if i was in a room which would sound better a live leslie or a leslie sim?
I don’t have a 3300 close by to hear for my self. I see a lot of posts comparing various sims, but I haven’t seen anyone ask about being in a room and actually hearing the comparison live as opposed to over the internet.
A real leslie, period! And yes, I have tried them side by side in a room, about ten feet from where I'm typing this. Hammond T, leslie 770 compared with Ventilator running through stereo amplification. There was no contest, IMHO.
Leslie sims usually recreate the sound of a miked leslie, ready to be fed into a PA in place of the real thing. They're doing an increasingly good job and that's what most buyers will want them to do.
But nothing beats moving real air and the sims don't (can't) recreate the real, and very complex, acoustic reflections you'd hear in a room situation. For example, while the horn's moving away from you and you're hearing a down doppler shift from it, it's moving towards the wall behind it and so you'll hear an up doppler shift reflection from that wall. Multiply that up with reflections from each wall, floor and ceiling and then multiply by two again, adding in the sound and reflections from the drum rotor.
If a sim has enough controls regarding mike placement, angles, distance etc you should be able to get something nearer to a live leslie sound, I can sort of get there when using Native's B4 and B4-II virtual organs, BUT - and it's a big but - it's not the same and I doubt if any sim will ever get there. They're perfectly acceptable, yes, but not the same.
It's not what you play. It's not how you play. It's the fact that you're playing that counts.
I use both. The 147 sits next to me in the room and the Neo Vent goes into my mixer and daw. A relay means that they switch together at the same time. This means I can host jamming sessions without spill into the Leslie mics.
I'm not the connoisseur or expert on such matters (they posted above). I'd say it depends on the intended use of the speaker and on how much of the effect you cannot live without. Along with how much money you can afford to spend.
As Andy says, there is so much going on in the room with a real Leslie -- all those reflections from the room's unique arrangement of walls, ceiling, floor that can't possibly be predicted by the programming that goes into a sim. So no, it's not going to present you with a perfect replica of a genuine Leslie experience. And if that is what you really want, you should go for it. Spend the money, do the maintenance, deal with the quirks.
OTOH -- the best sims are pretty darn good, far better than a plain vanilla electronic tremolo or chorus, far better than the really fake-sounding Leslie sims of yesteryear. A Vent or the Leslie-branded sim will simulate both the horn and the bass rotor, turning in opposite directions at different speeds, with different rise and fall times, and will try to imitate the complex interactions from direct and reflected waves, at least as detected in the environment which was "sampled" for the sim's programming. Both pitch and amplitude variations, and using the stereo image to make the effect rather engaging and seem to be happening all around you, if the stereo speakers are well placed.
And if you want complete freedom from motor noise, belt noise, groaning and grinding and flapping, and the need to oil the Leslie now and then and keep the tubes up to date -- and you do NOT mind the loss of those acoustical nuances, random reflections, perfectly interfacing with the room, you might find a good sim an acceptable thing.
If you intend to mic the Leslie and feed it into a sound system anyway, you might as well use a sim and save yourself the trouble of dealing with the motor noise and other stuff, and figuring out where to place the mic for best effect. Just get a sim and make everybody happy.
Money is another consideration. A good Leslie is not cheap, even a good used one. And certain used ones on the market may be cheaper than a 122 or 147, but may need a lot of expensive work before they are working properly. The sims are amazingly cheap by comparison, though you do need a very good stereo amp and pair of hefty speakers, preferably dedicated to the organ alone, if you want to enjoy it to the fullest.
My first Vent installation was just a few years ago in a little Pentecostal church where they just had to have the "Leslie sound." But they didn't have thousands of dollars. Using a gutted old Hammond tone cabinet and a surplus two-channel amp, a pair of 15" woofers and a couple of 10" "tweeters" I built them a "fake Leslie" that sounded incredible. Stepping back a few feet from it, you would swear it was real. And the folks in the crowd, who were all between 30 and 50 feet from the speaker, certainly thought it was real, if it mattered to them. The organist, a few feet from the box, was tickled to death.
And that is more than I really know about it, and more than I should have said ;-)
John
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if i was in a room which would sound better a live leslie or a leslie sim? I don’t have a 3300 close by to hear for my self. I see a lot of posts comparing various sims, but I haven’t seen anyone ask about being in a room and actually hearing the comparison live as opposed to over the internet.
If you were in a quiet room, the real Leslie is always better. If you are on a stage with a deaf guitar player into a 100-watt Marshall, a PA miced Leslie or a sim is always better. The miced Leslie/sim may not sound as good as a Leslie in a quiet room, but it will be more audible and controllable.
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I'd say a big factor is intended use and location, mine is for home use so I prefer a neo, I can get full drive at low volume and the sound is awesome , to drive a Leslie in a small room in a house would need tolerant neighbours ! I also prefer the tunability of a sim, I can tailor it exactly how I want it. Of course it'll never be a Leslie, but they're getting very close.
The first four shows of my current run of gigs the Ventilator worked great.No complaints from stage or 'house' about the sound.
Back in town now for the final three gigs. I'll leave the Vent hooked up to the 'Nord Stages'.It sounds fine.
Will be adding the Nord C2D/147 rig for these last shows.The Vent sounds great until a real 147 is there?
Might even take a Hammond to the last show,these theaters all have large stages and easy load-ins.
Same with organ clones.The C2D is great until a real 'working' console shows up!
In the recording studio we used the C2D and a Leslie 147.The house A100 had a bad scanner,hummed a lot.
I defy anyone to tell it isn't a Hammond on those tracks.
The Ventilator got the day off!
At one show we put mics on the Leslie just to compare to the Ventilator.Board was a Midas.Mics were ShureSM57 and EV RE20.
Sound check was interesting.Ended up turning off the mics......might as well just feed the Vent to the FOH......the box on that stage
sounded fantastic which is totally worth it.
At the same room a few years back we caught Steve Winwood. The stage Leslie had no mics on it.The Leslie we didn't see had mics on it.
Isolation works well to keep cymbals and guitars from those mics.....and there's always the Ventilator too.
Odd as it may seem given the lo-fi nature of the Leslie horn (and woofer), but the better the mic, the better it sounds. Smoothest I've heard was with a pair of 414 on top - it might actually have been too smooth. A PR20/22 or PR30 should be good. I heard a recording with a pair of E604 on top that sounded quite nice - wish I could find that video.
Have seen most of them at one time or another on Leslies. I leave that up to whoever is working as the tech and never argue with them about placement and mic selection.
Sometimes a 414 is a room mic with a pair of 57's.Have seen a pair of 421's and a 414.They all work well and it's still up to the musician to perform.
As long as I do my job,everyone is happy.It's almost never the mic....
I have a SL880 88 linked to macbook pro with optical out to a very good 5-channel. I can stand at it, my back likes that. last night I was exploring the logic pro X B3 and it's leslies, now that I have the real thing in the same room. I had very low expectations. I've heard many clones on youtube.
I was floored how good the sim sounded, and the variety of leslie combos available. Now that I understand the drawbars and have 30 hours on my RT3 with a 22H 2-speed and 760, I understand the options in Logic. I still can't believe it sounds so good, and it will go very loud, shaking the room. Distortion is dialable, as are many aspects faithful to real Hammond/leslie choices.
I can split my big 88, but it's weighted. With a couple of cheap MIDI keyboards, a 2012 Macbook 15" i7, with 16 gigs ram and SSD, optical out to a good stereo, what can be achieved through the B3 included in Logic X is way beyond what I thought possible before last night.
I may have to start looking for the right keyboards myself to be honest, it sounds so good in my house. Of course it can't be the "same". Two B3s are not the same. Frankly I loved it. The 122 was killer. I hate to admit it. LOL. I have big floor standing speakers and a subwoofer.
But I'm a long way from controlling a number of options, and the pipes do not come in layered in the attack...yet. Expression...my sustain pedal is not good enough...but I know there are alot options.
My advice: get the real thing if and when you can. But logic x is a force by itself, and somebody invested a fortune trying to get a B3 and a bunch of leslies in there. The result is very impressive on my system, in my living room, right next to the real thing. Running optical from the laptop to the reciever I'd guess is a must.
And if starting from scratch, it may not be cheaper than a nice C3/A100 and 122, which will be the best teacher, too, given all/most is working ;)
In a year I should have an informed opinion, because I'm inspired to see what I can really do with the sim, right along side the annylog wonder of Hammond/Leslie.
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