[HAM] Single louver horn compartment damping material?

[Kon Zissis]

Hi David .
After reading your post I went to the Captain Foldback website  and I
looked at photos  of Leslie 21 H cabinets with the upper compartment
back panels  removed and I saw the damping   material inside the upper
compartment. This damping material looked similar to the  coarse light
brown damping material that is on the inner  side of the  upper
compartment back panel on my 1971 Leslie 122.
After reading the comments about getting more of the old Jazz sound  in
the Leslie  after placing socks inside the upper compartment  to
simulate the damping effect of the old damping material that was pulled
out of your Leslie, I became curious and decided to get a piece of
carpet that was lying around and I cut out three  strips of carpet  to a
similar size as the damping material in the photos of the 21H  and I
then placed them into the  upper compartment of my Leslie 122  as shown
in the photos  of the 21H  cabinets  and I then played my 1962  C3
through the Leslie.
 
The damping  carpet strips  had an interesting effect of the tone  and
the rotary effect of the treble horn. The  treble response of the  horn
became mellower  in a  pleasant  way. The Jensen V21 in my Leslie 122
sounds quite bright compared to other V21's that I have heard  and the
damping carpet strips  tamed down the excessive brightness .
The damping carpet strips removed some of the internal reflections in
the upper compartment so that the chorale and the tremolo  effect of the
treble  horn became  more direct and slightly " choppier " ,  more like
the sound of a miked up treble horn especially when the upper
compartment back cover  wood piece is removed.  I really like the sound
of close miked Leslies so therefore I like this more direct rotary
sound with the damping carpet strips in place.  The tremolo effect
sounded "wider" , similar to the treble horn tremolo  effect heard on
the Jack McDuff tracks "Soulful drums" , " I cover the waterfront " and
"One o'clock jump "  from the 1962 album " Screamin"  which I think was
the famous Rudy Van Gelder 1959 C3 played through a Leslie 21 H.
 
It was good to find out that the  damping material in the upper
compartment of the  old Leslie 21 H  has turned out to be a contributor
to the treble horn  tremolo sound heard on  the old Jazz/ Blues  albums.

All the best.
Kon                         
 
David Anderson wrote:
>In some recent photos I saw, I noticed for the first time that Leslie  
>used some kind of damping material on the sides of the horn  
>compartment below the louvers in the single-louver cabinets like  
>21Hs, 44W, and 46Ws. I've been told it was either wool batting or  
>horsehair. Anyone know for sure? How thick was it?
>It's completely missing from my two 44Ws. All that remains are a few  
>small staples.