The year of 2025 marks the 30th anniversary of my first encounter with a Hammond B3 organ. It turned out to be a life changing event, and the Hammond organ has since been the centerpiece of my life. Along the way, various players, mentors and visionaries that I have met and admired have helped shaping me into the musician, artist and human being I am today. However, I have always also been driven by a curiosity to go beyond the already established and find new ways of using the instrument and how to express myself with it. As a consequence, the path taken might not always have been the straightest and I haven’t always known where I’m headed. But to another point, the end results sometimes have surprised me even more. For some years now, music has been my main occupation, but that hasn’t always been the case. The only formal education diploma I possess is a degree in Computer science and I have had a few different jobs in parallel with doing music. Sometimes when I look back, I regret all the hours I spent doing something else than music, as the time spent on the instrument feels like the hard currency of progress. However, it seems that now, after all these years, all the paths that seemed so disparate are actually converging and all playing an important role in the grand scheme of things. My project »Quadraphonic Leslie Experience« is a perfect example of that. It has elements of innovation, musical composition, computer programming, technical adaptation, aesthetics and artistry. When I started, I didn’t really know where it would lead, but now it has developed and matured to a point where I couldn’t see it being anywhere else.
Over the years I have acquired quite a few organs and leslies. Most of them have ended up at the HQ, my studio and workshop. One day a few years back I found myself sitting at the B3 in the middle of the room, surrounded by 4 leslies. I had »only« connected at most two at a time and they weren’t all fully compatible with each other, but I thought to myself – I just have to know how all these would sound together. After a bit of technical adaptation and a primitive solution for the rotation speed control I got it working. And I would say it felt a bit solemn, almost spiritual. Partly purely aesthetic – the organ, which in itself is a fine wooden piece of furniture, surrounded by 4 other equally fine cabinets. Partly symbolic – one cabinet in every corner of the room, in each cardinal direction. So when sitting in the middle, you are like in the center of this whirlwind of sound. A vortex summoning all the organ energies of the universe on the path to enlightenment, or something. From there on, you could say that Pandora’s box had been opened and I immediately started thinking about how to take the project further and use the format and the setup even more.
I continued to work and the next edition began to take shape. I added an effect module for the sound, with 4 separate outputs for each leslie. The sound from the organ could then be made to jump, wander and pulse between the cabinets, and with different types of effects I could create acoustic rooms of different kinds. Now the quadraphony began to take shape for real. In addition, I also built my own computerized control mechanism for the speed of the Leslie rotors. The change in speed could then be run using different programs and patterns or just manually. I even made it so I could control them via the touch screen of my laptop. In essence, I could make them behave in any way I wanted. I remember my first experience of having an organ loop being played back, with an automated speed control program, and I just walked around in the room laughing hysterically of joy in realizing what kind of monster I had created. Now the fun started for real and I began to explore what musical ideas could come from this. It was like a whole new world opened up with soundscapes I couldn’t even have imagined before, much less experienced. More on this in the notes about the music.
As musical ideas turned into songs it was time to try my wings and have concerts outside the confines of the HQ. Partly to see if the format and concept would hold up for a larger venue and audience, partly to discover any technical difficulties that might arise. And after having done concerts in venues of different sizes and types, I can safely say that it is just as awesome as I had hoped. It’s an incredible feeling sitting there in the middle while the audience can move around and experience the sound from different angles and places in the room.
With a solid repertoire taking shape it was time to make a recording. To best capture the quadraphonic setup you need some kind of surround sound system, and so the priority was to have it in Dolby Atmos. The digital release is available in that way on those platforms that support it. In terms of physical products there’s also an edition of Blu-ray Pure Audio.
However, for most streaming platforms, as well as in a vinyl production like this you need to have a stereo version that conveys the listening experience sufficiently well. You somehow have to create depth and space so that the listener perceives the four cabinets like they are placed in the room. Though, as I found out, there really are no guidelines on how to do it. When working with the recorded material I had experimented with creating a fake room in the stereo image, by placing the listener in front of a square, with the first cabinet to the near left corner, the second to the near right, the third in the far right and last cabinet in the far left. It actually portrays the room quite accurately to the listener and that became the way the stereo version was mixed.
And here we are – with the vinyl release of what I would say is my most grandiose project so far. And yet I have the feeling I have only just begun to scratch the surface…