From jukefox@jukejoynt.com Tue May 29 12:41:59 2012
Subject:Neo Vent/VB3 rotary sim control

Hi guys...I'm certain this has been discussed before, but I do not
remember the verdict and cannot seem to find the threads regarding this
quickly in the archives because, due to the sheer volume of Vent
discussion (and the high activity level of this list in general),
searches reveal waayyyy tooo many hits, irrespective of term
specificity.

I'm considering jumping on the Vent bandwagon for late-night home
recording, but I have two simple "yes or no" questions, to which "no"
answers pretty much negate Vent usefulness for my particular
application:

1) Is the Vent MIDI controllable? I do not see a MIDI port of any sort
in the photos on Neo's site, seemingly indicating that it is not.

2) Is the lower rotor portion of the sim capable of being switched to
stationary, (or alternatively "fast/off") operation while the upper horn
maintains fast/chorale function.

I'd like to read the same answers from you VB3 users regarding that
VSTi's rotary sim capabilities as well.

The reasoning behind this line of questioning is two-fold. For query 1,
my DAW certainly will allow me to record my B-3's audio (via line-out)
or the Kronos' CX3 engine directly, either processed through an external
box (such as a Ventilator) first or later via an effects send. An
effect (either a Vent or VST sim) should likewise be controllable
independently (by way of a concurrent midi track) to kick in/out
precisely when I would like. It seems to me that such a control option
should be part of the current Vent product, or alternatively, a
"Ventilator Rack," designed specifically as a studio effect so that, in
a recording environment, the rotary's dynamics performance is
repeatable, irrespective of the program material (audio) it is
processing. The lack of this utility would seem to be quite a large
oversight on Neo's part, if they intended this unit to become a "must
have" audio processing product for anything other than live performance,
at least to me.

As to the second inquiry, unplugged lower rotors have been intrinsic to
my "sound" and playing style since the 60s. Some refer to this as "the
Memphis Sound," although I started doing this in Tulsa and had never
heard of "the Memphis Sound" prior. My intent was to clean up the lows
and mid-range portions of our sound and avoid some of the muddiness I
heard in other bands with Hammonds playing our circuits.

It would be a bit of an inconvenience to me to have to work around the
inability to have a stationary down-firing woofer by creating two
separate tracks (one with the overall effect "on" where desired and one
with the effect "stopped" throughout) and having to merge them in post
after processing each through the appropriate high/low band pass filters
set at 800hz (a 122's crossover frequency) to retain/remove the desired
harmonic content.

It is doubtful that such VST effects would produce a high degree of
authenticity, unless they are able to faithfully recreate the proper
roll-off characteristics of 122/145 series Leslie crossovers...which are
undoubtedly modelable in a VST effect (they had to do something similar
for upper/lower rotor discretion in the Vent and VB3 effects)...and
perhaps reproducible in a fourth-order Butterworth filter emulation or
some such...but this is minutiae of knowledge I do not possess, despite
my desire to implement its potential results.

Is someone on this list able to enlighten me as to how this might work
in a studio processing environment, in the event that the current crop
of VST effects don't have these bases covered...which it's looking more
and more to me as if they don't.

Bruce? Steve? Lorrie? (haven't heard much from you two lately) Norm?
Craig? Simon Beck? Anyone with relevant (reli-Vent?) studio
experience????!

Best,
Fox

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