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Neo Ventilator


Maverick
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Some people look at the H&K Rotosphere MKII as kind of like the Holy Grail of Leslie emulators. And I won't argue with its quality.

 

I looked at several different emulators, namely the Ventilator, the Strymon Lex, and the DLS Rotosim.

 

All are good/great at what they do.

 

The Rotosim and the Lex are both equally priced. If I were going for that price point, I believe I'd go for the Lex.

 

The Vent is priced higher, and has a larger footprint than the two previous units. However, the price and size are not so high as to be prohibitive. My test is, if I got a Lex or Rotosim, how much could it potentially bother me in the future knowing I could have spent a little more (comparatively) and got a Vent instead? The answer was, it would probably bother me a lot at some point.

 

The Rotosphere is the largest of all in price and footprint. Thankfully I am very confident that I would not have the same regret about not spending quite a bit more to get that unit over the Vent.

 

There are quite a few threads on the Vent over on The Gear Page. One of things I read that I really liked was that the Vent sounded great even when not played in stereo. But stereo is where it shines the most.

 

The thought of running it through my Lonestar and Blues Jr just makes me drool.

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I've listened to a lot of demos on YouTube, and a lot of them have been in mono with a 1x12 amp (the Dr. Z Maz 18 mostly) and it still sounds phenomenal.

 

I'm also probably going to get one of these:

 

http://i1239.photobucket.com/albums/ff508/blackcc/p1_uatwjzzvj_so.jpg

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUXM3i6Ltqo...player_embedded

 

The second video is a guy from The Gear Page who made the video and posted it there. A couple of days later, it ended up on Wampler's website as an example of what the pedal could do.

 

Sorry the picture is so small...

Edited by Sheldon Cooper
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QUOTE (tskidmore @ Jul 22 2012, 05:58 PM)
OK, at the risk of hijacking the OP, this is The 2.gif Forum after all....

So Alex has been using a Leslie or a Leslie sim for a long time, lets hear from you TRF'rs, what is your favorite Rush use of the Leslie?

Well he's using the Logic plugin for Clockwork Angels tracks, and it sounds pretty good.

Edited by hunter
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QUOTE (tskidmore @ Jul 22 2012, 09:58 PM)
OK, at the risk of hijacking the OP, this is The 2.gif Forum after all....

So Alex has been using a Leslie or a Leslie sim for a long time, lets hear from you TRF'rs, what is your favorite Rush use of the Leslie?

What are some examples in songs where he uses it? Either the real thing or a simulator?

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QUOTE (Sheldon Cooper @ Jul 23 2012, 02:17 AM)
QUOTE (tskidmore @ Jul 22 2012, 09:58 PM)
OK, at the risk of hijacking the OP, this is The 2.gif Forum after all....

So Alex has been using a Leslie or a Leslie sim for a long time, lets hear from you TRF'rs, what is your favorite Rush use of the Leslie?

What are some examples in songs where he uses it? Either the real thing or a simulator?

In this article he talks about it. I guess it's not strictly a Leslie simulator though. Just a tremolo.

 

"Carnies" has some appropriately wild carnival sounds. What effects did you use on that?

In the choruses, when you get that real carnival sense, I used one of the plug-ins, Guitar Rig 5. I don't remember the actual sampled sound; I'm going to have to go back to the earlier versions in Logic to find out - which I'm going to have to do anyway for when we play the song live.

 

But there was this one that had a very funny tremolo, kind of square edged, and all I did was put it on the guitar part that I played. So it's really that three-chord progression that repeats itself, and it's got this secondary effect on it that goes in and out, and it's almost like a carousel. Ged and I were like, "Oh my God, that's so cool!" It really sounds like you're on this horsey going up and down.

 

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Yeah, I gotta admit I have not heard a lot of what I would call "classic" Leslie effect in Alex's playing, but he has been using Leslies and/or the Rotosphere or other sim on records and on tour since the 70's, so what is he using it on?
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The only modulation effects I can recall Alex using are phaser, chorus, flanger. I've heard some tremolo on CA. He may have had a uni-vibe early on, but I don't recall him using it's deep throb the way Hendrix and Trower used it.
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Some quick thoughts on the Vent:

 

First off, it is everything I hoped it would be so far.

 

It's only been run through the front end of the Lonestar but it sounds fantastic.

 

I still need to run it through the FX loop, and also in stereo with the Blues Jr.

 

Through the Lonestar, it sounds three dimensional with the swirling horn speakers.

 

It sounds like two different effects when run fast or slow, and two more still if I hit it with an overdrive, which I did this morning with an Xotic AC+.

 

I actually prefer the slowest fast speed setting I can get. That may change as I get more used to it.

 

Three quirky things about it: it doesn't have an on/off switch, it has a Bypass switch that has an LED that lights up when the unit is bypassed (off.) The input/outptut jacks are on the back, and the output jacks are on the right, the input is on the left. Finally, it uses a 12v AC adapter, so you can't run it from a One Spot. These aren't complaints just observations that I thought I'd share in case anyone was interested.

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Finally had the chance to run this in stereo! I put it into the effects loop of the Lonestar and then ran the second out port to the Blues Jr. So the Blues Jr was getting the pre-amp from the Lonestar as well. It sounded amazing of course, but what I was really pleased with was the tone I was getting from the two amps when the Ventilator was off. I had to do some adjusting to the volume levels, and I had to roll the treble on the Blues Jr way off. But once it was set it was a very full sounding tone.
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