The Steel Guitar Forum

Does anyone know how Curly Chalker created the organ sound used on Wolverton Mountain from the Counterpoint album?

If you are unfamiliar with the cut or would like a refresher, here is a sample:

Wolverton Mountain sample MP3

Would an HK Rotosphere be able to convincingly recreate this sound?

Thanks

Sam Minnitti


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I will say it sounds really , really , goooooood,

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DavidWright.us

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That is mighty tasty! The Rotosphere is the closest thing I have ever heard to that! I wonder if he used a Vibratone or a bigger Leslie for the effect?

The story I heard about the rotary speaker was, it supposedly belonged to Pete Drake who also was the producer for the "Big Hits on Big Steel." I had the Fender version back in the 60s and it was a cool gadget for that era but it was bigger than some of today's amps and bulky and I think it was licensed by Hammond. Now they do it electronically in a smaller package.

Sam,
I had a Cordovox Leslie Tone Cabinet back in the late 60's/early 70's,that gave that effect. All it was,was an extension spkr. cabinet w/ a "paddlewheel" in front of the (8",low wattage)spkr. to "break-up" the sound. Since the cabinet was so big & bulky,(bigger than most amps.) & not worth carrying around for 1 or 2 songs,I decided to dump it,& hope that "they" would come out w/ something electronic,(& smaller) to duplicate the same sound. Consequently,thanx to digital sampling,I got my wish. I've always been a big "B-3" fan.

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<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Smiley Roberts on 01 December 2003 at 11:43 PM.]</p></FONT>

During that era there was also an effect known of as a "Junior" that was a popular Leslie simulator- just another stab in the dark- maybe Johnny Cox knows for sure~

Was told by Curly in 76-77? that it was a Fender Leslie. Not too many electronic gadgets in those days that would acurately reproduce the Leslie Sound.

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I always thought Curley used a Cord-O-Vox on those recordings...but according to the direct word from Curley above, I was obviously wrong.

I played a Cord-O-Vox with a Standel and an Echo-Plex during the late 1960's, and as Smiley said,it was a horse to carry around. But,I was young then and didn't care.

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DavidWright.us

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<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by David Wright on 05 December 2003 at 10:11 AM.]</p></FONT>

also comes close to that old Boss CE1 chorus, on high speed, inputvolume almost on clipping...
Johan

The Junior was after that. Big Hits was cut around '66 or '67 I think. The Junior came out in the '70's. Curley used the Junior on Shadow Of Your Smile.

In those days the Chordavox was very popular amoung studios in Nashville. Many seel as well as guitr players used them. I would imagine that is what Curly used. In later years he used a small stomp box unit called a JR. something that sounds great.

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Thanks everyone for your input.

I would love to check out one of those mysterious Jr.’s sometime. Is it a stomp box size item? How would it compare to a Rotosphere?

I did a search on Google and on Ebay and nothing came up, so I would imagine it is a very rare item.
<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Sam Minnitti on 04 December 2003 at 06:04 AM.]</p></FONT>

You can get good Leslie sound from the Line 6 POD, and probably from other digital modelling units. One band I play with wants me to use it for Green Onions. I'm not big on weird effects for steel, but I might try it for just the one number. But I guarantee I won't sound anything like Curly.

I've owned a couple of the "Fender Leslies," back in the 60's and 70's. It was a cumbersome thing to carry around and had a weird cabling device that hooked it up to my main amp, a Twin Reverb at the time.\

It had a 12" speaker mounted in standard vertical position in front of a spinning foam drum. It was underpowered then and now is basically a relic of the musical 60's. The last one I had I sold to a buddy of mine who owns a studio. Don't know if he still has it.

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I used one of the Leslie (Cordovox) units back in the '60s, too. It was bulky (about half again as big as an old Ampeg B-15), and it hooked into the speaker jack of the amp. It only had a 10" speaker, so it wouldn't take much power. It had the typical Leslie slow/fast sweep, and sounded pretty good, despite the "stone-age" rotating wheel technology. Today, I use the MXR Phase 100, which does a pretty good approximation, and will fit in your coat pocket. Another advantage of the MXR unit is that the battery life is pretty good, so I'm spared having to plug in a "wall-wart". (Oh, how I hate those things!)

Sam--the Rotosphere is an extraordinary unit and is the best rotating speaker sim I've heard. I really enjoy using mine. The broad answer to your question is that yes, it will convincingly get you there. But if you are asking a much finer question, it doesn't sound exactly like that great recording (thanks for posting it!). There are some timbral differences. So the answer is---dead-on? no. Pretty close (and pretty cool sounding)? yes.

I still have my old Junior someplace. It`s the size of a large stompbox (smaller than the Rotosphere), built-in transformer, only 2 knobs (on/off,fast/slow). I was told by the person I ordered it from that it was made by a company (in Arazona if memory serves) that was otherwise unrelated to the music biz. It was part of my rig for years. The sound was a long way from a real Leslie but closer than anything else in the days before multi-effects, DSP,etc.
Mark

I played organ in '66 and bought a Fender Rotary unit. It was very bassy due to the rotating baffle blocking the high. I bought a horn and crossover and faced it into the baffle cranked up high. It gave me top end and it broke up a bit too. I think the Cordovox had basically the same guts. Nothing else back then would simulate Don Leslie's Amps. Just a historic note: It really ticked off THe Hammond Organ CO. that no one would use thier amps, only Leslie's. The dealers would not even carry the Hammond cabinets after a while.

Buck hit it right on head, the stomp boxes, or other simulators are not going to give you the "break up" you get from a real "Leslie" (great name BTW) type cabinet containing it's own speaker.

Take care,

Les

The Stomp boxes will never duplicate the Leslie sound 100%, because on the Original Leslie units, there are two seperate motors, one driving the bass rotor and one rotating the horns. No two motors will ever run at exactly the same speed and the relationship (Phasing) between the woofer and the horns is never the same. These random qualities are what makes the Leslie units so unique. Pretty difficult to duplicate in a Stomp box. The Alesis Units, Quadraverb, Q2 and Q20 have seperate parameters for the Two signals and come pretty close, but The Phase relationship between the two is always the same and you don't get that gradual speeding up and slowing down of the rotor and the horns, which is an effect all of its own.

Disclaimer:
I'm not a keyboard player.<a href='http://www.smileycentral.com/?partner=ZSzeb008' target='_blank'><img src='http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/15/15_4_105.gif' border=0></a> I built some high powered Leslie Clones in the 70's with 18" Cerwin-Vega woofers and Altec Horn Drivers, 250 watts on the Woofer and 125 on the Horn. Bone rattling and ear splitting is the only way to describe them. Almost took a Fork lift to move them, made from speaker grade 3/4" plywood and almost 5 feet tall, ruggedized for hard road use. The original Leslie 145 /147 units were around 20 - 40 watts, if my memory serves me correctly and the horn driver distorting (Breaking up) was one of its unique qualities also. I think Charlie Daniels keyboard player used two of our Leslie clones on the road with a Hammond B3. BAck then his bass player used two Sunn Coliseum Stacks 4 18" Speakers and two 350 watt heads. So the Leslies had to compete with that. We only built 4 or 5 of them and don't remember who the other customers were exactly, since that wasn't my dept.

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<img src='http://www.mymailsignature.com/fwpdata/ ... CFAsig.png' border=0></a><FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by John Floyd on 08 December 2003 at 11:56 PM.]</p></FONT>