generated distortion
to alter the sound of reeds... you cannot improve the
tone of (essentially) rich Sine type waveforms by
clipping them
In the world of Accordions, high fidelity RULES
the best Microphone is the one with the flattest response
the best Amplifier the one that makes every frequency louder equally
the best speaker combination the one with the widest, flattest pattern
If you want to improve your tone... get a better accordion or
get better reeds put into the one you have. If you can't afford
that, then insert an equalizer into the direct audio chain and
carefully re-shape the frequency curve... less is better
FX such as Chorus and Digital Reverberation can also be useful
and a rotating 10 or 12' speaker on slow is workable
with the Bass crossed-over to a stationary 15"
Rotating Horns would play havoc with your Mics
in a live situation, however.
If you are NOT going to use your sound re-production equipment
for Singing or MIDI backgrounds, then the stereo-chorusing
amps like the Roland JC-120 (Peavey has one too)
that were mentioned in another thread can
make a nice, portable system for Accordion. These are a big
improvement over the basic "cube" type one round speaker amps
a lot of accordionists get stuck with from their dealer.
(a square box is - mathematically and practically -
the worst baffle design a speaker system can be built with)
Of course, even a simple PA system like the all-in-one
Sampson, the JBL, or the Community
(some have telescoping handles and wheels built in)
and be far more useful in the long run
Ciao Ventura
Theodore M. Kloba
>there is no value in using tube generated distortion
>to alter the sound of reeds... you cannot improve the
>tone of (essentially) rich Sine type waveforms by
>clipping them
What if you LIKE the sound of tube distortion on your reeds? There quite a
few harmonica players in the blues world who do. I'm sure somebody could find
a use for the sound of a distorted accordion.
--
Theodore M. Kloba * hey...@yahoo.com
http://www.geocities.com/heytud/
http://www.mp3.com/vacuumchild/
M. Gregory Holmes
> >there is no value in using tube generated distortion
> >to alter the sound of reeds... you cannot improve the
> >tone of (essentially) rich Sine type waveforms by
> >clipping them
>
> What if you LIKE the sound of tube distortion on your reeds? There quite
a
> few harmonica players in the blues world who do. I'm sure somebody could
find
> a use for the sound of a distorted accordion.
Actually, I already have 2 Roland KC-500 amps that I use for my keyboard rig
which will cleanly reproduce the accordion just fine. My question was
geared more toward whether or not anybody had tried a Leslie, or for that
matter, any vintage tube amp. Since I already have a Leslie on stage as
well, and my gear stays set up, moving it is not a problem.
I do, however, appreciate all the feedback, and never imagined my post would
generate this much response. Perhaps I should stick to lurking.
Greg Holmes
David Batty
Gregory Holmes <tickle...@home.com> writes
>I do, however, appreciate all the feedback, and never imagined my post would
>generate this much response. Perhaps I should stick to lurking.
Don't lurk, lurkers just take from a newsgroup and never give anything
back, your posting generating lots of response improved the newsgroup by
the addition of another poster asking an on topic question.
Keep posting, the same goes for all the lurkers, I know of a few myself
who read others posts but never post even a single message.
Ventura
> Theodore M. Kloba wrote:
>
> What if you LIKE the sound of tube distortion on your reeds? There quite a
> few harmonica players in the blues world who do.
Harmonica is a different audience, and we have enough trouble with
people "hating" our instrument without giving them more
reason to do so.
By all means, experiment and have fun but be cautious before you
let other (normal) people hear something like that in a
public place under amplification <Grin>
You can distort a Hammond/drawbars for Rock and Roll too, and
that is basically a Sine-type wave as well... but in
normal use such distortion is seldom percieved
by the world at large as a good thing in the overall sound
of the music.
If you want to try some of this fun stuff on the cheap, and
have good Mics inside your Box, the
ZOOM 505 is a digital, low priced guitarists FX pedal/system
with a huge amount of programmable parameters and
tons of different FX
You can find these used all over the place for under $50 bucks
Ciao Ventura
Joe Kesselman
> the best Microphone is the one with the flattest response
Not always. Some discussion of the issues of trading off different kinds
of mikes on the "Sound 101" section of Walkabout's website.
There's a reason professional mixers have equalization on each channel,
and that most pros are now using a GEQ in the loop as well. Most
accurate, and most flattering, are not necessarily the same thing... and
most accurate electronics does not necessarily mean most accurate
reproduction; you have to compensate for the characteristics of the room
as well.
> Rotating Horns would play havoc with your Mics
> in a live situation, however.
Depends on mike placement versus the Leslie, and how much the Leslie can
be isolated from the rest of the system... but speaking as a sound tech,
I'd want to feed the Leslie from the board so I could balance it against
the rest of the sound, rather than setting it up and miking it. If I
_had_ to do the latter, I'd actually want it set up far from the
performing area and pointing away from the audience, with a mike on it.
I doubt the performers would cooperate with either request, but it'd
make my life one heck of a lot easier.
Note: There are electronic simulations of the Leslie these days. Some of
'em are now sophisticated enough that they will digitally simulate the
doppler effect of the swinging speaker, rather than just sweeping a
filter. Much more portable, much more controllable.
--
------------------------------------------------------
Joe Kesselman, http://www.lovesong.com/people/keshlam/
Appearing February 10 at Walkabout:
Pete Seeger and Tao Rodrigues -- order in advance!
http://www.WalkaboutClearwater.org/coffeehouse.html
Joe Kesselman
> What if you LIKE the sound of tube distortion on your reeds?
Get a tube pre-amp made for the purpose, or an effects box that
simulates that effect. Both are off-the-shelf items these days, and
again both are FAR more portable.
Ventura
>
> Ventura wrote:
> > the best Microphone is the one with the flattest response
> Kesh wrote:
> Not always. Some discussion of the issues of trading off different kinds
> of mikes on the "Sound 101" section of Walkabout's website.
it's just that my particular school of hard knocks has
me convinced that with Microphones and Instruments,
flattest IS best because if you get accustomed to a
Mic system that superimposes it's tonality onto your
sound, then when that device get's stolen, lost or broken
you will be unable to re-create "your sound" without
great difficulty, and considerable hair loss.
If, however, you always use the flattest response Mic
(instrumentally) you can successfully substitute
this link in your chain at need/at will.
I feel it is best to control tone shaping where you
actually CAN predictably and repeatedly control it,
and that is with the eq, FX, and other Audio devices.
AND I definitely feel beginning with a flat, uncolored
input signal is the key to repeatable success.
Vocal Mic is the exception (to me, in Live use) because the
proximity effect really can make a difference... and a
good Singer plays their Mic just as an Instrumentalist does.
So you find the one that really helps you sound your
best... and then you buy an identical spare...
or you buy an SM-58 and play it safe (and good)
> There's a reason professional mixers have equalization on each channel,
> and that most pros are now using a GEQ in the loop as well. Most
> accurate, and most flattering, are not necessarily the same thing... and
> most accurate electronics does not necessarily mean most accurate
> reproduction; you have to compensate for the characteristics of the room
> as well.
totally agree
> > Rotating Horns would play havoc with your Mics
> > in a live situation, however.
>
> Depends on mike placement versus the Leslie, and how much the Leslie can
> be isolated from the rest of the system...
I'm referencing that I've noticed over the years that for the
Accordion Mics (and I move around a lot in performance) the very high
frequencies are the toughest to guard against
(feedback I mean) and the artifacts bouncing around the room from the
spinning horns... even just from the white noise of the
grouchy old Tube amp... can drive feedback spurts and freeze
you in your tracks (not to mention distracting you a lot
from your playing)
> Note: There are electronic simulations of the Leslie these days.
I took a Chorus pedal years ago, and substituted two photocell
circuits for the intensity and speed potentiometers. Rigged up
a Power FET and a ramp driver to flip flop between them
gradually and built myself a pretty decent leslie simulator
(for the Cordovox, in fact) for use on gigs where my c-vox leslie
(the tall, 2 speed drum model) was just too much to take.
The thing still works... so does the leslie... so does the C-Vox...
When I first got MIDI drawbars, I upgraded from the analog
chorus to an early model Roland Digital Delay (Rack)
which allowed for "swell pedal" control over certain
parameters... which layered onto the "leslie" built into
the Korg "C" screamed Rock 'n'Roll in a dozen different ways.
Fun stuff
Ciao Ventura
Wiz
the string synthesizer thru a 910 Leslie. No feedback using "Sure" and
"Electrophonic" mics. (Good mics!) The rotating trumpet horns filled very
LARGE halls!
The NEW Leslie speakers are shown here:
http://www.bborgan.com/leslie%20speakers/leslie%20frame.html
The big ones had two 6x9 speakers on the sides to throw a stereo sound when
horns not spinning!
"Ventura" <dr...@maxinter.net> wrote in message
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