I've had a vent a little over months now and used it live for one jam, two performances, and two rehearsals. The rest of the time I use my tried and true leslie 50C (the rest being about 30 open jams and around a dozen gigs. I'm a studio rat for the most part that does limited gigging, and has a studio loaded with 4 hammonds (three tonewheels), three clones, and 3 leslies. That might account for my fussiness as far as Hammond sounds go. In the studio my hammonds are listened to through either KRK or Alexis studio monitors with two Sure PG57's close micing the top rotor (switched from SM57's, the curve mellows the leslie out a bit), and a beta 52 on the lower rotor, panned center about a foot away. When using a real leslie live I'm sitting about 5-10 feet away from it. I'm giving these details for two reasons, one, to counter any arguments I've read that go something like this:” Yes a real leslie sounds good, but product A sounds as good as you're going to get even if you mic a real one because you're only hearing it in stereo". Two, to let you know even though my "standard" if you will for listening in the studio is close miked through a stereo monitoring source, I also have a good deal of experience in front of a real leslie in both small and big inside venues and outside. I'll also tip my hand as far as my prejudices go. I prefer the real thing toward any digital simulations for the most part. I use the real leslie whenever I can fit it in, and the vent only comes out when I can't fit the real one in the gig. I prefer a real wurly to anything I've heard so far trying to imitate it. Same with a clav or a rhodes. Because of tuning issues the rhodes and clav stay in the studio, but I've been known to drag the wurly out regularly. I've recorded a bunch of "modeling" amps in the studio, and have never found one that sits in a mix anywhere near a real tube amp (and usually end up reamping them through a tube amp when all's said and done.
My clone of choice is the newer Korg CX3. This was an upgrade from the old analog CX3. I took that to the first gig that I went clone on, using the onboard sim and thought the night would never end. I then went to a boss RT 20 as my "leslie", then a real leslie. I was somewhat satisfied with this setup, but at that time taking the leslie meant digging it out of the studio, unmiking it, and hauling it up a set of bilco stairs. This got old quick as I started playing out more and more. I decided it was time to get something all in one, where I could show up and go straight into the PA. So the decision was made to get the new CX3. Now there are better newer clones out there, but I chose this one because to me it felt the most like my hammonds out of the ones available at the time I was clone shopping. The KeyB had just come out but it was out of my price range. The nord electro was available but I couldn't live without the drawbars. I tried three hammonds, XK 3c and XK 1 as well as the 2b. I also tried the roland VK8. They all had their strong points as far as sound goes. I could have lived with the sound of any of them. But out of all of them the Korg just felt like home. I also would check out every band that had a clone player and see which sound I liked before I asked what it was. The Korg always had more of the sound I preferred, and cut through the mix well. When one came up used for a grand I jumped at it. Now I could show up at a gig, go into the PA, and haul my stuff in one trip....or so I hoped.
Well, it didn't take long until I discovered being at the mercy of whatever PA was there wasn't fun! Being more a blues/occasional RB player most of the PA's were pretty minimal, as in no monitors. Usually what I heard of myself was sitting under a PA speaker, where the horn went right over my head. I decided right into the PA wasn't going to cut it, so I checked into amplification. All the keyboard amps I tried it through were so shrill I couldn't stand it. Finally I tried it through a Mackie self powered PA speaker (15 on the bottom) and that sounded the best so far. However, 600 wasn't in the budget. Someone told me to try the behringer model of the same size so I drug the CX3 into a local music store that had one in stock. It got loud in that quiet music store, so I thought I was home free. SO my rig was now two trips in instead of one, but still easier than digging the leslie out. But the first few jams I went to where I had to keep up with a few guitars brought a new problem into the equation. There was a harshness to the new setup that made me cringe every time I layed into a solo. I cursed the day I got the behringer over the mackie until I tried the mackie in the same situation again. The harshness was still there. Then a friend posted some video recordings he made at the jams I attended. One was my old analog CX3 rig with the leslie. Another was the new rig with the CX3/behringer setup. To my horror, the old analog CX3/leslie setup was way better sounding than the new digital CX3/behringer setup. However, the old analog had no bottom end so if I needed to play left hand bass I was screwed. I knew I wasn't quite done in my quest yet. I did do a lot of research and found out the problem with the harshness was in large part due to the Korg itself. Talking to other users I found out they struggled with the famous Korg harshness also.
About this time I got a great deal on a leslie 50C, which was what I had in the studio that I was taking out with the old analog CX3. Now I could keep the spare in the garage, back up the pickup and load it onboard in a matter of five minutes. And the thing brought back so many nostalgic feelings in my fellow musicians that I have never been lacking to have another hand to on load and offload the thing. the Korg harshness was still there, but tamed considerably. So my rig now was the Korg into an epiphone valve junior head with an 8 ohm resistor across the output (Cheap preamp), into the leslie 50C. I now had a full tube signal chain once it got out of the Korg. Other than replacing the valve junior with a vox AC4tvh my main gig rig has remained the same (the vox was added when I forgot the valve junior and needed something quick. That was what the store had in stock, and I had heard good things about that particular model, so I was kind of itchy to get one for the studio anyway. It gave the korg a much beefier low end, although quite a bit noisier, and also had a switch to make it from a 4 watt amp to a quarter watt amp, which meant immediate uriah heep/deep purple with the flick of a switch, so it replaced the epi). However, even though nothing changed hardware wise in the rig, constant tweaking has been going on under the hood of the Korg. One of the problems I always had was I had to stay away from the real hammonds in the studio for a day or so when I knew I was going to be cloning it. I can honestly say with the leslie rig I use out now, it's no longer a step down sound wise. Yea, I miss the double manual, and yes, I miss the randomness of a real tonewheel generator, but I like certain things about the sound of the Korg that the real hammonds don't do, and things like risk free tonewheel drops, not to even mention the whole weight thing. It now doesn't feel like a step down, more like another option. And if the music gets too loud for an old tube leslie, adding a mic on the upper rotor into the PA has always picked up the slack. I can now say I totally enjoy the sound of my live rig with no regrets. In fact depending on the room sometimes I think I could just hold a Cm9th chord down and listen to the leslie ramp up and down all night, the heck with the set!
Ah, but paradise always seems to have a catch! In our area the clubs are getting smaller and smaller that host the type of music I play. My perfect setup doesn't fit in them all! About this time I start hearing about this ventilator contraption. Being the old school vintage nut I am I start expressing doubt on a few e-mail lists I'm on about the thing. Then a friend from the list who still gigs with a real hammond e-mails me and says I really need to try it for myself, and offers his for a while for me to test drive. Well, I put it through every test I could think of. I even did an AB recording with it and the real leslie and posted it on clonewheel digest, and most of the members thought the vent was the real leslie. I took it to a local blues jam with a lot of old timers who remember helping schlep hammonds and leslies around. Ran it straight into the PA, and everyone was very impressed. The guy who started me into my hammond addiction was there, and I had him playing the thing so I could go out and hear it. I was very impressed also. The only thing was it was still a small PA, and I was under the mains, so all I got was the woofer again. It was great for the audience, but I still liked the moving air behind me. I record every job I do (the engineer in me I guess) and was very impressed at how well it sat in the live mix. However, I did a lot of thinking, and decided for it to sound as satisfying as my real leslie, I'd need two speakers and a stereo setup. My leslie was still quicker to roll in and set up than that complicated a setup would be. For the few small gigs I did I could live with the onboard sim in the Korg and just tell myself I was saving 4 bills while I cringed at the sound.
Well, the small gigs started increasing, along with a fewer big ones, and a ton of you tube links where Korgs were running through the vent. People were swearing by the thing, so I decided I'd get one, after a slow internal debate with myself, and making a general pest of myself on Clonewheel with all the questions I had. The first thing I did was a blues jam at a small club to try the thing out, again going into the PA, and again suffering from the sound going over the top of my head. I could hear sound bouncing back to me enough to get levels fairly well balanced, but was running on licks I knew worked instead of any interaction with the music. Needless to say it wasn't a fun night, however when I got home and listened to the recording again, it sounded great. The next job I was to use it on was with a band that I recorded the hammond (and wurly) tracks at my studio on the big CV/leslie. It was the CD release party, there were a bunch of guest musicians to share the stage with, and so room was at a minimum. This was going to be a good test I thought, especially since the sound they wanted on the hammond for the CD was along the lines of Uriah Heep, Pink Floyd, Santana, and Tom Petty (these were how the co producer described what he wanted). So there was plenty of overdriven hammond to test the vent out with. I was a little worried about going from a hammond CV and leslie 44w to a Korg and a little box. The only thing that I was relaxed about was knowing the tonewheel drop that we put on the CD would be a guarantee with the Korg. We had one rehearsal, and I packed the vent and the Korg up, and went into the PA at the rehearsal site, this time having a monitor so I could hear myself. I was back to the Korg harshness problem again, being afraid to lay into a solo because it was like scratching a chalkboard to me. The rest of the band was kind of disappointed also, and later that week they told me they found a way to make room for the leslie onstage. The artist was more a folk type musician who usually does solo acts with an acoustic. I remember one guy there was just fascinated seeing the leslie spin up and hearing the sound bounce around. So there went another small gig, which I somehow managed to get the leslie into.
The next job I used the vent for was kind of opposite the last one. It was a return favor for a drummer who does a lot of studio work for me. It was at his church, which was a traditional church complete with pipe organ. They decided to try something more contemporary, so we did a Godspell medley. I was on organ (not the pipe!), and couldn't wait to get the leslie into that church and see how it sounded in the room. This was a nice old church, nice live big room. However, there was no way I was going to lug the leslie for the quick rehearsal, so there was a PA there that the other keyboardist had brought. Along went the Korg and vent. Well, this was a pretty traditional crowd (white haired old ladies in the majority) and it didn’t take long to realize the leslie was going to push them over the edge. There was a part where I needed it sounding big and dirty, and to get the leslie that dirty would have involved a lot of volume! There were no solos to dig into, just a lot of chords, and some funkier comping. I know the leslie would have been cool, but there was no way to get that happening short of putting it in another room and running a long mic cord. In this situation the vent did manage to shine quite well.
Since that job I've not had anything that the leslie couldn't be taken to. The vent has been used for late night playing or practicing at low volumes when the rest of the household was sleeping. However, knowing there was a job coming up where the only way the leslie was going to fit was if I sat on top of it and managed to balance the keys on my lap. It was time again to try and get the vent usable for a live situation. So again I decide to take it to another jam. This time the self powered speaker went so I could try it out in the same situation as the upcoming small room gig. I set it up, and everyone was telling me it sounded great. A few were shocked when they found out the leslie wasn't there. Once again though, at about 15 feet from the speaker it was harsh. I would have thought it was just my ear that night because I was having some sinus problems, but another hammond player commented about it too. We did some talking about it and he suggested backing off the percussion and key click a bit might help. Now I had been considering doing a preset just for the vent in the Korg, since the one I was using was one set up specifically for the Leslie 50C (actually I had two set up for the 50C depending on how live the room was). So when I got the rig home, I went about doing a preset just for the vent through the studio monitors with the intention of doing another one after that with whatever adjustments I needed for the behringer. I was surprised at how much dropping the key click actually did for the harshness factor. I expected the percussion was actually more an offender in that department, but apparently not, although I did drop that a bit also. I was now getting close to having a usable sound. However, there was still something about it that sounded a bit artificial. I decided to think it through. I knew the vent was set up to simulate a lesle, and I knew the Korg sounded good through a leslie, so what was the mysterious thing that my real leslie setup did. Well, there was that Vox head, could those tubes be warming up the Korg enough to make it passable with the leslie? I made a little box and put that in the signal chain. It helped on a dirty sound, but not a clean one. I was pretty sure it was somehow overdriving something in the vent, maybe an impedance mismatch or something. I had recently picked up a presonus tube preamp for the studio, so I put that in the chain. I remembered someone on the clonewheel list saying something about that taking the harshness out of the Korg, and they were right. It did take a bit of it away. Now we were in business, I thought. Through the studio monitors this was definitely a usable, even enjoyable sound. I spent a few hours ABing it with the real leslie. I still preferred the real thing, there’s an organic and woody sound to it that I just can’t get with the vent. But there’s a cleanness to the vent that is also kind of attractive, kind of a perfect leslieness if you will. In fact a friend came to the studio to lay some piano tracks for a demo, and I decided to let him hear and play it. He’s also a hammond player, and has a recapped B3 which is the cleanest, most uniform hammond I’ve ever played. His is so perfect it doesn’t have any personality to my ear, but he loves it. So it’s no surprise he actually preferred the vent to the real leslie.
I decided to listen to the jam files from the jam I took the vent to just to see if the harshness was there on the recording. To my astonishment the vent actually sounded more like a leslie than my leslie did! This was frustrating, how could that be? It seemed like either the audience was going to have the perfect sound or I was, not both of us. But why did the vent sound more like a leslie than the leslie did? This had me so curious it was becoming an obsession. I went back and listened to a ton of old recordings where I used the leslie. I finally stumbled on one that sounded as good as the vent. On checking the date, I realized it was the time I borrowed the vent way back. Now it was no freak occurrence, it was definite.
OK, so now it’s time to work on the vent through the self powered speaker. Since it’s sounding good now through studio monitors, any problems now have to be due to the self powered speaker. So I set it up in the studio about the distance it’ll be from me at a gig. The first thing I notice is it’s real bass heavy, but I know already that the self powered speaker is bad in that department. I really think they’re designed to be in the air, on the floor where I have it it’s just way too much. With the bass control all the way down on both the organ and the speaker I’m almost there. Luckily I notice a low cut switch on the presonis tube pre, which brings me where I need to be. Now it’s time to crank it. At the type of volume I would use at a typical gig, there is still a harshness there, but it doesn’t seem to be EQ related anymore. But it’s still annoying enough that I can’t go for the top octave and scream without shrinking back. I’m now wondering if it’s the horn. It’s now more of a honkyness than a harshness. So I try another experiment. I make sure the horn is facing me on the 50C leslie, and play it at a similar volume. I’m getting the same effect. Now I turn the horn away a bit and play. The harshness is gone. I’m thinking how long or often is the horn actually pointed right at me when playing leslie? Since it’s such a directional horn, and since I’m always on the leslie switch it’s barely pointed at me whereas the horn in the behringer is designed to be pointing at me in a bigger area. Next step, turn the behringer around so it’s pointed at the wall, and I’m getting a reflective sound. This is probably the most substantial thing I’ve done so far in reducing the harshness. I’m now getting real close to the sound of the leslie. There’s still a harshness when the horn comes around in the simulated leslie, but it’s definitely livable. I’m attributing a lot of that to the fact that I don’t know what mic they used when they simulated the leslie in the vent, and I am using an un-industry standard mic with my PG57’s. I also don’t know how close they are getting with the mics. I typically have mine an inch from the wood, kind of pointed up the baffles. So I try pulling the mics away on the vent, from my closest setting to maybe 12 o clock on the dial. This is doing a ton to pull the harshness away. In fact I’m really liking this sound a lot!
Well, the system gets packed up and I’m off to an open blues jam at the same venue as the gig is going to be. There’s not much space for keys at all, there will be a little more at the gig since there’s only one guitar in the band and at the jam they are set up for two. SO I set up, behringer pointed at the wall maybe a foot behind me. The first thing I notice is that there’s actually a low window on that wall that the horn is pointed at. I know it’s gonna be trouble! I make a mental note for the gig, bring a blanket or something to mute that horn, and now it’s time to see how it works. Well, the horn might as well have been pointed at me, because that harshness was back, although with all the other fixes it wasn’t near as bad. In fact with some adjusting of the drawbars, I was pretty pleased with the sound that night. A friend sat in on organ that night, and his comment was “wow, sounds good, but you have to watch those upper drawbars, it pierces right through you!”. He was playing considerably louder than I was though. When I got home and listened to the recordings of the night I was pretty impressed. So now we’re down to a week before the gig, and I know if I have to fly the way I was at the jam I’m OK. The only difference is going to be at the jam the behringer is carrying the load, at the gig we have a PA for front of house and the rest of the band’s monitors. The behringer is only for my monitoring. I’m set to go.
Well, a friend just tells me he got a new behringer monitor, the kind that sits on a mic stand right next to you. He says it’s 150 watts (peak of course, behringer apparently doesn’t believe in using RMS) and it’s loud! It has a 5 inch full range speaker in it. This starts my wheels going in my head. No horn! That brings me closer to studio monitor sound than PA sound in a way. I start researching this little thing, being wary of the last behringer choice I made and wishing I sprung for the mackie. Reviews seem to prefer the behringer though, oddly enough. The clincher is it has a three channel mixer built in which means I don’t have to bring a mixer to the gig, since I’m using two keyboards instead of my normal one (they needed synth for some of the old funk tunes). Furthermore, I need something to play my Ipod through at work, and this is just a little more than a decent job radio. If it doesn’t work as a monitor it’s not a total loss, it just gets demoted a bit. SO I make a call, and the local music store has one. I quick record a direct out from the vent getting as screamy as I can onto my portable zoom and head to the music store. I ask the guy and he points it out to me. I’m stunned! It’s half the size I imagined. I immediately tell him it isn’t going to work, it’s way to small. He tells me to try it, he uses one as his monitor and he is in a metal band. Besides, he’s sold quite a few and never had one returned. He was a good enough salesman that I was willing to plug the zoom in and try it. Well, it’s loud, but not harsh. I cranked it embarrassingly loud, and was sold. So I took it home, hooked it up to my setup instead of the behringer self powered speaker and was pretty impressed. I figured I better try the daisy chaining output so I jacked it into the behringer self powered speaker. Since the behringer was still pointed at the wall I was getting a reflected sound from that and a direct from the monitor. Oddly enough it sounded like it was moving around the room just like a leslie. How the vent manages this in mono is way beyond my comprehension, but this is the second time this happened. I’m now going into the gig totally confident.
Well, I’m finishing this now, it’s after the gig, and I now know I have a setup I can not only live with but enjoy. The band got pretty loud, and at no time could I not hear myself. The korg still sounds like a korg, but the harshness that made me wince everytime I went for that upper octave is gone. At the close distance that little monitor is, I found that I actually liked the organ a little lower in the monitor so I could hear some bounceback from front of house. Will I leave the leslie at home and take this to all the gigs? No way! I still prefer the real thing whenever possible (notice I didn’t say convenient!). So to recap, my setup is now Korg CX3-Presonis tube pre-ventilator-behringer eurolive b-205d-pa or eurolive b215a when I absolutely can’t fit the leslie. When the leslie fits, it’s the Korg into the vox head, into the leslie 50c.
A few notes, this whole adventure has been to get my onstage sound right, and has never been about getting the sound the audience hears right. That has been good everytime I’ve used the vent. The struggles I had I attribute mostly to the Korg sound engine and a little to the fact that horns just seem to amplify this harshness, and honestly I can’t attribute any of that to the vent. Now as far as why the vent actually sounds better in the live recordings I’ve made than a real leslie, when it doesn’t come close in the studio, this I attribute to the same horn issue. When recording a leslie in the studio you’re basically just putting the sound of a leslie on tape (or hard drive nowadays). Miking a real leslie seems to sound more like a leslie than simulating it does, and the shortfalls of the vent are more apparent, while the little idiosyncrasies of a real wooden box with motors come through. With the qualities of mics available these days that makes sense. But why wouldn’t the same be true for live? I can only give my opinion here what I think is happening, but it’s my guess that that same thing that makes horn harsh when you’re close to it makes the highs reach into the room and it’s the highs that make a leslie what it is. They lose momentum a bit more bouncing off the walls than they do out in the audience which is where the recorder was located. My guess (and a future project) is maybe trying to mic the leslie and run it through front of house and see if it carries better. But then, the lows are probably still coming from the leslie into the room, so is there going to be a phasing or balance issue? This would probably not be much of an issue at a larger venue but the smaller places I play, where there isn’t a sound man and there’s actually quite a bit coming from stage volume it could be.
Another thing I came to appreciate through this whole struggle was just how right Mr. Hammond and Mr. Leslie got it! There’s a reason that 50 plus year old sound is still being used in just about every genre out there (my friend’s roland accordion even has a VK8 sound engine built in!).the My quest wasn’t as much to find a perfect imitation of a hammond, but to find a real useful, enjoyable, and playable organ sound. The fact that everything keeps coming back to as close to a hammond and leslie as possible says a lot for the original.
If you’re reading this you might be thinking this all could have been avoided by ditching the Korg. I’d have to agree with you. Unfortunately, that wasn’t financially possible. If I were choosing a clone now the korg wouldn’t be what I would end up with. I’m pretty sure it’d be the new nord with drawbars. But back then I still think I made the right choice. Do I have plans for a new clone? Nope, first I’m getting a spare CV up and roadworthy. That’s going to take a B+ supply, and a trek percussion. Besides, I have the korg where I want it finally, and I did it for the price of 80 dollars for a used presonis tube pre and 150 for my now double duty stage monitor/job radio. I can’t include the vent in that price because that thing is worth it’s price for late night practicing, and I’m sure when the CV is up and running, there’s gonna be those gigs where the leslie isn’t going to fit. But if you’re clone shopping I couldn’t in good conscience steer you to the Korg.
As an aside, a few weeks back it was the last jam in the room which was my favorite as far as how the leslie sounded. I was in the middle of all this vent experimenting, but was very anxious to hear the real leslie in that room one final time. So I packed the gear up, but instead of throwing the vent in my bag for a backup like I usually do I left it and the presonus all hooked up at home. I get to the jam, set up, and turn on the leslie. Something didn’t sound right when the power switch went on. I also noticed one of the output tubes wasn’t glowing right. I figured maybe a tube went, so knowing it’s pretty hard to find someone at a jam with an extra 6550 I quick rushed home to grab another pair. I quick put it in, but still no sound, although everything was glowing and on. Turns out a solder joint gave, and applied B+ voltage to a spot that was used to half that voltage. I knew that wasn’t going to be fixable until I got home, so I was forced to run with the internal in the Korg through the PA. It wasn’t the most enjoyable night, but when I got the recording home, once again I was surprised how good even that sounded. Out front in a band situation, nobody is going to notice except us hammond guys.
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