PSP L’otary is a master emulation of Don Leslie’s rotary speaker cabinet he invented seven years after the introduction of the Hammond organ in 1935. In fact the L’otary’s algorithms are based upon the two original Leslie® 122 and 147 speakers that were usually sold to accom- pany Hammond organs.
L’otary is not a simulated modulation effect plug-in; there are cool graphics showing the speed (visually) of the rotors and programmable independence between the drum (bass) and horn (treble) speakers.
I installed in my Pro Tools 11 HD rig and started inserting L’otary on every instrument to generate ideas. It was excellent on electric pianos—I preferred it without the amplifier’s color switched in. Any synth organ will sound very authentic and distorted guitars take on a nasty tone with the Leslie speaker’s upper mid-range peakiness. I found the “relaxed” or “old rotary” presets good starting points to start tweaking rotating distorted guitar sounds.
PSP’s L’otary will become the standard rotary speaker plug-in because of its great sound and its intriguing and vast programmability. It is available for Windows and Mac OS X in VST, AU, AAX32/64 and RTAS plug-in formats and sells for $99 MSRP.
pspaudioware.com/plugins/multimode_effects/psp_lotary
Barry Rudolph is a recording engineer/mixer who has worked on over 30 gold and platinum records. He has recorded and/or mixed Lynyrd Skynyrd, Hall & Oates, Pat Benatar, Rod Stewart, the Corrs, and more. Barry has his own futuristic music mixing facility and loves teaching audio engineering at Musician’s Institute, Hollywood, CA. He is a lifetime Grammy-voting member of NARAS and a contributing editor for Mix Magazine. barryrudolph.com
