Anyone done a DIY Leslie cab?

curtiswyant · Post by **curtiswyant** » Tue Nov 01, 2005 6:52 am

I'm thinking about building something along the lines of the Leslie 16/18 or Fender Vibratone, mainly for guitar. Single 10" speaker, etc...any ideas?

tubejay · Post by **tubejay** » Tue Nov 01, 2005 7:29 am

Wow, you are a brave soul!!

YOUR KONG · Post by **YOUR KONG** » Tue Nov 01, 2005 9:12 am

No, but it's on my wishlist - if you do please share your experiences!

bradb · Post by **bradb** » Tue Nov 01, 2005 9:25 am

The organist in Celebration (http://www.myspace.com/celebrationcelebration)
from Baltimore had a leslie cab he made out of a drum. He is a super handy dude whos got lots of crazy homemade stuff.

great band too.. fun to play shows with.

soundguy · Post by **soundguy** » Tue Nov 01, 2005 12:09 pm

the fender vibrotone was nothing more than a regular speaker cab with a styrofoam baffle that rotated in front of the speaker on a motor. If you could find a fan quiet enough, just mount a styrofoam wedge to it and stick it in front of a regular speak cab. If yyou arent close micing, it might work in a pinch. Ive never opened my vibrotone to see how the motor is all set up in there but I know its not a complicated thing...

dave

djimbe · Post by **djimbe** » Tue Nov 01, 2005 7:11 pm

The motor assembly in a Vibrotone is an officially licensed Leslie design, and is actually a bit more involved than I thought it would be. My "Vibrotone" is badged as a Cordovox cabinet, but is is identical in every way to the Fender as it was apparently made on the same assembly line. It has a nifty dual motor arrangement for the "vibrato" and "chorale". One acts as a main motor for the fast speed, and the other applies drag to the main shaft via a spinning wheel for generating the slow speed.

You want a cheap Leslie, find (through something like Craig's List) a person who is getting rid of an old organ for free or very cheap. Lotta the old Lowery's had an official Leslie built into them that you can remove and put in your own cabinet. The one I have is a fully discreet motor/speaker assembly that was just loaded into the organ cabinet and wired to the selector switch and the output transformer of the organ amp. These are generally single speed devices, but they have the rotating baffle in front of the speaker, just like the Vibrotone. Most of these old organs have nice tube amps based around a pair of 6L6's, and you can pull them out and use 'em to power your new Leslie if you're handy and adventurous...

YOUR KONG · Post by **YOUR KONG** » Wed Nov 02, 2005 6:46 am

djimbe wrote:Lotta the old Lowery's had an official Leslie built into them that you can remove and put in your own cabinet.

Ditto for Farfisas - I have a Farfisa that has a Leslie built into it - look for a tell-tale "speaker on/off" and "fast/slow" switches.

I haven't had the guts to really get in there and check it out, though.

soundguy · Post by **soundguy** » Wed Nov 02, 2005 4:08 pm

if you are just trying to get the sound on tape and dont need it for performance, dont rule out swinging a lightweight mic (lavaliers obviously work best) in a circle over your head in front of a regular speaker. Not quite the same thing but with some experimentation can get you some cool sounds on a record without a leslie cab.
dave

ronron · Post by **ronron** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 1:02 am

it's definitely possible, but it depends how savvy you are. it's basically a tube amp with 2 seperate spinning speakers. so if you can build a tube amp, and then a mechanical method for varying the speed for the seperate speakers, there you go. I would get a voce spin or the HK spinner simulator. They get good reviews, and i'm sure there are newer products as well. I'm sure you know that mesa does, or did, make a spinner cabinet, another company does as well. Bottom line, it can definitely be done, it will be a ton of work depending on how much pre-fab gear you will use, and you will end up with a not so portable, high maintenance piece, just like a real leslie. I'm not one to shy away from overwhelming tech products, i know you can make your own plate reverb and love the idea, but lack the space. Probably if i build anything it would be a tube mixer for summing and regular mixing, depending on what quality parts cost. If it's anywhere near the cost of the TL tube mixers, i would just buy one. good luck~!

konabuzz · Post by **konabuzz** » Sun Nov 06, 2005 8:43 pm

Ok.....this is pretty low-brow, but I believe I read that someone tried it, and I've always meant to, and I will, dammit!

Put a wireless mic on a turntable (preferably vari-speed) and mic up a speaker, either your original amp source or re-amping. I dunno.....seems like it might work....?? I'm going to try it just for kicks.....Come to think of it...why not use two wireless mics, each facing the opposite direction and pan hard left/right? Then you'd get a true auto pan type effect, too. You could also gobo the whole business together so that it wouldn't be so square-wavish right to left....you'd get some bleed. Of course it would tough to emulate the ramping up and down that a real leslie could give you....yet?

winky dinglehoffer · Post by **winky dinglehoffer** » Sun Nov 06, 2005 9:26 pm

konabuzz wrote:Come to think of it...why not use two wireless mics, each facing the opposite direction and pan hard left/right?

Why not use two turntables & two microphones, eq one for high, one for low, vary speeds as you see fit--or maybe install the mics on modified fans that you then variac to get super speed control. Or maybe one mic, one turntable, two speakers on opposite sides of the turntable and some judiciously unbalanced eq?

Sorry. I'm getting a bit wacky.

Tom

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Anyone done a DIY Leslie cab?

Anyone done a DIY Leslie cab?

can be done

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