Leslie and Rotary

[mountain lion]

Hi !
Is Leslie Effect and Rotary Effect the same thing?

Thank you

[Martin Walker]

Essentially, yes.

Leslie generally refers to the hardware, which has spinning loudspeakers, while rotary effect is the generic term more often used by plug-ins or stomp boxes that aim to emulate the hardware.

Martin

[mountain lion]

I see, thank you

I was looking into ni organs.
They look pretty nice.

[Hugh Robjohns]

Hi !
Is Leslie Effect and Rotary Effect the same thing?

To all intents and purposes, yes.

The 'rotary effect' refers to a system originally created by placing rotating baffles or horns in front of loudspeakers to 'throw' sound around the room. This introduces a complex combination of vibrato and tremolo to the source sounds. Originally used on organs, but later became popular on guitars, electric pianos, and even vocals.

There are normally two or three speeds of operation: (off), slow (chorale) and fast (tremolo), but the way the speed changes -- ramps up and down between chorale and tremlo -- is critical to the effect and the high and low frequencies typically change rates differently.

Leslie is the best known maker of physical rotary speakers, and strongly associated with Hammond organs, but there were other brands all with variations on the theme, including Sharma, Elka, Roland, Yamaha and others.

[Wonks]

And there are numerous variations on rotating speaker cabinets, some with a single speaker, some with bass speaker and treble horns, some cabinets where bass and treble speakers/horns both rotate, and some where only the bass or treble speaker/horn rotates.

[Folderol]

Also because of the way the real thing throws sound around, the room it's in can make a lot of difference to what you hear, and why a recording never seems to sound quite right.

[Luke W]

I've always quite fancied building a rotary cabinet. I have absolutely no need for one, but it'd be a fun project.