A question about Rotary and Vibe

[Dave Merrill]

Not on my board, but listening in the same room. The sound was no better than Strymon, the real Leslie had “that sound.”

It’s the physics that make it hard for any of these devices to recreate the true rotary sound. Without the spinning speakers throwing sound into the room they lose their magic. Even a real rotary sounds weird outdoors unless you’re right beside it because it isn’t bouncing sound off the walls, it typically has stereo mics catching the sound, and at that point the Strymon or Vent is as good from what I’ve heard, and they’re a lot less finicky.

In the past I looked for a technical or white paper on how Vent does their sound, and couldn’t find one, but I imagine they went after it in a similar way as Strymon, computing the reflections inside the cabinet. Now, if we could get synchronized rotating speakers or a speaker array that fired in multiple directions and directed the sound of the pedals to it, then we might have the equivalent. When I last was in the market for the pedals I finally got tired of the chase and the Vent was about $100 more IIRC, but didn’t sound $100 better. What I considered “good enough” won.

The thing about the dispersion in the room aspect is that there are so many examples of great Leslie tones on records that are simple stereo. Of course that's not "the same" as being in the room with a cranked Leslie, but neither is that record the same as being in the room with a cranked Marshall and a wailing drummer.

But a recorded Leslie can still be awesome.

 

[Greg Ferguson]

I suspect that capturing and recreating the sound of the rotary is similar to the progression of monaural to stereo to various versions of "surround sound" to ATMOS and its competitors.

It's a spinning speaker so they figured they'd need multiple microphones to capture the sound of the rotating horn and drum, which catches the Doppler shift and proximity effect and the local reflections inside the cabinet, but that left the sound bouncing around the room unaccounted for, kind of like Fullres IRs being used to capture the room's affect on the sound. To do it right it'll probably need microphones next to the rotary cabinet, above and around it in various locations in the room, like they're starting to do with the ATMOS stuff. Generating the sound in a modeler or pedal will change too, then we'll have mixing boards that can position the sounds from the mics on stage and shoot it out the arrays and position the sound of the instruments inside our heads. Or maybe we'll see arrays disappear and be replaced with IEMs so they have ultimate control over the sound.

 

[Greg Ferguson]

The thing about the dispersion in the room aspect is that there are so many examples of great Leslie tones on records that are simple stereo. Of course that's not "the same" as being in the room with a cranked Leslie, but neither is that record the same as being in the room with a cranked Marshall and a wailing drummer.

But a recorded Leslie can still be awesome.

Agreed. I'm a big Allman Brothers fan, and Gregg Allman's Hammond and Leslie….

 

[Greg Ferguson]

Setting the rate using the envelope follower works good too because it will naturally speed up based on the intensity of your playing although I’ve found this better with the tremolo block.

I've tried using the envelope follower, but it never resulted in a sound that I've heard in real life where the player is deliberately toggling the speeds for effect. Yeah, the rotary effect is there, but it's not believable if you've ever worked with an organist who knows how to use it.

 

[Dave Merrill]

^^^ This.