Ah, the sweet sounds of the doppler effect – The rotating Leslie speaker design has a unique way of giving sounds a sort of warm temporal quality. There are many electronic simulations attempted but designing and building actual mechanical effects is plain awesome.
Update:
As a commenter pointed out – the above video doesn’t reflect the design of a true Leslie speaker, but a DIY variation. For more info and an exploration of the original design, check out this page on theatreorgans.com –
UNEARTHING THE MYSTERIES OF THE LESLIE CABINET
From the pages of MAKE:
Spatial Education MAKE:05, p.24 Subscribers – read this article now in our digital edition
10 thoughts on “Homemade Leslie speaker”
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Electronic or software simulation will never replicate being in a room with a leslie – because the whole room is involved in reflecting the sound. It’s even worth enduring an organ recital to hear this sound in the flesh…
I’ve heard about some of the digital simulations. My audio software even has a doppler effect with various settings.
With the real thing you get the doppler effect from the source(s) moving tward and away from you, but there is also some complex phasing between the two sources. I’ll have to build my own sometime.
That’s not really the right way to go about it (and looks kind-of dangerous). A real leslie would have a stationary speaker with either a rotating horn or drum in front of it. There’s a huge difference in sound between this way & the way Leslie did it.
Go to soundclick.com and enter : spinorama09 in the artist search engine or just google spinorama09 to see and hear my cabinet build.
This is our first country project, that’s why we must prepare everythings well before the departure date. We don’t want to get any problems there. china phones