Need a better Leslie/Rotary speaker effect!

  • You all can do this! Grab a Strymon Lex for reference. Mostly, need variable speed/rate from fast to slow. Thanks!

    this has been asked for many times. CK has so far refused with the reasoning that you can’t vary the speeds on a real Leslie so the current one is authentic. However, it is also clear that Kemper do listen to their customers and do try to deliver what people want when resources allow. I would bet that this is already on the development list but they have had higher priorities recently including the new reverbs, Stage, editor and Kemper Cab projects. None of these really excite me (although I’m happy for all those who were asking for them) but a better Leslie and a Univibe to compete with my Roger Mayer Voodoo Vibe would be really exciting for me. I’m sure my time will come. Good things come to those who wait :S

  • I owned a very lot of Leslie-simulations (and I mean a lot, and all of the above mentioned) and also the real Thing (vibratone and also a self-built cab). The Lex-Rotary is the only one I still own, but not because it was better than the Kemper-Stomp-effect. (Maybe a Univibe is a different Thing).

    The Kemper Stomp is really versatile and I can't imagine not to get a suitable Sound out of it.

    Ok. the ramp-function could be the only aspect of improvement but soundwise I'm at the end of my search.

  • Yes, the Kemper Leslie is very good and apart from the varispeed requests is about as good as it gets imho.

    On the real thing you did have a belt adjust for plus & minus a few rpm on the horn .....

    Be thankful that you don't have to carry the real thing || and put up with the maintenance and wind noise :D

  • I find the Leslie to be really spikey and over distorted. Be great to be able to change the gain on it to be able to clean it up somewhat. Trying to use it with a very clean compressed guitar sound and it's just too distorted. I know that grit works for most things but not for a really ultra clean sound where you just cannot dial it out.

  • Maybe a hint the variable speed for the rotary effect is in the works ?


    @theoknzg



    Be aware, that the speed of the Rotary Speaker is not a continuous parameter (yet) and therefor cannot be morphed. Rotary Speaker Speed works like the speed switch of a real Leslie cabinet, where you just toggle between high and low speed and the engine accelerates or slows down accordingly.

    New talent management advice to Laura Cox -


    “Laura want to break the internet? let’s shoot another video of you covering the Nightrain solo in the blue singlet, but this time we’ll crank up the air conditioning”.

  • I find the Leslie to be really spikey and over distorted. Be great to be able to change the gain on it to be able to clean it up somewhat. Trying to use it with a very clean compressed guitar sound and it's just too distorted. I know that grit works for most things but not for a really ultra clean sound where you just cannot dial it out.

    have you tried the factory rig "CK Rotary Speaker"?

  • What is your Gain set to and are you clipping the Input or Output?

    If Gain is set to zero, is it still dirty over headphones?

    Are you maybe running your signal too hot into whatever follows the PROFILER?

    On my clean setting (profile of CAE 3+SE clean channel not pristine. Has a little harmonic stuff going on but nowhere near even semi breaking up) Think gain is about 2.? Even when turning the gain to zero, the Leslie is a grittier sound on top of it. I am going into an Behringer X32 (with headroom to spare before hitting 0db on the meters) into a Turbosound system supposedly rated at 11kw on paper.

    My clean sound is not breaking up, only the Leslie sounds slightly crunchy. All other chorus, micro pitch etc are working cleanly. Even messed with the vibrato effect and got closer to what I needed as it was at least clean.

    Off down to the studio in a while to give a few ideas a go.

    Thanks for the reply.

  • To be fair a Leslie was originally a valve amp driving the speaker and the real thing could get pretty crunchy if driven. I think that gritty sound is kind of what moany people think of when they think Leslie. Although the CK Rotary preset don't sound at all gritty or over driven to me. I just wish there was more ability to tailor the speed than there is at present.

  • All the popular Leslie amps were valve (122, 145/7, 251 etc) but there were transistor amps used in other models.

    The 9 series was a later popular choice in the clubs, very loud but covered in black tolex.

    The Leslie 147 was the one used on many classic recordings.


    Yamaha had nice RA 50/100/200 watt transistor models that all featured jack inputs.

    Gilmour used to use the 200w in the 70's and early 80's. I had the 50 watt model and with it's chrome stand and castors looked 8)

    and sounded 'clean'.

    The effect of the spinning sideways eliptical speaker was far more pronounced then a Leslie and would be interesting to have a profile if

    anyone still has one ...?

  • Isn't Kemper in a way related to NEO Instruments? The mini vent II just sounds amazing on guitar, even so much, that I don't care how realistic it is. But I WANT it so badly in my Kemper!

    Stage user

  • Isn't Kemper in a way related to NEO Instruments? The mini vent II just sounds amazing on guitar, even so much, that I don't care how realistic it is. But I WANT it so badly in my Kemper!

    have you tried Profiling it?

    from the manual:


    "PROFILING a Rotary Speaker Cabinet


    The PROFILER already ships with a Rig named “CK Rotary Speaker”, captured from the real thing, but if you have access to a different brand of rotary speaker, you can take your own PROFILEs, too.

    To do this, first set up the rotary speaker as you would in a normal recording situation. Next, connect the whole chain to the PROFILER, just as you would with a guitar amp. This time, however, two microphones should be used to capture the cabinet - one for the bass rotor, and one for the tweeter horn.

    Connect the microphones to a mixer, create a mono mix of the two, and send this to the RETURN of the PROFILER. The idea is for both microphones to be captured at the same time, resulting in a single PROFILE. Now, switch your rotary speaker to high speed and start the PROFILING procedure. The PROFILING process will ignore the rotation of the speaker and only capture the typical sound character. The resulting PROFILE will probably sound weird and uninspiring on its own, but when you engage the effect type Rotary Speaker in the MOD module, you’ll hear the rich and animated sound of your original rotary speaker cabinet.

    ✓ Tip: Although the PROFILE is captured in mono, you can use the Rotary Speaker in the X, MOD or DLY module to recreate the typical stereo movement of the signal. The Rotary Speaker effect will automatically separate the bass rotor from the tweeter horn."