Boss RT-20 Rotary Speaker Simulator

Very easy to use. All knobs at 12' seem to be perfect (except overdrive).
The manual is ok.

I use this unit as a virtual hammond-leslie (that's what it's mainly built for), not as an further effect for their guitar like a some of the other guys in this review. I have a Voce V5. In my opinion on of the best hammond clones on the market. I also own a Hammons M-101 and the real thing, a leslie 145.

It's not noisy at all.

The four different sound settings are obviously, for me, no. 1 is the most convincing and useable.

The leslie effect is incredible. I have also a H&K Rotosphere and compared it not only via headphones but also during a session with my band.

My results:

the Rotosphere sounds great when overdriven (it has a real tube)and in slow". When turned to "fast", it get's a bit cheesy and definitely doesn't sound as the real thing (as I wrote above, a own a 145)!

The RT-20 has generally a different sound character and has not that extreme left-right separation (which is, played over a PA, a plus in my opinion). Slow is great, fast is even greater. You can almost hear the growling and the sizzling of the horns. The two different loudspeakers are very convincing in terms of the separation, acceleration, velocity, etc. Similar to the built in leslie in the VK-8.

The overdrive is, on the other hand, a disappointment. It begins that when you turn the knob just a bit to the right, it's already to much. There's also an annoying change in sound colour, when on (even before you actually hear a distortion). I played the Voce with a volume pedal but I wasn't able to get a convincing amount of overdrive unless it produces that mashed, mutty sound. Try the Rotosphere and you will hear the real tube overdrive. It really screams, when played high, overdriven tones. The RT-20 weeps...
So once again: digital cannot totally reproduce an analog overdriven tube. The guys from H&K know this.

I would have given a 10, if there wasn't that weak overdrive.

Seems to work forever. Only the unnecessary "lightshow" with all these LEDs, which marks the velocity of the two horns may brake one day.

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I play keyboards over 20 years. In former days I played hardrock, since 5 years I also play in a soul and funk band, so for me the most important sounds are the classics: piano, Rhodes, Wurli, Clavinet and Hammond. Sometimes some strings and brass sounds.

For the first four, I have my Yamaha P-120, for the Hammond the Voce and now the RT-20. ( used to use the 60s&70s expansion card of my Roland XP-30, but it's nothing compared to the sound, handling and the "real" drawbars of the Voce). For the rest my XP-30.


The dilemma: I will definitely play the RT-20 and give the Rotosphere away. But I need an additional tube overdrive. Maybe, I try the Tube Factor from H&K or the Speakeasy Vintage Tube.

I'm very curious, if somebody has experience concerning tube preamps for organs.

Things won't get easier...

Thanks for reading.

This is my first (preliminary) review of the device--I hope to add it to my own arsenal, but only after trying it with my rig (sometimes a pedal will sound great in the store with a borrowed guitar & amp, but not respond well and go to crap with your own rig--in my own case, the Boss CS3 did that).

Having said that, this thing's pretty dang good-MUCH better than the Line6 stompbox (too shrill, brittle and digital-sounding), the H&K Rotosphere (too noisy, too expensive, too noisy, too brittle and did I mention too noisy?) the Electro-Harmonix Wiggler (just too "ehhh, vanilla-boring"-sounding for an effect that's supposed to be very dynamic), the Peavey Delta Stomp (the best of the rejects, but just a hair too digital-sounding, and prone to vanilla) the Digitech Eric Clapton Crossroads "Badge" setting (I really wanted that one to work--the tone was there but it was just too dang noisy) and the Dunlop RotoVibe (it just doesn't sound like a real Leslie). Screw the Uni-Vibe--it's a cool effect, but it's not a true Leslie simulator effect; it's its own thing. I have obviously been looking for a good Leslie effect for quite a while, and tried many things...so far, this one takes first prize.

The knobs, with the exception of the "Settings 1-4" knob were all self-explanatory, and that one exception wasn't a problem. Just tweak until you get the sound you want, and it was good. If I remember correctly, settings 1 & 2, slightly heavier on the drum and lighter on the horn were my favorites.

I purposely used a slightly bright guitar with single coils (more prone to noise) through a "cold-sounding" transister amp, due to the fact that many/most of the Leslie effects I've tried have been too bright, brittle, shrill and/or NOISY (sounds like my wife's cousin!).
Plus, I am using single coil-equipped guitars 98% of the time (Telecaster, Stratocaster, & a lipstick-loaded Danelectro), so it would give me a somewhat accurate rendering of what I want to know.

I think so many effects manufacturers are trying to get every nuance of a real Leslie and start allowing/ignoring the excessive noise that can occur with a real Leslie; this would not be a problem except the fact that other pedals in the signal chain, the amp, the guitar, etc. will also add small amounts of noise--it all adds up to a big humming mess, especially when recording.

Having said that, the RT20 was VERY quiet, even without any kind of noise suppression (I use a Rocktron Hush pedal at the end of my signal chain). My favorite way to test how noisy any pedal will be is to find a setting I like, then put my ear near the amp and damp the strings--just listen to the amount of hum generated by normal room interferences (fluorescent lights, other amps, etc.); then I let go of the strings and listen again. That usually tells me a great amount about how much noise a particular effect (by itself) adds.

The tone was warm (!) and tube-y sounding (even through the bright little transistor amp I was using at the store), with little or no digital brittleness, even with the horn setting cranked. It did a pretty good Jimmie Vaughan "Tip On In" tone, SRV "Cold Shot" sound, and the sound I was looking for on my own compositions, "Travis County Line" and "Monkey Hips".

The final test will be when I try the effect through my own rig and also with my harmonica (I run the harp through my effects, and on certain songs, I will use the harp through a Leslie effect to get a Hammond-y sound).

I have a couple of Boss pedals, and they've never gone out on me.

Their main website was pretty useless (mainly a sales propaganda site), but there was a secondary site that was more technical, and it was very helpful in figuring out that the 1-4 settings were supposed to be, and etc.

I've never contacted the OEM directly, so I'll give them a 7.

I play Texas Roadhouse music--mix uneven amounts of Blues, Rock and Outlaw Country--in the Screamin' Armadillos. Someone described us as early Fabulous Thunderbirds touring with ZZ Top and Waylon Jennings (I took that as a compliment). This type of music begs for some Leslie-effected guitar.

What I have done as a stop-gap measure in the meantime is dimed out the speed control on my MXR Phase 90, then turned it slower/back about 3/8 of an inch--with some medium overdrive BEFORE the phase shifter, you'll get a fairly good, airy Leslie effect--not too brittle or noisy...it's the best I have been able to find to fit with the dynamics of my picking style, etc.

I play guitar, slide guitar, harp and vocals. I already compared it to other similar effects above, and this one seems to be the best of the lot so far...I really want this to be "the ONE"...I'm tired of looking, but I won't settle for something sub-par. If the RT20 sounds as good the next time as it did the first time, we've got a winner!

As a complete side-note, I loved the little LED spinning speaker visual effect--that was really cool.

My rig is as follows: Ibanez TS9(ReIssue) Tubescreamer, 70's block-logo MXR Phase 90, Crybaby Wah, Boss DS1, Jim Dunlop Jimi Hendrix JH2S Classic Fuzz, Danelectro Daddy-O, DOD 7-band EQ, Rocktron Hush pedal, all into a 1963 Reissue Fender Vibroverb (the one with brown Tolex and 2 ten-inch speakers).

I use a 1940's Astatic microphone for harp work, and play a US-made 1962RI Stratocaster, a classicly styled hecho-en-Mexico Telecaster and a Danelectro DC3. There will soon be a P90 equipped axe in the arsenal.

A piece of cake for any gear heads who know their way around signal processing gear. For all others a reading of the manuel should answer any questions. Unlike other companies, Boss manuels are reasonably well written.

I play keys and guitar. With a Roland VK-7 organ I found that thr RT-20 was more robust, and juicier than the built in, on board Leslie simulator. And much more realistic. The fact that I was able to control the speed in realtime with a Roland EV-5 expression pedal was a real plus. On ascending chord progressions (think the pre turnaround chord progression in Stormy Monday) I was able to precisely time the increase from slow to fast so that by the time I got to the end of the progression I was at maximum speed. Without the expression pedal I used to have to toggle the speed back and forth if I found that the rate of change was too fast. Also noteworthy is that I found the onboard overdrive on the VK-7 to be warmer and more bubbly than what I was able to get out of the RT-20. For most applications I would use the overdrive on the keyboard, but I did find that the brighter more grinding overdrives on the RT-20 were great for getting a wicked grind out of low register single notes.
With guitar I was also very pleased. A Strat into the RT-20 played through a Boogie DC-5 head with a Boogie 2-12 Recto cabinet loaded with Vintage 30 's yielded the best Leslie simulation that I have ever had the pleasure to try. I had been relying on a Fulltone Deja Vibe and a Fulltone Choralflange to approximate the sound of a Leslie with unimpressive results. Both of these pedals are great, but they don't realistically capture the sound of a Leslie. The RT-20 is the real deal though. I was able to get the bubbling-shimmering sound that SRV gets on the solo to Cold Shot by combining a touch of overdrive from a Fulltone Fat Boost with the RT-20. The guitar break in Eric Clapton's Badge was also realistic enough to bring a smile to my face.
The built in overdrive sounds very much like the Fender and '59 Stack overdrives that I have in my Roland GT-6 processor. This should come as no surprise as Boss uses the same proprietary COSM technology in both devices. Personally I prefer analog produced overdrive to digital when I turn to a pedal to provide overdrive. I expect that I'll be using my various and sundry boutique overdrives when I want to combine overdrive and the Leslie effect. This isn't to say that the onboard overdrive on the RT-20 isn't any good. In certain situation it would be fine for certain songs.
On the down side, I did notice a little hi frequency noise. This gets processed and adds a helicopter like character to the overall sound. I seem to remember that real Leslies had a touch of this. At any rate it was acceptable when I adjusted the Rotor balance to what I personally found the best setting for guitar (at about 10:30).

This is my 9th Boss effect. I've never had a problem. Boss must be confident that it will last, otherwise they wouldn't offer a 5 year warranty.

Don't know. Never had to deal with Boss.

I play Blues and Rock. I've been playing for more than 40 years. I've tried several devices that attempt to duplicate the Leslie sound, and this is definitely the best yet. I know that a lot of people are going to criticise this pedal because the only indepently adjustable parameter of the rotors is the relative volume balance between the bass rotor and the treble rotor. I'm sure there are many who would like to indepently adjust the rise time and minimum and maximum speads of the rotors as well. This was indeed a concern of mine when I was considering purchasing this product. After playing through it though I can honestly say that I don't miss those features. It appears that regardless of how you set the speed and rise time, there is always a difference of speed and acceleration between the two rotors, just like a real Leslie. So even though, for example, one control affects the rise time of both rotors, they appear to accelerate and de-accelerate at slightly different rates. The operative word here is "appears". The rotors spin so quickly it's difficult to say for sure. I would be curious to hear what others have to say about this. And similarly, even though the slow speed adjust both rotors simultaneously, I still get the sense that they are spinning at slightly different speeds relative to each other. This may actually be a good thing that rate and speed are not indepently adjustble. On my VK-7 they are, and I've found that sometimes an objection "beat" results with certain combinations of speeds.

super easy
Way lighter than a real 122

headphones, direct and into a tube amp, gorgeous leslie tones, usable distortion, the rotors spin reversly to each others, like the real thing
minus one for being digital(easy to clip if the 24 bit converters are overdriven)

it's a boss double pedal, a double tank;0
the rotor disply will die before the pedal, i'm pretty shure

it's a boss

beside the tube rotosphere MKII, one of the best emu IMHO

Extremley easy to get a good sound. The important variables, i.e the nobs that are most key are notched at the 12 O'clock position so that you can point everything at 12 and have a great standard sound for a slow and fast leslie.

To pedals (part of the boss twin series) left = on/off right = fast/slow. Holding both down at once activates the breaking function - just like a real leslie would do.

No pathces, just the four different leslie models.

The manual is vrey thourough, and really explains everything very well. Athough it really doesn't need to, it's extremley self explanetory.

I've been through just about EVERY type of leslie effect short of getting an acutal rotating cab. It's my favourite modulation sound and integral to a couple of tunes off of my solo record. Up to now I haven't found one that is convincing. (On my record I used a virtual moddled leslie plug-in in pro-tools) I've tried all the various Line 6 ones, the Rocky Road, the H&K Rotosphere (which was the closest/best till now!)

I believe i've finally found the one in the boss rt-20. It fulfils all the featuer requirements I needed and also sounds fantastic, and is a lot smaller than the H&K.

I'm using this with;

Ibanez 152-7 string, Ibanez RG770 and a Japanese Strat in to --> BH1 Wah, Fulldrive 2, THIS PEDAL, Mesa Boogie Nomad 100 Amp -->FX Send Line 6 Echo Park -->RX Return.

Very quiet when on, and also excellent buffered bypass like the usual boss stuff.

Out of the 4 models on offer the first is the best and one that will see the most use. The standard 122 leslie model. Mode 2 is the same but more tremolo emphasized a bit more volume pulsing. Whils the 3rd mode is not very convincing and the 4th is a very "meh" Uni-Vibe model, which is only just useable and I dont think I will be. Too lumpy and notchy. But I bought this for its leslie sounds and boy are they amazing!

Its very warm, obviously it spins your head off, and not sterile like the L6 stuff. Sounds as good as the H&K but I find this quieter. The L6 rotomachine in particular was terrible :( I wanted to like it cause it was so cheap, but it definatley changed the signal tone even when off, and when on it was very harsh and didnt feel part of the overall tone.

The boss has an effect mix dial as well as a dry signal dial and you can get a great mix, and balance with your dry tone/off tone. Or if you prefer set it to boost in volume when turned on.

You can also set the balance between the bass rotor and the horn rotor, as well as setitng fast slow settings and changing the time it takes to ramp up or down to the fast/slow settings.

Holding both the pedals breaks/accelerates using the time setting of the aforementioned ramp dial. This is very cool.

Kind of pointless but very cool is the virtual light display showing the rotors. Cool and dorky at the same time, this definatley stands out on the pedal board.

Being true stereo you can also put an organ/keys through it and it even has a bias setting to optimize for either guitar or keys.

The only really poor thing about this pedal is the overdrive, whilst COSM modelling clearly has nailed the leslie effect the overdrive is only ok. For just a bit of crunch it is sweet but anything past 9 oclock and its very harsh. However sounds fantatic for crunching up and rotating organ though.

I use overdrive from a Fulldrive 2 though, or my mesa boogie so, again I dont need the OD, as mentioned I bought this purely for it's rotating abilities.

It will easily cop SRV (Cold Shot) Breaking Benjamin (So Cold), umm and many more. But most of what i use it for is on my original stuff.

It gets a 9 for sound cause 10 would be an actual leslie.

I've not much experience with the twin pedal series but no reason to think this will be any different to the usual boss sturdyness.

n/a

My solo/band record is modern rock/pop and contains some lead breaks and arps that have a bit of rotary on. Pretty distinctive really and and non-musos recognise when I'm giggin without a rotary on the board.

Been playing 12 years, other gear listed above.

Most definatley get another one if anyhting happened to it.

I love that its warm, and yet transparent, well swirly :). Dont like the onboard OD. It's also sounds great in the loop. Cant decide where to keep it yet.

Compared it to MANY been searching for the ultimate leslie for a whlie. I believe this is it so far! Hmm not really, maybe presets switching but you really dont need it. Two speeds, on/off and the break. Voila.

If you need a leslie effect then this and the H&K rotosphere are the only real contenders. And seing as you can buy TWO of these for the cost of 1 rotoshpere and that the footprint is damned sight smaller, its a no brainer.

Also, its a real nice effect if you're tired of chorus/phase and flange. You can set it slow and subtle and it can bring a nice swirlying shimmer.