Neo Ventilator 2 vs Axe-Fx III Rotary Effect

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gregjhonda

Member
I'm getting close to purchasing the Axe III. Also wondering if the Axe III rotary effect is good enough that I can sell my Neo Ventilator 2 to offset the cost of the Axe III purchase. I play about 50% guitar and 50% pedal steel and the Neo Vent in stereo to my ears is probably 85% as good as a real mic'ed Leslie on a recorded track. Guess I could ask the same question about a lot of the AXE III effects but selling off the Neo Vent 2 would generate a good chunk of change!
 
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I have a Neo Vent 2 and an Axe III. The Axe rotary is pretty darn good but the Neo is in a whole other league - don’t sell it!! That said I still have a pedal board and custom made amp (Allston OAC) that I use for some gigs so I am probably an outlier!
 
Prior to the Vent I had a Fender Model 16 Vibratone then a Line 6 Roto-Machine and lastly an H&K Rotosphere. Kept the Roto-Machine as a backup as it's good enough in the mix. The Vibtatone was big and bulky and lacked high frequency content. The H&K was very noisy and I never liked the sound of it. So all around I agree that the Vent is king of the hill especially in stereo mode. I run the Vent into Sweetwater special edition tweed Princeton Reverb and Allen Encore amps with great results. Guess I'll hang onto Mr Vent until I can personally evaluate the Axe III rotary in my setup.
 
I had a Neo ventilator II and sold it immediately without hesitation when I bought my AxeFXII (or was it the AX8??). Some effects you have to work with a while before they grow into your musical consciousness - but it was instant love for me when I heard the Axe rotary effect. I think the roto sound on the Axe is way better - more musical - I use it often in many different contexts - sounds good clean for jazz or dirty for heavier stuff. You can tweak it infinitely more than the ventilator. I have one pedal controller always dedicated to the Axe roto - blend it in just a bit and it is better than chorus (which I never use now that I have the Axe roto) - or a lot of rotary for that deep/thick roto whirl. With my FXIII I added a blended patch with a second instance of the roto with alternate frequency for times when I wanted REALLY deep roto - can really get ultra thick without being crazy/non-musical. The ventilator sounded thin and plasticy to me in comparison - and of course the distortion knob on the ventilator gives a far inferior distortion - on the Axe you can get real tube distortion just for your driven B3 roto sound! The ventilator distortion is paper tear thin sounding... When I do small jazz gigs using my little Henriksen amp, the thing I miss most from my Axe is the rotary effect. That is my experience....
 
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One could always patch a rotary stomp box into the Axe III loop but then there's all this hardware everywhere and all those cables again and it starts to look like like a pedal board setup. Appreciate all the input and I know that the rotary sound subject has been beat to death a lot on equipment forums.
 
gregjhonda said:
Took a chance and sold the Neo Vent II to partially fund the Axe III. Thanks for all the great info!
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I think you’re going to be quite happy. The Rotary block in the Axe-FX II underwent a serious upgrade a few years back. That block really shines now.
 
Rex said:
I think you’re going to be quite happy. The Rotary block in the Axe-FX II underwent a serious upgrade a few years back. That block really shines now.
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Absolutely. IIRC I run most parameters at default these days. And I'm running it in front of the amp (mono).
 
yek said:
Absolutely. IIRC I run most parameters at default these days. And I'm running it in front of the amp (mono).
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I'm the same with the rotary, I basically just drop it in and go. Been using it a lot for trippy overdubs while recording.
 
There was a re-work of the rotary block some 4'ish years ago now and it's got depth to it that's really spectacular. There are lots of tweakable parameters on the block but really you don't need to touch them. Depth to taste, speed and go. You can emulate drum-only setups with the block if you like the portable leslie sound without the horn. The horn and bass rotors run at different speeds, of course, with tweaks for how that works. Stereo spread is configurable.

It's very, very good rotary.

I usually run it post CAB block in the stereo part of my signal chain.

 
karmar said:
I had a Neo ventilator II and sold it immediately without hesitation when I bought my AxeFXII (or was it the AX8??). Some effects you have to work with a while before they grow into your musical consciousness - but it was instant love for me when I heard the Axe rotary effect. I think the roto sound on the Axe is way better - more musical - I use it often in many different contexts - sounds good clean for jazz or dirty for heavier stuff. You can tweak it infinitely more than the ventilator. I have one pedal controller always dedicated to the Axe roto - blend it in just a bit and it is better than chorus (which I never use now that I have the Axe roto) - or a lot of rotary for that deep/thick roto whirl. With my FXIII I added a blended patch with a second instance of the roto with alternate frequency for times when I wanted REALLY deep roto - can really get ultra thick without being crazy/non-musical. The ventilator sounded thin and plasticy to me in comparison - and of course the distortion knob on the ventilator gives a far inferior distortion - on the Axe you can get real tube distortion just for your driven B3 roto sound! The ventilator distortion is paper tear thin sounding... When I do small jazz gigs using my little Henriksen amp, the thing I miss most from my Axe is the rotary effect. That is my experience....
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I am very surprised to hear this. I have always been blown away by the Ventilator. I was happy that the Axe 2 Rotary got an update (much needed) but I felt the drive parameter was major let down. I found it did virtually nothing until it got to about 9 and still sounded shitty and useless. Nothing like a real distorting Leslie. How are you getting a good driven rotary tone?

Are you using a the Drive parameter in the Rotary block or a Drive block? If so which Drive model are you using for that?

I thought the drive in the ventilator always sounded far more realistic than the one in the Rotary block.
 
I never used the drive in the rotary - there are so many different options in the FX3 for drive I just always go with amp overdrive or a drive pedal that can shape the drive better than one knob in a pitch effect...

I have also discovered putting rotary on the rotary - so two rotaries in series... You can get a REALLY deep rotary effect that way that is fun in some circumstances - so I have three versions: Rotary 1 (slow and relatively shallow) OR Rotary 2 (fast and deep) OR Rotary 1 + Rotary 2 in series

Also - I have been known to use a pedal to modulate the mix and thereby using the rotary like a chorus pedal which is another very nice application for the FX3 rotary effect
 
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karmar said:
I never used the drive in the rotary - there are so many different options in the FX3 for drive I just always go with amp overdrive or a drive pedal that can shape the drive better than one knob in a pitch effect...

I have also discovered putting rotary on the rotary - so two rotaries in series... You can get a REALLY deep rotary effect that way that is fun in some circumstances - so I have three versions: Rotary 1 (slow and relatively shallow) OR Rotary 2 (fast and deep) OR Rotary 1 + Rotary 2 in series

Also - I have been known to use a pedal to modulate the mix and thereby using the rotary like a chorus pedal which is another very nice application for the FX3 rotary effect
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Ok cool. I'm just wondering what drive blocks have given you the best results? I've not managed to get anything to really sound like an actual rotary cabinet breaking up. Or if you can post a screen shot of some parameters that'd be awesome. Thanks mate.
 
I have never used any special kind of overdrive for my rotary sound - I just use the same overdrive that I use on my guitar, always putting the rotary before the amp and adjusting the amp gain using my guitar volume knob in conjunction with a pedal volume pedal. I also never use any of the overdrive pedals in the FX3 because I think the amps always sound better. The amps I gravitate to for overdrive are Bassguy59, 5F8 Tweed, Class A 30W, Brit JM45 Jump, and ODS 100 HRM. Each of these does something different for me and it seems like I am never happy unless I have these 6 available to choose from for a particular "dirty genre"... I will also mention that, unless I am recording direct, I turn the power amp simulations off for all patches since I use a Mesa Boogie 2:50 tube power amp live (which is ironic since I originally bought an an AxeFXII to get rid of tubes in my life!). And also no speaker simulation (unless recording direct) as I am already going through a nice amp cab in real life. As far as tweaking the rotary block in the FXIII, I pretty much use it as it is already set except I think I adjusted the default high speed a touch faster (and depending on the application, I use a wide range of mix settings - from 100% for that thick rotary "fill the room" sound we associate with this effect, to 30% or less when I am using it as a chorus effect)

I will also followup on my original post on rotary pedals: Before settling on the Ventilator II, I had tried (and returned) all the major rotary pedals including Leslie, Boss, Lex (was good), Rototron, RotoSim, Mini Vent II, Soul Vibe, and I think a couple more I cant remember now... Some I returned immediately, others I would use a few months before selling off. And FOR ME, the Axe rotary was hands down the best for feel and sound - giving me a tone option that extended my playing instead of limiting. When I was playing in my blues/fusion trio, I used it a lot - probably going to it for at least some period on a least a third of tunes - sometimes for solos and heads, but more often for adding an extra dimension while comping for the bass player's solos or to simulate the sound of a B3 comping. That said, it may be that FOR YOU, you need the sound of the Ventilator II to give you that unconscious feeling of identity that you want - which is why Fractal has always included an FX loop.

Oh - and I will just add that the new iteration of virtual capo is REALLY good! If you are trying to get a B3 tone, try mixing in a bit of virtual capo at -7 half steps into your tone (one of the primary tone bars from a B3) This was not available to me when I had my trio...
 
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karmar said:
Oh - and I will just add that the new iteration of virtual capo is REALLY good! If you are trying to get a B3 tone, try mixing in a bit of virtual capo at -7 half steps into your tone (one of the primary tone bars from a B3) This was not available to me when I had my trio...
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Hmmm.... going to have to try this. I also use rotary a lot of the time.

I did something kinda similar in blending a little +12 (up an octave) in to enhance 2nd harmonic. I call it "welcome to the jangle". :) Sounded so good it pulled a whole new song out of my head and onto my "needs lyrics written" pile....
 
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