So I'm Jonesin' for a Leslie, looking for the Mountain, Humble Pie, Procol Harum sound. Been looking at some effect pedals, and have tried a few, but most color the sound too much, are too noisy, or just don't do the Leslie sound right. Now I'm looking at the Motion Sound Pro-X. Haven't been able to try one, most local stores don't stock them. I've seen all the reviews and listened to all the You Tube sound tracks. My question, is anyone using one of these boxes and can you give me the good and bad?

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Doing the work of three men. . . Larry, Moe & Curly

When I was about 22 years old, inspired by the Arc Angels song “Good Time”, I started looking for a convincing Leslie simulator. At the time there were very few people making any sort of Leslie/rotary cabinet for a decent price, and the weight/price/availability issues made the purchase of one unfeasible. Little did I know that it would take me about 15 years to find something that worked for me.

I tried multiple pedals that supposedly had “that” sound, but all of them fell short in one way or another. Here’s what my experiences were (not in chronological order):

The highly-touted H&K Rotosphere was noisy, shrill, noisy, brittle, noisy and a bit pricey. And noisy. A pedal that expensive and that (supposedly) well-built should not have that much hiss. I was disgusted by the three different Rotospheres I tried before writing it off.

The Line 6 POD (vs. 1) had a decent rotary simulator for studio work, but it was hard to use live and in conjunction with an amp (I use one extensively in the studio). The various Line 6 pedals that had a Leslie simulation were all too “vanilla” sounding, without the dynamic Doppler sound needed (even when played in stereo) and they tended to sound a bit too digital…and several of the sounds were too brittle and bright as well (no warmth).

Dunlop Roto-Vibe wasn’t bad, but it was more of a poor-man’s Uni-vibe type clone, and it just didn’t “cut it” for me. Ditto for the Uni-Vibe (both the original, which I can’t afford and the reissue, which I can afford); it’s a very cool effect, but it’s not the same as a Leslie.

I bought a Digitech Eric Clapton Crossroads pedal, and I wanted it to work so badly I could taste it…the tone was really good, the size was perfect, but it was just too noisy. I took it back within two weeks.

Motion Sound started making some real rotary speaker cabinets, and they sounded great…but they were expensive and the real estate on a stage is pretty expensive.

The Little Lanelei (spelling?) cabinet looked cool and sounded like a good idea, but I had a hard time letting go of that kind of money, sight unseen (or sound unheard, as the case may be). I didn’t have high-speed internet at the time, so I couldn’t listen to the sound clips, and they would not take the unit back if the customer didn’t like the sound.

The Danelectro Rocky Road just didn’t cut it, and on the other end of the price spectrum , the
Electro Harmonix Wiggler didn’t either. Both were just a bit too vanilla…

There was a pedal called the Peavey Delta Stomp that had a bunch of digital effects such as chorus, flanger, ping-pong delay, tremolo, etc., (some were good, some were “meh”); believe it or not, this was the best of the rejects. I had one for about two years. The only problem it had (and this is a problem with many digital effects, especially in the early days) was the occasional digital “artifact” that would make the tone just go to crap. The only way to correct it was to disconnect it from the power supply, count to twenty and plug it back in. The second time it did that during a performance was the last time I used it. I sold it a week later.

Something I did that actually didn’t sound bad (although it was far from a true Leslie sound) was set my MXR Phase 90 to a very fast setting and then put a slower tremolo pulse (from my Vibroverb’s vibrato circuit) at the same time. It was a cool, funky setting, but it still wasn’t “right”.

Then I found the Boss RT-20…

I generally don’t go ga-ga over Boss effects, although there are a few that I like. I love my old TU-2 Chromatic tuner—it is truly transparent and dead-on accurate. I like the Blues Drivers, and if I weren’t overdrive-pedal-poor, I would add one of those to my arsenal. Their Tremolo and Octave effects are both great, especially for the money. My drummer loves the orange Boss DS-1 distortion I gave him years ago for his guitar excursions.

But the RT-20 Rotary Ensemble had that funky headwhack tailspin (to quote Chris Duarte) that I was looking for…

I initially tried it at Guitar Center with a maple-fret-boarded Telecaster’s bridge pickup through a bright little solid state amp; I figured if put the effect into the brightest, shrillest rig I could find, it would tell me if this was “the one.”

It played beautifully—rich, dynamic, warm and a well-developed sense of space (which is hard to digitally replicate). Later, I took my own Pedalboard and played it through an amp similar to my Vibroverb, and it didn’t disappoint—in fact, it blossomed and sounded even richer. I played through one of these pedals multiple times before getting one, and each time I liked it a bit more. This was a good sign, because that meant it wasn’t just a “lust at first sight”/later buyer’s remorse situation.

Settings #1 & #2 were my favorite, but each of the settings had their own charm, and setting #4 (the Uni-vibe model) was pretty dang accurate as well. I like the spinning display (don’t look at it if you’re nauseas—it will put you over the edge). The only thing I didn’t like about the unit was the built-in overdrive (it just made the tone go to crap very quickly).

I can get the SRV “Cold Shot” sound, the Jimmie Vaughan “Tip On In” sound, the Kenny Wayne Sheppard “Blue on Black” sound, the Cream/Clapton "Badge" sound is in there too, but you have to play around with some external overdrive (via pedal or overdriven amp). The Bad Finger "Day After Day" thang is hiding in there as well.

...and it fit perfectly with my own creations that were craving a Leslie cabinet—“Monkey Hips” and “Travis County Line”…in short, it fulfilled what I had been looking for since I first heard the Arc Angels’ “Good Time” fifteen years prior.

I've owned this pedal for about five years now, and it still makes me happy; I haven't felt the need to replace it for anything I've heard since. I will continue to try new Leslie simulators, but I think this one is going to be it for quite a while.

PS—What was even cooler was the fact that the Lady Armadillo and the Armadillo Child bought the pedal for me for our wedding anniversary…very cool!

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Good Vibes To Y'all!



Screamin' Armadillos
Texas Roadhouse Music
Guitar/Slide Guitar/Harp/Vocals

Dude, thanks for the reviews, and I agree with all. Sort of surprised by the RT, will have to give it another go. I don't plan on gigging the box, just studio, so size doesn't matter.

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Doing the work of three men. . . Larry, Moe & Curly

http://www.hammondorganco.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=70&Itemid=134

There's really only one way to get the sound of a Leslie and that's to get a Leslie.

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Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.

Tech21 makes a unit called the RotoChoir that captures every nuance of the big Leslies that we saw with the Hammond B-3 organs.Like in the real units but purely synthesized you can have a virtual rotating bottom drum spinning slowly while the virtual top horns are spinning fast or vice versa.There is nothing available today in that price range (around $250)that comes close.You can find more info and maybe demos here: http://www.tech21nyc.com/

If you want the true Leslie experience Suzuki-Hammond is making a true Leslie,under licence,for guitar.It comes as a non powered unit for about $1,200 and a 100W unit for about $1,450. Sorry I don't have the link for that but it's under either Hammond-Suzuki or Suzuki-Hammond. Either way this model got excellent reviews aside from it being on the heavy side-about 90 lbs.-but whoever heard of a light Leslie?

Update : I just did some snooping and found more info.The new Leslies are the G-27 non-powered and the G-37 powered.You can get all the info at http://www.hammondorganco.com/ just go to the products box and click on Leslie and scroll down to G-27 & G-37 and click.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

Whale oil beef hooked! Lard tunderin', lookie dat! Shore by!

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Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.

Well sacred heart of jaysus BMW-KTM where did you learn Newfunese cockie?
Stay where you're to 'til I comes where you're at.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

Oy gets it frum me mudder.
Lang may yer big jib draw me son.

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Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.

The point I was attempting to draw your attention to is that I had posted the link already.

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Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.

I didn't follow your link,I thought that maybe you were pointing him to the behemoth cabinets that you'd see in a large cathedral or on stage with Keith Emerson.I remember back in the 60s and 70s they made beautiful black Tolex covered cabs with silver grilles,I'm not sure but I think that the models were 860 and 960 with the smaller being about 4 1/2 ft high while the other was about 6 ft. and needed about 4 gorillas to carry it.These were made specifically for band applications.

BTW. What part of the province is your mudder from?I know people from all over the province and literally almost every town or area due to the nature of my day job,plus I have a huge extended family spreading all over the province.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

As Well as the bbe soul vibe

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/guitars/bbe-soul-vibe-pedal/151034000000000

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Hey, Boy Blue is back!

I double on guitar and keyboards and needed a good Leslie sound for the organ I use. I tried the Boss RT20 and bought it immediately. It's great on the guitar, but on a Hammond clone it's just the ticket.

I'm intrigued by the new Strymon Lex rotary pedal, but it seems it's optimised for guitar rather than keys. That Company are building up a huge reputation in very quick time.

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Fender Highway & Classic 60s Strats, Fender Toronado, Telecaster, Gretsch Projet, Charvel 3, PRS SE Soapbar II & Custom 24, Burns Batwing and many others!

Gonna stick with the Motion Sound, there's some used ones out there that can be had for the cost of a pedal!

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Doing the work of three men. . . Larry, Moe & Curly