Recording Techniques, People Skills, Gear, Recording Spaces, Computers, and DIY
Moderators: drumsound, tomb
-
drumsound
- zen recordist
- Posts: 7505
- Joined: Tue Jun 01, 2004 10:30 pm
- Location: Bloomington IL
-
Contact:
Post
by drumsound » Mon Dec 18, 2023 9:42 am
jimjazzdad wrote: ↑Sun Dec 17, 2023 11:20 am
Those old Califones were beasts! I used to run a high school AV department back in the '70s and we had a bunch of those Califones as well as Wollensac cassette machines...not particularly hi-fi stuff but capable of surviving a thermonuclear explosion! As I recall the old Leslies, which every roadie hated - they weighed a ton, did not have any slip rings; the rotating horns/baffles were positioned over stationary speakers.
Yeah, tube Leslies with the wood cabinet were meant to be put in the home or church and stay there. The later SS models with tolex are easer to cart around.
The Leslie woofer fired into a moving baffle, similar to the second Scodiddly made. The tweeter was actually in one of the top horns, the other is only there for balance.
Scodiddly wrote: ↑Mon Dec 18, 2023 6:05 am
drumsound wrote: ↑Sun Dec 17, 2023 9:18 am
Obviously the first version did something interesting to make you make V2. So what was the sound like, in general and compared to a Leslie?
So thinking about it more, I guess it would have sounded like a frequency-dependent tremolo. Lows would go around the baffle, highs would fade up and down. The stereo version would be like a frequency-dependent autopanner - lows in mono, highs swishing from side to side. There would of course be some effect from the reflections off the baffle, too.
That actually sounds like it would be quite cool for the right thing. OOOhs and AAAAHss, and backing vocals in general.
-
floid
- buyin' a studio
- Posts: 984
- Joined: Tue Jan 03, 2006 1:39 pm
- Location: in exile
Post
by floid » Mon Dec 18, 2023 5:36 pm
Scodiddly wrote: ↑Sat Dec 16, 2023 2:03 pm
I did a thing a few years ago with a turntable between the speaker and the mic. On the turntable was a flat wall, so that as the turntable spun it would be blocking or not. Later I made more of a baffle, like a bundle of square wooden tubes. You could put multiple mics around it for stereo and beyond.
Hey, I found one of those animated gifs I used to make!
Rotor-card.gif
I remember this, it inspired me to try to make one similar. I didn't get a very strong effect off of mine tho.
Village Idiot.
-
digitaldrummer
- cryogenically thawing
- Posts: 3549
- Joined: Wed Nov 23, 2005 9:51 pm
- Location: Austin, Texas
-
Contact:
Post
by digitaldrummer » Mon Dec 18, 2023 8:45 pm
I might just take a fan out to my studio...
-
Scodiddly
- speech impediment
- Posts: 4004
- Joined: Wed Dec 10, 2003 6:38 am
- Location: Mundelein, IL, USA
-
Contact:
Post
by Scodiddly » Tue Dec 19, 2023 6:06 am
floid wrote: ↑Mon Dec 18, 2023 5:36 pm
Scodiddly wrote: ↑Sat Dec 16, 2023 2:03 pm
I did a thing a few years ago with a turntable between the speaker and the mic. On the turntable was a flat wall, so that as the turntable spun it would be blocking or not. Later I made more of a baffle, like a bundle of square wooden tubes. You could put multiple mics around it for stereo and beyond.
Hey, I found one of those animated gifs I used to make!
Rotor-card.gif
I remember this, it inspired me to try to make one similar. I didn't get a very strong effect off of mine tho.
Just in the room it didn't sound like much. With a microphone on the other side there was more of an effect.
-
drumsound
- zen recordist
- Posts: 7505
- Joined: Tue Jun 01, 2004 10:30 pm
- Location: Bloomington IL
-
Contact:
Post
by drumsound » Tue Dec 19, 2023 7:49 am
A.David.MacKinnon wrote: ↑Mon Dec 18, 2023 8:36 am
Scodiddly wrote: ↑Sat Dec 16, 2023 2:04 pm
Found an image of the Mark II version:
Califone-stereo.jpg
Awesome!!!
It's not hard to find single rotor leslie baffles pulled from old home organs. They're basically a styrofoam version of your Mark 2 turntable leslie. I had one for a while and it did an ok job. There's no horn but you get some of the effect.
I also used to have a very old Everett Orgatron. It was a reed organ with a pick-up system and amplifier. If I'm not mistaken Wurlitzer bought the patent on the pick-up system and used it for their electric pianos. Anyway, it had a similar tremelo system to the first version of your turntable leslie. There was a board on a spindle in front of the speaker. The board would spin and give an effect midway between trem and a leslie.
I miss that organ. It sounded fantastic and unlike anything else I've ever had. Unfortunately all the lights in the studio would dim when you turned it on and one day it caught fire.
Oh, man. I assume the fire wasn't large and was contained quickly, but still...
-
Nick Sevilla
- on a wing and a prayer
- Posts: 5584
- Joined: Mon Mar 03, 2008 1:34 pm
- Location: Lake Arrowhead California USA
-
Contact:
Post
by Nick Sevilla » Wed Dec 20, 2023 9:55 pm
winky dinglehoffer wrote: ↑Sat Dec 16, 2023 10:14 am
I seem to recall a radio special about Yes (from the bygone days when radio specials about bands were kind of a thing) where they said that one of the band members spun a corded mic around over his head during recording in an attempt to get some sort of Leslie-ish sound. I don't know how it worked out, but it does sound like fun.
Slip rings look cool. I have a couple of old home stereo horns lying around somewhere that I've always wanted to experiment with, & those look perfect for the job.
I worked with them, and did try a thing with Jon, mostly to prove it could have worked. I used a hypercardioid mic, while they likely originally had tried with a cardioid. And I swung it at his eye level, at a distance of about 4-5 feet away from him, while he sang stationary. No, we did not use it for anything, it was just a test.
Howling at the neighbors. Hoping they have more mic cables.
-
Nick Sevilla
- on a wing and a prayer
- Posts: 5584
- Joined: Mon Mar 03, 2008 1:34 pm
- Location: Lake Arrowhead California USA
-
Contact:
Post
by Nick Sevilla » Wed Dec 20, 2023 10:01 pm
You could jury rig a circular railing with bearings, smooth and well oiled ones, using a silent electric motor,
as silent as possible anyways, and have the mic inside the frame, with its null cancelling most of the motor noise.
Howling at the neighbors. Hoping they have more mic cables.
-
drumsound
- zen recordist
- Posts: 7505
- Joined: Tue Jun 01, 2004 10:30 pm
- Location: Bloomington IL
-
Contact:
Post
by drumsound » Thu Dec 21, 2023 5:56 am
Nick Sevilla wrote: ↑Wed Dec 20, 2023 10:01 pm
You could jury rig a circular railing with bearings, smooth and well oiled ones, using a silent electric motor,
as silent as possible anyways, and have the mic inside the frame, with its null cancelling most of the motor noise.
Yeah, but who's got the space for such a contraption?
-
Nick Sevilla
- on a wing and a prayer
- Posts: 5584
- Joined: Mon Mar 03, 2008 1:34 pm
- Location: Lake Arrowhead California USA
-
Contact:
Post
by Nick Sevilla » Thu Dec 21, 2023 7:54 am
drumsound wrote: ↑Thu Dec 21, 2023 5:56 am
Nick Sevilla wrote: ↑Wed Dec 20, 2023 10:01 pm
You could jury rig a circular railing with bearings, smooth and well oiled ones, using a silent electric motor,
as silent as possible anyways, and have the mic inside the frame, with its null cancelling most of the motor noise.
Yeah, but who's got the space for such a contraption?
Well, if you look at a Leslie speaker cabinet, you'd only need around the same space, minus the height.
Say a 2' radius rail. Not cheap, but doable.
Howling at the neighbors. Hoping they have more mic cables.
-
floid
- buyin' a studio
- Posts: 984
- Joined: Tue Jan 03, 2006 1:39 pm
- Location: in exile
Post
by floid » Fri Dec 22, 2023 6:38 am
Village Idiot.
-
vvv
- zen recordist
- Posts: 10188
- Joined: Tue May 13, 2003 8:08 am
- Location: Chi
-
Contact:
Post
by vvv » Fri Dec 22, 2023 4:47 pm
digitaldrummer wrote: ↑Mon Dec 18, 2023 8:45 pm
I might just take a fan out to my studio...
..., buy 'em a drink, ...
-
trodden
- on a wing and a prayer
- Posts: 5733
- Joined: Wed May 07, 2003 8:21 am
- Location: C-attle
-
Contact:
Post
by trodden » Sat Dec 23, 2023 2:27 pm
Who is online
Users browsing this forum: Bing [Bot] and 216 guests