Speaking of rotary — Klevgrand

Isn't there something magical about rotary speakers and their whirls of modulation? Our take on the magic of rotating modulation is Spinn. It consists of four rotors, and together with a powerful amp and room simulator, this makes the rotary effect customizable for a lot of different styles and purposes.

History

The rotary speakers were first used for organs, but has been used to enrich many other instruments and sounds since then. The old rotary speakers usually consists of two rotors, one for the treble and one for the bass. Our take on the magic of rotating modulation is Spinn. And it, on the other hand, consists of four rotors - each affecting their individual frequency band. Together with a powerful amp and room simulator, this makes the rotary effect customizable for a lot of different styles and purposes.

Have a listen to a few different ways to utelize Spinn on a guitar in the example below. Before a reverb, after our amp simulator STARK and on an aux channel.

Three examples of Spinn used on guitar. Pre reverb, post STARK (our sophisticated amp simulator), and on an aux channel.

Multiband -what?

Modulation. The core of this special sound lies in the combination of amplitude and frequency modulation. Amplitude modulation (or tremolo) is the raising and lowering of volume, while frequency modulation (or vibrato) is the rising and falling of pitch.

I look at it as a speeding car around a track. When the car is far away, its volume is lower. As it approaches, the volume increases - until it vanishes again. But the sound of the car is not only changing in dynamic, it moves from side to side. As does the sound of the rotor, and this is controlled with the size of each rotor. At the same time, when the car comes towards you, its pitch will rise. But as it swooshes past you, the pitch will fall, much like the Doppler effect. The amplitude and frequency modulates according to the speed of the rotor.

Have a listen to the modulation on this example containing Rhodes and vibraphone.

Spinn used on Rhodes and vibraphone.

Speed and reactivity

Having established that the rotor speed affects the amplitude and frequency modulation - the acceleration and deceleration of the speed is a significant part to make this effect rich and complex. There are three things within Spinn that contributes to this: First, the different speed modes (slow, fast and off) with their respective speed controls; Secondly, the acceleration and deceleration controls; And third, the velocity reactivity of each band. This last one means that the input volume on each band can affect the speed of its rotor. So for example, if the low-mid frequencies are very loud, the low-mid-rotor will increase its speed. At the same time, if the high frequencies are very quiet, the high-frequency-rotor will not increase its speed. It's quite simple.

You set the speed.
You set how long it will take for the rotor to reach that speed.
You set how much the speed will increase (or decrease) depending on the input.

The capacity to make these shifts in rotation speeds is a large part of the musical expression of Spinn.

Take special note of the velocity reactivity in the Organ example below.

An example of the velocity reactivity of Spinn.

Amp and room - making things come to life

Of course we didn't think it would be enough with only rotary modulation when we set out to build Spinn. We wanted to make a plugin that could bring life to even the dullest of monotone sounds. So we included both an room simulator and an amp. You're gonna wanna add some grit and warmth to that sound ey! As with an old cabinet tube amp, you can get that grungy retro vibe with a lot of overdrive and the amps Hot mode - or you can settle on the more Clean amp mode and leave the overdrive altogether. With the placement of the amp in one of the three different sized rooms, the amps EQ and the overall stereo width, we wanted to make an easy way to find a natural sound in the mix.

Have a listen to how we de-harsh a digital synth with Spinn (among other things).

An example of how we de-harsh a digital synth.

If you've read this far, I would only want to leave you with one last thing. Be creative. Try Spinn on drums, vocals, as a unique stereo widener, make spinning cats! You'll come up with a lot more uses than me at this late hour.

Here are longer and uninterrupted versions of the examples above, if you just can't get enough.

Klevgränd Products · Spinn Audio Examples

Written by Tove Gustafsson (masters degree in music production, working at Klevgränd since 2018.)