# Best Rotary Effect



## PaulS (Feb 27, 2006)

I am looking for a good leslie simulator and looking for any opinions. So far I have looked at the Option 5, DLS RotoSim, Boss and Line 6. Any other suggestions. I have owned a few vibes before but they are not what I am looking for. Has anyone tried either of the above and lend an opinion. From the demos I have heard the DLS sounds good but is bulky. The option five sounded nice also and has a smaller footprint.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

If you've ever played with a real Leslie or other rotating speaker, you'll know that a huge part of the sound is the spatial swirl (I have a Vibra-tone type unit with the styrofoam "cheese wheel" baffle). "Leslie sound" is never simply reducible to having something that ramps up and down at the right speeds and provides appropriate notching.

Now that is not to diss electronic simulators at all. Rather, that is to emphasize that if you have not listened to any of them in stereo, then you simply have not provided fair evaluation. I have a Line 6 Roto-Machine. In mono, it is pleasant enough, I suppose. It has enough variation in tone. The only real shortcoming I find is that one can't adjust the drive level independent of output level (if you like the grind of the higher drive settings, you have to live with the added volume). In stereo, it is an entirely different beast and considerably more pleasing, ethereal, swirly, and spacious. I imagine any of the others you've noted, probably make the same leap as well.

In addition to the doppler effect and spatial "throw" of a rotating speaker, one of the things that people tend to forget is that when a rotating horn or baffle is pointing away from the player, there is a slight reduction in volume and a slight treble cut effect (superimposed on top of the treble cut provided by the physical cabinet as well). So, simply having something like a flanger or chorus with a ramp-up/ramp-down function is not likely to nail a Leslie sound flawlessly. On the other hand, for a lot of players, all they really want is the idiosyncratic bubbly fast sound, and aren't particularly interested in the slower speed or how to get there. In those cases, sometimes a simple phaser with a fast-enough fast speed is sufficient.


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## Guest (Jul 17, 2008)

+1 to what Mark said. The Leslie sims are a pale approximation of an actual rotate baffle or speaker setup. After playing through Mark's rotating baffle setup I gave up on my rotating speaker effect quest -- they all just sounded like phasers after that! 

I was on the fence between the DLS RotoSim and the Option5 Destination Rotation Single prior to that. The DLS is basically a high pass/low pass filter with two different speeds of phasing/flanging happening on each side of the filter. Cool sound, but you feel zero motion in the sound. The Option5 emulates a single rotation speaker and has an almost through-zero moment in it's phasing/flanging pass that gives you a virtual "suck" -- but it's nothing like the real thing I'm afraid.

In the end I was just as happy with chorus and a phaser.


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## Guest (Jul 17, 2008)

Paul said:


> Try this out for size.
> 
> It's just over $800.00 at musicians friend. How much would you spend on two or three pedals to get the sound you'd settle for?
> 
> This is cheaper.


Those look awesome.


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## PaulS (Feb 27, 2006)

Yea I tend to agree with Mark also, I have a leslie just don't like the prospect of lugging it around. I have listened to a few high end chorus pedals , nice but not what I want. For the past while I have only been using tremolo in the modulation style effects but sometimes I want something a bit different and that where the leslie sim comes in. I would likely be using it in mono so that does hamper it a bit. I liked somewhat the sound of the option 5 and it a smaller size than the dls. The Line 6 doesn't cut in mono same as the Boss.
Thanks for the advice so far, I'll keep looking around maybe something will fill the gap.


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## Ripper (Jul 1, 2006)

The voodoo lab micovibe does a pretty good leslie and it wieghs a hell of alot less than my real leslie does


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

One thing I should probably add is that Leslies are, in a sense, like a post-production effect. In other words, they are analogous to taking a recorded track of a miked amp and THEN imposing an effect on that. There may be no recording as such, but the rotating baffle effect is superimposed on what comes out of the amp. So all the cumulative sources of distortion are THEN comb filtered by the rotating baffle. What you get by sticking a pedal ahead of an amp and then getting the output tubes to clip is different than what you get by driving the amp with your guitar directly and spinning that output around. 

The Leslies that we know and love virtually all included a tube power amp. The Motion Sound unit linked to seems to have an internal power amp as well. I gather it is likely a solid-state power amp chip like a 3886 or similar (or else they would have flaunted the power tubes used). One will likely want to at least feed it a line out from a tube amp or perhaps a power-soaked post-transformer amp signal in order to get the closest Leslie approximation. (I feed my little 8" Vibra-tone cab the speaker output of my tweed Princeton, so I have that covered.) In principle, the Motion Sound unit is an attempt to mimic a Vibra-tone. So it has only one driver and spins that sound around. While Leslies and Vibra-tones never had any adjustment for varying the fast or slow speeds, or rate of transition (ramp-up/ramp-down), they all had their idiosyncracies in that regard, so the variable controls on this one help you to mimic the model-to-model differences.


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## Ripper (Jul 1, 2006)

Pauls, which Boss were you referring to? The Boss SE-50s and SE-70s have a fairly nice rotary effect that can really be tweaked well. Down side is they aren't a pedal effect, they are half rack units.


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## devnulljp (Mar 18, 2008)

Ripper said:


> The voodoo lab micovibe does a pretty good leslie and it wieghs a hell of alot less than my real leslie does


I didn't think the microvibe did the whole vibrato thing? I'm thinking of the SRV ColdShot type Leslie sound...


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Again, I will reiterate that pedals tend to do a far better imitation of the fast speed on a Leslie/Vibra-Tone than they do of the slow speed. Part of that is because you tend not to notice the spatial swirl quite as much at the faster speed. If the ramp-up time is not critical to what you want to do, then certainly something like a Microvibe may fit the bill.

I hasten to remind folks that the first Uni-Vibe was released by Shin-Ei as the "Resley-Tone" (please note that *I* am not making fun of any accents; it was Shin-Ei that called it that), under the assumption that it would mimic the sound of a rotating speaker. The Microvibe carries on in that tradition.


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## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

The best rotary effect is a Leslie 147. Nothing else comes close.


As far as simulators go, the best I've heard is the Option 5. The Hughs and Kettner Rotosphere that everybody raves about is ok for slow rotor but sound like cheesy crap when you try to get a fast rotor effect (IMO).

Something about it reminds me of a Farfisa organ.


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## Ripper (Jul 1, 2006)

devnulljp said:


> I didn't think the microvibe did the whole vibrato thing? I'm thinking of the SRV ColdShot type Leslie sound...


If you play with it a bit it does a pretty leslie imitation. I used to use my SE-50 all the time for mine as you can adjust the speed to slow it right down and tweak a bunch of the settings, but got tired of humping the extra gear around, and for what I play I don't have a pile of call for a leslie sound.

Milkman you are right on the 147, I have alot of fun with mine in my basement but until I can afford roadies, that is where she stays :smile:


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## PaulS (Feb 27, 2006)

Ripper said:


> Pauls, which Boss were you referring to? The Boss SE-50s and SE-70s have a fairly nice rotary effect that can really be tweaked well. Down side is they aren't a pedal effect, they are half rack units.



Can't remember the model number but it was one of there twin pedal styles with the fancy lightwork. 

The option 5 has my interest, but the DLS has some nice features also....


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## Ripper (Jul 1, 2006)

PaulS said:


> Can't remember the model number but it was one of there twin pedal styles with the fancy lightwork.
> 
> The option 5 has my interest, but the DLS has some nice features also....


The RT-20.Ihaven't had a chance to play with one of those yet. I hope you find something that works for you


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## dwagar (Mar 6, 2006)

I used to use a Digitech RPM1 for awhile (I use it for keyboard, not guitar btw), I think it's a good sim, has a 12AX7 in it for overdrive, but it really needs a stereo amp setup to sound close. And it's a rack sized effect, not a stomp box. I think you can find them used for about $150.

I now use a Motion Sound Pro3T (spinning horn), I don't think anything properly sims moving air. They sim the bass rotor though, so you need another amp under them. Pro3T's are about $300-350 in the used market. The "T" is the tube version - a 12AX7 for overdrive.


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## the_fender_guy (Jul 22, 2008)

The thing about a Leslie is that it is moving air. There's no substitute for moving air. However if you don't want to haul around a Leslie you might find a Voce Spin 2 a decent pedal.


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## mrmatt1972 (Apr 3, 2008)

I have one of these:

http://www.songworks.com/rotarywave.html

It's pretty good too.


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