The Leslie

The Leslie, named after its inventor, Don Leslie,^4.6is a popular audio processor used with electronic organs and other instruments [59,191]. It employs a rotating horn and rotating speaker port to ``choralize'' the sound. Since the horn rotates within a cabinet, the listener hears multiple reflections at different Doppler shifts, giving a kind of chorus effect. Additionally, the Leslie amplifier distorts at high volumes, producing a pleasing ``growl'' highly prized by keyboard players.

The Leslie consists primarily of a rotating horn and a rotating speaker port inside a wooden cabinet enclosure [191]. We first consider the rotating horn.

---

Subsections

• Rotating Horn Simulation
• Leslie Free-Field Horn Measurements
• Separating Horn Output from Base Leakage

---

Order a Hardcopy of Physical Audio Signal Processing

Previous: Chorus Effect
Next: Rotating Horn Simulation

---

written by Julius Orion Smith III
Julius Smith's background is in electrical engineering (BS Rice 1975, PhD Stanford 1983). He is presently Professor of Music and Associate Professor (by courtesy) of Electrical Engineering at Stanford's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), teaching courses and pursuing research related to signal processing applied to music and audio systems. See http://ccrma.stanford.edu/~jos/ for details.