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UAD Waterfall Rotary Speaker


Larry Shelby

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Go far beyond boring modulation effects and get the world’s most authentic three-dimensional sounds of a vintage Leslie 147 rotary speaker cabinet* on your guitars, vocals, keys, and more for iconic textures heard on decades of legendary albums.

$99 intro price

https://www.uaudio.com/uad-plugins/delay-modulation/waterfall-rotary-speaker.html

 

Edited by cclarry
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We've closely examined, tested and compared all Leslie emulations over on the Cantabile forum including blind tests where we vote. I wanted to listen to Waterfall so I installed the UA Connect app and Waterfall shows up but when I click activate it fails. I'm not positive what "Native" means. On their website it says UA hardware not required. 

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43 minutes ago, Doug Steinschneider said:

We've closely examined, tested and compared all Leslie emulations over on the Cantabile forum including blind tests where we vote. I wanted to listen to Waterfall so I installed the UA Connect app and Waterfall shows up but when I click activate it fails. I'm not positive what "Native" means. On their website it says UA hardware not required. 

That's what "Native" means...that it requires no hardware.

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As usual a restart solved UA Connect issue - the activate button was replaced by download. The Waterfall Leslie sounds very good on first impression. I played VB3-II through it with its "native" Leslie off. VB3-II and Waterfall Rotary is a good combination. 

One issue off the bat is it doesn't look like I can assign one of my rotary controllers to Waterfall Rotary's drive knob. VB3-II has a drive control for the B3's amp but I like setting that lower and then adjust the Leslie's amp to increase the "grind". 

It doesn't appear to be hammering my CPU as much as the AmpliTube or T-Racks Leslie. 

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2 hours ago, mibby said:

The MVintage Rotary wasn't in the original blind test but some of the thread participants use and like it very much. They use something like Softube Saturation Knob or Klanghelm  IVGI saturator in between the B3 organ and the Melda Rotary.

 

Edited by Doug Steinschneider
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I thought this review from UAD's website was accurate for Waterfall B3 and Rotary:

H. Petersson
January 4, 2023

A mix ready B3 emulation

This is one of the best Hammond B3 emulations I've heard. I have compared it extensively to both the AcousticSamples B5 and IK Multimedias B-3x and it holds up really well.

It's a very simple plugin with few options compared to the other two I mentioned, but for what it does it works incredibly well. While the B-3x gives you the feeling of sitting in the room with a B3 this gives you a well recorded and balanced organ that is ready to be thrown into the mix with little effort, and there is so much value to that.

In contrast to many other B3 plugins there is no effects section between the organ and the speaker. I find it a bit strange since UA have many excellent effects that they could have just thrown in there. Like the TS9 for example. Instead, they chose to make it possible to drive the amp a bit further than what is normal. This works and it allows for more simplicity, but more tonal options would have been nice, since they don't provide you with a separate Leslie plugin. The only option if you want put effects in between is to buy a third-party Leslie emulation.

The Leslie emulation is really good, however. It is not as wide and larger than life as the one from IK, but it sounds like you would expect to sound a well miced Leslie to sound like on a record, which is what most people are looking for, I think. A stereo option for the drum would have been nice though.

It is very shy in the bass register, but it's possible to bring up the bass with a shelf EQ without it getting muddy so it's not a big deal. The amount of bass is by the default what you would set it in a band mix.

It would also have been nice if you could turn the click volume up a bit as they can be a bit too subtle in some cases.

But all in all, this is an excellent plugin. It is more tailored towards 70's rock/soul rather than jazz. It has a lot of energy to it, and it will fit well into a mix.

 

Edited by Doug Steinschneider
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The abundance in the market of Hammond B3 emulations makes my head spin. I still use the venerable VB3 1.4 for rock organ just because it sits in a live mix well and I know it. I bought VB3 II and the AmpliTube Leslie around the same time and used that combination for a while. One drawback for that combination is CPU load is the highest.  Blue3 comes with better range of presets (especially for rock covers) and has more tonewheel generator customization. Some people thought it was a little harsh on the high end, but I think that's fixed now. 

Then IK released B-3X and I settled on it for live band use and practicing. Sounds great and is simple to use. I think it is the logical successor to VB3 1.4

I bought Acouticsamples B5 v3 because it sounds the most real when played by itself. Its Leslie emulation is very good also. 

I play rock covers and also spend a lot of time jamming by myself in B3 trio mode using Jamstix for my drummer. 

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20 minutes ago, cclarry said:

This is a lot more bang for the buck, and you also get to pick a freebie, at $349

https://www.pluginboutique.com/product/1-Instruments/58-Inst-Bundle/10199-UAD-Creative-Edition?nosto=manufacturerpage-nosto-1

That is a tempting bundle but I'm already covered between the IK group buy T-Racks products, Cherry Audio and u-he vintage synths and the individual B3 products I already have.

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5 hours ago, Doug Steinschneider said:

This works and it allows for more simplicity, but more tonal options would have been nice, since they don't provide you with a separate Leslie plugin.

 

Am I stupid(er than normal) or... is there no way to pass external audio through the Leslie cab, bypassing the organ?  I can bypass the leslie cab, durr, but not the other way around.  

 

I suppose it’s possible they omitted this feature, but that would seem extremely short sited.  

booo!

Edited by e-cue
reading is fundamencian
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30 minutes ago, Bapu said:

Installed!

I was in the CH forum and saw you posted on this topic. Thought I would come here and see some kind of review of the new program from a UA user!!

 

How short sighted of me!!

Should have known better!!!

 

:) 

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PASS.
UAD has some great stuff but AFAIC (as someone who has several thousand plugins) their native plugins have arrived too late to the party; IMHO the substantial cost of adding their plugins to my library to replace similar items isn't worth the marginal gains I might obtain.  If UAD's native plugins had arrived 5 or more years earlier then I'd probably own their stuff instead of <fill in the da blank> but alas... 

Apologies for the Anti-GAS vibe.
 

Edited by TheSteven
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