DIY Leslie - a different approach

[Hcabnivek]

In a message dated 98-04-23 18:10:12 EDT, you write:

> So how about this as a faux-Leslie: Mount the speaker horizontally, facing
>  >up into a fan. The fan would have blades at a very sharp angle - say, 45
>  >degrees, or maybe even near-vertical. This would disperse the sound in an
>  >interesting manner, but would avoid the need for rotating speaker
contacts.
>  
>  This is pretty much the operation of the leslie i described. the speaker
was
>  mounted fixed, pointing upwards.
>  

Yeah, this is pretty similar to the cheap Leslie that came in the Hammond home
organs from the '70's.  In their case they had a hard styrofoam spinning
baffle that was balanced with steel weights poked into the foam in a couple
places. It had a two speed motor that was selectable from the console.  I
riped one of these out of a trashed Hammond, built a cabinet for it, and built
a CV speed control for it so that speed was infinitely variable. Obviously
very long period CV signals are best as the rotating baffle does not respond
fast enough to fast changes in speed. I have come it think this is a pretty
cool effect.  Anyone else out there ever heard of one of these things being
CVed?  
BTW if you try to make a variable speed control you should put a slight amount
of braking on the rotating baffle. The bearings on mine are good enough that
it takes a noticable delay to spin down from faster to slower rotation and you
lose any kind of phasing with your control signal unless that braking is
there.

Kevin