Getting weird low-end thumps with harder picking when using the rotary speaker effect. Tweaked many things, including input gain, yet it persists. Kind of annoying.
Ideas?
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In my opinion the this effect is the worst rotary I’ve ever heard and easily the worst effect in the Quad. It is an effect that I use, or would use if Neural can get it fixed or replaced like they did with the Flanger.
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I’ve had a reasonably good experience with the QC rotary effect. To get the best results, use two in parallel with slightly different speeds and ramp times, using one for just the horn and the other for just the bass. This gives a more realistic sound and feel. A real Leslie uses different motors for the top and bottom, and this simulates that behavior. A Leslie may have a bit of a thump from the bottom drum as it goes in and out of phase. Try adjusting the horn/bass balance or use a bit of EQ.
You can also try mixing in some dry signal to get a more balanced tone. Too bad the block is missing a mix control causing you to have to use a parallel path to do this simple operation.
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Interesting. Great ideas, thanks. You say it thumps when it goes in and out of phase. The thump I’m talking about is caused by picking dynamics. Harder picking causes the unpleasant thumping. Almost like an odd clipping or like a speaker is bottoming out. But gain staging doesn’t help. Have you had this experience?
No I haven’t. I have an H&K Rotosphere, and the QC Leslie sound a lot like it to me.
Actually the vibrato block is a pretty decent leslie sound. I set the speed at 6.5k and that gets a generic rotary sound. It is almost as good as the AXFX rot which a very good rotary. You can even a bit of flange to get it better. It doesn’t degrade the sound of the guitar as much a the rotary block seems to do…again not sure why this block is not working correctly, but hopefully that will get addressed.
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we need a better rotary, please.
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I liked your idea here of using two. I took this one step further and divided a dedicated L and R horn on parallel paths and then as you describe, another parallel path for the bass speaker with a different acceleration time.
It’s not a revelation, but it does sound better than the basic rotary block to my ears. If anyone wants to check it out and offer some feedback I put them up in the cloud. Go to jamtagg and look for Dbl Rotary and Triple_Rotary. Different versions and one with rising degrees of saturation to add a bit of that fuzzy edge like I hear in some organs (think John Medeski ,or Jesse Gibbons from Schleigho). Check 'em out and enjoy!
One note, and most of you have probably figured this out by now…you can’t assign the speed parameter of the rotary block to a footswitch on the QC. I have a note in with them to address this in a future update. The way around it os to assign one of your external inputs (expression or footswitch). You’ll have to do that for all of the rotary blocks individually, and make sure they all start on either slow or fast collectively, but it works.
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Update here. Was hoping for a better solution in the CoreOS 2.0 update but alas. Went with A fender Pinwheel on the FX loop (running in stereo) and it sounds great! It’s an extra piece of gear and I was hoping they would have allowed plugins in some way with this version. Sure would be great to have a plugin-capable platform to run VSTs on QC, but perhaps in time. Finger crossed, but for now I have a great sounding solution.