UVI Rotary

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.

Taking its name and inspiration from these classic spinning speakers, Rotary represents the modern evolution of this classic design, delivering both a faithful reproduction of the original cabinets and providing a highly versatile and customizable musical tool for today's artists and audio professionals. A simple and intuitive interface provides for a workflow that's both fast and inspiring, while precise stereo mic placement and deep back panel controls allow for a huge range of tonal possibilities. Rotary can add another dimension to any sounds or instruments (even vocals), enhance harmonics and create a sensation of movement and depth.

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.

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 and 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.

A Future Classic
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.

• 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)