The Steel Guitar Forum

These gadgets come and go. There have been several units designed to mimic the doppler effect so common with certain organ techniques. I suppose they keep popping up as the older technology fades.

One of the best organ sounding units, not just a leslie imitator I ever heard is the H&K Rotosphere.

I think it was Lee Brothers with one in the Derby room at St. Louis one year. That thing sounded as near to a B3 organ as anything I ever heard short of the real thing.

I haven't heard these new POG units you guys are talking about. They might be as good, I don't know. I'd have to hear one to comment on them.

I haven't heard these new POG units you guys are talking about. They might be as good, I don't know. I'd have to hear one to comment on them.

To hear it Click on the Picture below...

To my way of thinking, the Pog2 is what makes your steel sound like an organ with no Leslie. Of course the Pog2 does a lot more, like cool flute sounds.

The H&K Rotoshpere, or Line 6 Roto-Machine adds the Leslie sound to either your basic steel sound or to the organ sound you are getting out of the Pog2.

I just completed a series of audio demos of the H&K Rotosphere by itself and with the Pog2. I'll have these up on my web site by the end of this week.


Greg

Nice Doug..Had me looking for the collection plate.

Nice Doug..Had me looking for the collection plate.Might get Steelers more work playing at funerals..Now if only a device is invented that will make a steel sound like Bag Pipes.Think of the options.

Thanks for the sample Doug. It appears from their propaganda, this unit can do a lot of things. Nice pipe organ tone there. I don't hear the B3 sound, but that's probably due to the piece you were playing.

Anyhow, if it requires another piece of expensive gear to get the authentic B3 sound, that seems like a lot of bucks.

Whatever works though.

I'm quite with the Boss SX700 rack unit. I get all my other desired effects as well as some 20+ adjustable parameters in the rotary section and a great B3-esque tone.

I might be wrong about what Lee was using. That's just what someone told me. Maybe he'll look in on this post and tell us.

I used the GX-700 rack unit for quite a few years and it did have a pretty good Leslie sim altho not as good as the Roto-Machine or the Rotosphere. For just a couole of songs a night the GX-700 or similar unit works great.

The POG2 can get pretty close to a real 60's organ sound if you keep the -2 and +2 octaves set low, place way up above the 12th fret and mute the strings a bit. I use the POG2 and the Rotoshpere by themselves and together, they are totally separate effects. The Rotoshpere (versus the Roto-Machine) does have more of the vibrato sound that many organ players added to their Leslie sound.


Greg

My old Boss unit is a SX700 spatial processor, not the GX700 guitar processor.

It gives one specific control over many areas of the rotary section. It was designed, in some part, for use with keyboards along with vocals and other situations where spatial effects like chorus, reverb, delay, rotary, 3D RSS, 4 part harmony etc. might be desirable.

Anyhow, it's out of production now, so if and when if fails, I guess I'll look for something else.

Can the Pog do the Farfisa Combo Compact sound? Then I could play "96 Tears!"

I just noticed that electro-harmonix has posted one of my videos on their main page for the POG2.
Pretty cool ----> Click

Just to throw this into the thread--first recorded example I know of a steel guitar doing the organ this is Norm Hamlet w/Merle Haggard & the Strangers, who played his pedal steel through a Leslie on a few songs on the Strangers instrumental albums. The only song that comes to mind is "The Waltz of Enchantment" but I think there are a few.

Deke

P.S. This was in 1967, just as a frame of reference.