XILS Labs LX122 Organ and Keyboard Companion

LX122/LX122 Premium Organ and Keyboard Companion
At the middle of the last Century, Mr. Leslie was disappointed by the sound of his just bought Hammond organ, comparing to what he has heard in the large showroom of the store. He then tried to design a system, which gave the same feeling of a pipe organ by a moving speaker. Further experimentations resulted in the familiar combination of a rotating drum and horn for bass and treble frequencies respectively, creating special audio effects using the Doppler effect.

Although there is a lot a various models, the classic Leslie speaker consists of two driver units – a stationary treble unit with spinning horns (called Horn here), and a stationary woofer and spinning rotor (called Drum here), with two filters, which divide the frequency spectrum between the horn and the woofer.

Both the horns and a sound baffle for the bass are rotated to create Doppler effect based vibrato, tremolo and chorus effects. The rotating elements can be stopped, switched between slow (chorale) and fast (tremolo), or transitioned between the two settings. Not only the unit gives this particular effect, but also the ensemble it creates with the room where it is located.

The LX122 emulates the Horn and the Drum, as well as the room where various coherent reflections are occurring when they are rotating. It also emulates the tube base amplifier as well as the intrinsic characteristics of the Drum (woofer response and drum size) or the Horn (Tweeter response, horn size and diffusers).

The internal cabinet reflections, which give this known mellow specific sound, are also taken into account but with the never done possibility to increase or decrease their effects, going from a standard closed cabinet to a opened air rotating speakers.

The LX122 is the indispensable companion for your keyboards and organ , but if you like to tweak parameters, if you want to build your own cabinet, change its characteristics, if you want to experiment further in recording this device, using two independent microphones in various rooms, then go to the LX122 Premium, you won’t be disappointed. A wide range of stereo effects, space feeling, pitch modifications are straight to your hands.

Features:

• Rooms can be changed, from an obvious “No Room” position to a “Complex” one, adding even more stereo and space feelings.
• IMPORTANT NOTICE : Some rooms (Medium2 or Complex) can use a lot of CPU, especially in the “Dual Mode” as a lot of coherent reflexions are calculated. Don’t be afraid, it’s worth it, but you can bypass them if needed !
• Microphones can be moved independently in all the rooms, with an easily stereo balance feature. Stereo space has never been bigger.
• Not only one cabinet is available, you can build your unit with or without the Horn or with or without the Drum.
• A never seen feature is also available : You can change the Horn diameter, you can’t do that in the real world.
• Do you know that the Drum is driven by a belt ? Obviously, time is not kind to belts and the LX122 Premium allows you to control the stretch of the belt, emulating age.
• In most of the real units, the drum is turning clockwise while the horn is turning counter-clockwise. This can also be changed and the selector can be modeled so that it changes randomly.
• Balance control between horn and drum.
• On real unit, the horn has a small metal part that spreads the high frequencies in all directions, giving a more mellow sound. But some players wanted a more “straight in your face” effect and they removed it. You can do this with the LX122 Premium !!

Studio Panel :

• This panel allow you to record your Speakers.
• This means that you can put your microphones where ever you want, close or far the speakers, aimed to them or forward the walls, choose your room between 5 models and choose its size  or add some reverb

Cabinet Panel :

• This panel allows you to build your own and unique Cabinet choosing to keep or remove the Horn or the drum, to keep a woofer or a tweeter.
• Acceleration and deceleration can be adapted to your music but you can also choose the rotating sense of either the Horn or the drum, even making them rotate randomly.
• Balancing between Horn and drum is very easy, but you can also remove the “deflectors” from the horn or increase its diameter, getting then more Doppler effects.