Included in

The Evolution of Tonal Revolution

Exacting rotary speaker emulation with modern controls

Independent mic placement for sophisticated tone shaping

A multitude of uses: keyboard, guitar, vocals, and more...

Originally invented in the 1940's, rotary speaker cabinets imaginatively employ the Doppler effect by firing a woofer into a rotating drum and a tweeter into a rotating horn. The results are much more harmonic than typical tremolo or vibrato effects, producing sounds ranging from rich and shimmering to gentle, dreamy and swirling. These novel speakers were quickly adopted by jazz organists, cemented by blues and rock legends such as Buddy Guy, Jimi Hendrix, Robin Trower, Pink Floyd and The Beatles, and later the effect simulated by guitar pedal manufacturers.
Instantly made famous by the Beatles hit 'Strawberry Fields Forever' and used by countless others including The Moody Blues, Rolling Stones, and prog rock legends Yes, this was the 'must-have' sound of the 60's. While its use fell out of fashion the implications it made have become fundamental to modern music production.

Discover Rotary

Overview

Approach

The sound of rotary cabinets comes from the combination, mixing and balancing of numerous components including cabinet, horn and drum speakers, motor, belt, amplifier and the box diffusion itself. Our goal was not only to accurately reproduce each working part but to give complete parametric control over its internal mechanism, allowing the creation of effects well beyond what was possible on the original units.
Several rotary speaker cabinets were extensively modeled, taking into account physical construction, electronics and acoustic profiles including frequency response, harmonic distortion, diffusion and more. Careful testing, calibration and optimization of these models has yielded surprisingly efficient algorithms that are both faithful in sound to their hardware counterparts and light on CPU requirements.

In-Depth

Interactive Mic Placement

Rotary allows for near-effortless placement and fine-tuning of microphone position via simple click-drag and macro controls. Asymmetry, automation, stereo field tweaks and easy A/B auditioning are all possible, allowing you to easily dial in the tone you’re after without the hassle and space requirements of a physical speaker and mics.

Independent Horn and Drum Controls

Independent and deep control over the horn and drum sections of the rotary cabinet provide an incredible sonic palette. Easily set their level on the front panel or jump over to the back panel to reconfigure Rotary’s inner-mechanism for subtle to extreme results.

Mix and Sculpt Your Sound

Easily mix and shape your sound with discrete filters for the horn and drum. Adjust horn radius, cabinet size and reflections until it blends in or stands out of your mix just the way you want. Change the horns directivity for an in-your-face rock sound or leave the default engaged for lush chorusing.

Acceleration & Deceleration

Adjust the acceleration and deceleration times of the horn and drum independently, a challenging feat on the real speakers, allowing the creation of hybrid modes capable of producing far-out Doppler shifts that would otherwise be unimaginable.

Features

Custom microphone placement (hemispherical)
Intuitive macro controls (width, distance, skew) and independent click-drag microphone placement
3D real-time ray-traced early reflections, simulating up to third order
Shape sounds naturally (metrics based on original horn / drum directivity measurements)
Precise angular Doppler effect
Realistic sound diffusion for open and closed box configurations
Precise tone reproduction (measured horn / drum impulse responses)
Amplifier Drive: faithful reproduction of even / odd harmonics
Amplifier Pre-Emphasis control (compensates horn frequency response)
Rotary brings a vintage effect into the modern age with intuitive and deep controls, a fast workflow and a sophisticated engine. Explore it on a multitude of uses from keyboard and guitar setups to contemporary sounds, vocals and more, and see why Rotary is destined to become a future classic.

Listen

UVI

Reviews

Richard Hilton

Producer, Engineer & Musician

David Bowie, Diana Ross, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Elton John

"

Rotary presents a totally convincing emulation of the classic sounds of the rotating speaker, and gives a wide variety of parameters that allow complete control. It’s an indispensable tool.

"

Braddon Williams

Producer & Engineer

Beyoncé, Snoop Dogg, Toni Braxton

"

The control you get with Rotary is amazing, and the GUI is gorgeous. It adds vibe and character straight away. Since getting Rotary, I think I'll look at selling my Leslie.

"

Benjamin Rice

Grammy Nominated Record Producer, Musician & Mix Engineer

Lady Gaga, Selena Gomez, Julia Michaels, Nick Jonas, John Legend

"

I wish I’d have found Rotary sooner. The ability to slap it on any source material and make it sound like it’s running through a Leslie is invaluable.

"
"From screaming B3 sounds to lush and ‘warbly’ guitar tones, Rotary provided the gamut of speaker emulation that I was looking for."
"Rotary is an excellent new emulation of the classic rotary speaker. If you switch to the second GUI page, the plugin shows the real power behind this machine."
"Probably the best on its class when it comes to ease of use. Rotary does basically everything right in this department with a clean interface."
"Psychedelic loveliness! I absolutely love it. It's a great sounding plugin with lots of creative horny retro charm. This feels almost like an instrument."
"Rotary is a no brainer. It sounds fantastic, the result is that beautifully 'aged' sound with subtle or more evident (depending on your needs) vibrato and tremolo effects, with an in-depth stereo microphone placement."
"The interface is simply stunning and by that, we mean ‘simple’ and ‘stunning’. And it’s a stunning plug-in effect that almost becomes a creative synth on any sound you choose. Superb."

How Does It Sound?

2probeats

First Look: Rotary by UVI

Sample Library Review

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Specs

Licensing:

3 activations per license on any combination of machines or iLok dongles

System requirements:

  • 300 MB of disk space (Mac Installer: 157 MB ; Windows32 Installer: 253 MB ; Windows64 Installer: 203 MB)

  • 4 GB RAM
  • Supported Operating Systems:
    • - MacOS 10.14 Mojave to macOS 26 Tahoe
    • - Windows 10 to Windows 11 (64-bit)
  • iLok account (free, dongle not required)
  • Internet connection for the license activation

Compatibility:

Supported Formats:

Audio Unit, AAX, VST, VST3

Tested and certified in:

Digital Performer 8+, Pro Tools 2019+, Logic Pro X+, Cubase 7+, Nuendo 6+, Ableton Live 8+, Studio One 2+, Garage Band 6+, Maschine 1+, Tracktion 4+, Vienna Ensemble Pro 5+, Reaper 4+, Sonar X3+, MainStage 3, MuLab 5.5+, FL Studio, Bitwig 1+, Reason 9.5+, Ability 1+

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