micro Vent 16 Rotary Speaker Simulator Pedal Review

Awesome Pedal

What I really like about this pedal is that it you can use it to add just a little depth and modulation without it becoming overwhelming. It is about as close to a Fender/Leslie vibratone as you can get without hauling around the real thing. Not cheap, but worth it. I find this is definitely an improvement over a standard chorus or phase effect.

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Great sound but very monophonic....

When Fender came out with the Vibratone in the '60's it seemed like they didn't exactly know what to do with it. In their catalogs it was featured on the keyboard page along with Fender's Contempo Combo Organ and the Fender Rhodes electric pianos, but the owner's manual showed a suitably mod young guy with a Telecaster posing with it. History has shown that the Vibratone has really… read more become a 'guitar' thing, but in the '60's many young organ players who couldn't afford a Hammond Organ got by with transistorized Combo Organs and for many of them (myself included), the Fender Vibratone was their first Leslie speaker. It was a good match; the combo organ's biting high frequencies didn't sound so great through a big Leslie's rotating treble horn, but the Vibratone rolled off the high frequencies and its single midrange speaker made for a sweet organ sound. As a collector of vintage combo organs, I've had my eye out for a Vibratone, but with guitar players hungry for them they're hard to find and afford. As a long-time user of the Neo Instruments Ventilators for Hammond type organs, I was pretty excited to hear their take on the Vibratone with a couple '60's combo organs. I played an old Farfisa and Vox through the Vent 16 and discovered a couple things - it really seemed to nail the sound. With the 'blend' all the way up and 'distance' pretty far away it sounds just right. The 'ramp' control is nice since the Vibratone with its single rotor could be adjusted the same way. The drawback is that the great thing about the Vibratone is that it sent the sound spinning vertically through the room (as opposed to the big Leslies' horizontal spin). Neo Instruments did such an incredible job creating the stereo spread with their Ventilator effects, it is incredibly disappointing that they made the 16 a mono effect. I was surprised how much I missed that stereo sound. This does leave me wondering if I should wait in case a Stereo Vent 16 might come out. Since I figured there are probably about 6 people in the world who would get this to use with actual vintage organs, I was going to pull out my old Telecaster and give it a go, but there are many guitarists out there far more qualified then me to do that. So, I wish it was stereo but I knew it was mono when I ordered it. If you'd be happy with a great mono Vibratone sound, this is for you. If you want that great stereo effect of the sound moving through the air, you might want to wait to see if a stereo version ever comes out.

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