How Pink Floyd Created the Seagull and Wind Sounds on 'Echoes'

That iconic, haunting seagull cry that drifts through the middle section of “Echoes” wasn’t a synthesizer or a sample — it was a slide guitar played through a Leslie rotating speaker. David Gilmour discovered that by running his Fender Stratocaster through the Leslie cabinet (normally used for organs) and using a metal slide, the Doppler-style pitch swoops and the speaker’s mechanical rotation created those uncanny, organic bird-like sounds. The same setup also produced the windy, breathing textures that build the atmosphere.

The Leslie speaker has two rotating elements — a treble horn and a bass drum — which spin at different speeds, causing the sound to shift in pitch and volume as it rotates. Gilmour would play slow, sustained slide notes or let feedback ring, and the Leslie’s motion turned them into something that sounded alive. It was a happy accident during the Meddle sessions that became a signature moment, and the band never replicated it quite the same way live because the effect was so dependent on the specific room and speaker setup.