Overview

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.

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 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.

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)

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 14 Sonoma (64-bit)
    - 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+

Listen

Reviews

UVI Rotary | Richard Hilton
"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."
Richard Hilton
Producer, Engineer & Musician
(Nile Rodgers, Chic, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Elton John)
UVI Rotary | Braddon Williams
"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."
Braddon Williams
Producer & Engineer
(Beyoncé, Snoop Dogg, Toni Braxton)
UVI Rotary | Benjamin Rice
"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."
Benjamin Rice
Grammy Nominated Record Producer, Vocal Producer, Musician & Mix Engineer
(Lady Gaga, Selena Gomez, Julia Michaels, Nick Jonas, John Legend)
Rotary | Music Tech
“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.”
Rotary | Pro Tools Expert
"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 | Gearspace
"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."
Rotary | Ask Audio
"From screaming B3 sounds to lush and ‘warbly’ guitar tones, Rotary provided the gamut of speaker emulation that I was looking for."
Rotary | Synth Anatomy
"UVI 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."
Rotary | Mixing With Mike
"There's just loads of creative things that you can really do when you drive into Rotary. You get a lot of really unique tonal characteristics that make this a really, really, really cool plugin! There's nothing else that I've seen out there like this in an emulation."
Rotary | FLStudioMusic
“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.”
Rotary | 2probeats
UVI Rotary | How Does It Sound?
Rotary | Sample Library Review
First Look: Rotary by UVI
Rotary | John Mike
Rotary by UVI Review

User Testimonials

"Very nice emulation. You've managed to convince a hardcore Leslie user he needs this."Chimuelo, V.I. Control
"Good to have Acceleration and Deceleration time for the Drum and Horn separately."Jerome F., YouTube
"Simply stunning to my ears. One of the best plugs ever."Ykepa, Gearspace
"Well featured and really easy to use UI."Deng, Gearspace
"Great idea and controls."Kurtvanzo, V.I. Control
"Very flexible."World Studios, Gearspace
"Sounds stunning."Rezr EX, Facebook
"CPU usage, sound quality, etc. it wins everything!"Kevin L.
"The speed change drift and general effect are pretty authentic."Purple Jewls, YouTube

demo version

Please enter your email address to download the unrestricted 15-day trial version:

Back To Top

Vintage Vault 2 Pricing

Full Price
$599
Upgrade from Vintage Vault
$299
Upgrade from single product(s)
$499
Connect to your account to see if you qualify for upgrades
Pricing Terms and Conditions

Owners of Vintage Vault are eligible for upgrade pricing (see table for details)

Owners of individual product(s) included in Vintage Vault 2 totaling in value of $149 or more (MSRP) are eligible for upgrade pricing (see table for details)

Upgrade pricing is available to people who have purchased individual products anytime, including those obtained during promotions

NFR licenses may not be upgraded

Resale of individual products obtained in a bundle or used to upgrade to a bundle are not allowed

Vintage Vault 3 Pricing

Full Price
$599
Upgrade from single product(s)
$499
Upgrade from Vintage Vault
$299
Connect to your account to see if you qualify for upgrades
Pricing Terms and Conditions

Owners of Vintage Vault and Vintage Vault 2 are eligible for upgrade pricing (see table for details)

Owners of individual product(s) included in Vintage Vault 3 totaling in value of $149 or more (MSRP) are eligible for upgrade pricing (see table for details)

Upgrade pricing is available to people who have purchased individual products anytime, including those obtained during promotions

NFR licenses may not be upgraded

Resale of individual products obtained in a bundle or used to upgrade to a bundle are not allowed

Vintage Vault 4 Pricing

Full Price
$599
Upgrade from single product(s)
$499
Upgrade from Vintage Vault
$299
Connect to your account to see if you qualify for upgrades
Pricing Terms and Conditions

Owners of any version of Vintage Vault are eligible for upgrade pricing (see table for details)

Owners of individual product(s) included in Vintage Vault 4 totaling in value of $149 or more (MSRP) are eligible for upgrade pricing (see table for details)

Upgrade pricing is available to people who have purchased individual products anytime, including those obtained during promotions

NFR licenses may not be upgraded

Resale of individual products obtained in a bundle or used to upgrade to a bundle are not allowed



Key Suite Bundle Edition pricing

Full Price
$349
Intro pricing
$249
Upgrade from single product(s)
If you are eligible, your discount voucher is available here when logged in
Pricing Terms and Conditions

Introductory and upgrade prices available through April 30th, 2020.

Owners of individual products included within the bundle have received a tiered discount voucher by mail, and can also see it at uvi.net/discount. The discount voucher can be used on top of the introductory price and is available once through April 30th, 2020.

NFR licenses may not be upgraded.

Resale of individual products obtained in a bundle or used to upgrade to a bundle are not allowed.