Voce Spin

This thing is straight forward! Bypass button, Input volume, overdrive, fast/slow button, brake button, Midi channel selector, preset selector. The big big big advantage is, that this is NOT a stomp box but a midified 9.5" rack unit - and the midi implementation is straight forward! Simple manual because it is simple to use! I switch it fast/slow via aftertouch OR footpedal - what a bummer! Use is a no-brainer!

You get a bit of noise (minus one point in my ranking), ok - but I have a denoiser (Rocktron Hush CXII) in my rack anyway, overdrive unusable - but I don't care, because it gives the ultimate leslie sound and that's what this thingy is supposed to do! Wow, really great!

Looks rock solid. Yes, I depend on it, it has no backup.

Even Voce doesn't produce it anymore: one of the developers is on the yahoo hammond forum and wiling to answer questions. 2 years warranty (bought it in 2003!). Never used either of the paths as the thing is very reliable so far - but I know which routes to follow - that is more than with many other items I own

My opinion about Voce products was shaken a lot after I had the electric piano shipped back to the shop for good reason. But this Spin box is amazing!
I play Jazz/Funk/Soul music. I am a bit a hammond sound fanatic - and with the Voce Spin you are able to get _the_ sound out of your rig. As hammond source I use a EMU B-3 (the leslie in it is good.... but the better is the enemy of the good) - and with the Voce Spin people start turning up and ask where this incredible Hammond sound comes from! And: no stomp box - but easily fitted in a rack and even unnecessary (besides all important) parameters adjustable via Midi. Overdrive sux - but who cares? I second the previous review: for overdrive you should use an overdrive preamp (I use the ADA MP-1) that has the right balls for the overdrive bit - and the Voce Spin can get you the right balls for the leslie portion of the sound, great thing!
I did compare it with the Korg G-4, which is much more sterile and is a stomp box, the BOSS SE-50 and the BOSS VF-1 leslie effects. And .... the H&K Rotosphere - the leslie effect in the Voce Spin is the best I heard from all of these boxes. After hearing it I passed back the (2nd in my score) H&K to the shop, because the VOCE Spin is far ahead imho. Ok, I do have the ADA for the overdrive (had it for my Rhodes) - but shouldn't you look for specific items and not the generic? And you will desperatley searching for a device fulfilling it's job as much as the Voce Spin does it for the Leslie piece of the sound!

For a leslie simulator, this is fairly easy to use. Volume and overdrive knobs on the front. Bypass, Fast/Slow and Stop buttons (although I actually trigger these by footswtich), and a preset knob for the 16 sounds--about 2/3 of which are Leslie combinations (e.g. 122/ close-miked/loose belts, 147/close-miked/bottom drum disabled, etc.) and 1/3 of which are mod effects really designed for guitarists (there is a 1/4" input for guitarists on the front in addition to the stereo ins/outs on the back). One of the attractions of this unit for me (aside from the sound) is that I find this much easier to use than purely floor mounted simulators like the Korg G4 and H&K Rotosphere. With the spin, you have a footswitch on the floor, and the controls up where your hands can get at 'em. It's a 1/2 rack unit, so that means you can have it in a rack, or mounted on top of your keyboard, your guitar amp, or a mic stand.

To me, this is still the most authentic electronic leslie simulator I have heard. I'm not going to say "best" because that is obviously objective, and I've heard people (annoyingly) state that other simulators are the "best simulator hands down". That's dumb. To my ear, the Korg G4 was much more chorusy -- it sounded less like a real leslie (yes, for the record, I have one!), but the chorusy aspect did seem to impart a "fuller" sound than the Voce, when I A/Bed them many years ago, so I could see why people might opt for the Korg if they were playing live, and they wanted to get more of that "mushy/swirly" vibe a Leslie gives. But a little outboard reverb helps equalize on that dimension. People now seem to be going for the H&K Rotosphere on the basis that it is "warmer" because it has a "real tube". Okay, now this is my opinion again, but . . . that's RIDICULOUS! Any guitar player can tell you that good solid state sounds more tube-like than a bad tube preamp (I've used both a Real Tube and an Ibanez Tube Screamer for guitar and I can tell you -- the Real Tube gets a D and the TS gets an A+ for "tube qualities" like warmth, tone and responsiveness) and any Hammond or guitar player can tell you that the Leslie warmth comes from the wood and the tube power amp, not the preamp. Case in point -- I now play with a Motion Sound KBR-M (which is their Pro-3T + a stationary "hi fi" speaker) which has the standard 12AX7 preamp and it's really not that great. In fact, quite a few times I've felt like the Spin sounded BETTER than the Motion Sound tonally -- only the actual spinning horn imparted more realism. (For recording purposes and large rooms where you don't hear the amp itself but only the recording/PA, I'm not entirely convinced the Spin doesn't sound at least as good as the Motion Sound. That's why I haven't sold it even though I now have a Leslie, a Motion Sound amp, AND the Spin!) Obviously, there's a LOT of room to improve all simulators, so this rating only reflects the current pack of non-mechanical simulators, but I'll give it a 9

Never had a problem with it. I would gig with this without a backup, only because I'm not sure what to use as a backup. A better strategy is to use THIS as a backup to your leslie/motion sound, etc, because it is very small--put it in your spare parts bag and forget about it until the day your belts give out in the middle of a show....

The main reason I wrote this review was because I realized that the Voce Spin (and the Spin II, it's successor which I have not tried--but appears to be a stompox with few controls. Boo.) had not been reviewed. And about the same time, I saw a Voce Spin on e-Bay sitting around for about $40 because the seller (and apparently the bidders?) didn't really seem to know anything much about it. I'm sure it went up eventually, but still. . . .it's one of those situations where you wish you didn't have one already, so you could take advantage of such a ridiculously good deal! I bought mine about 4 years ago used for about $275 when I couldn't travel with my Leslie, and I have to say that, given the quality and prices of the competition out there, I would buy it again for that price. I play a Rhodes, Hammond XB-2 and some assorted synths in a funk/jazz ensemble of 4-8 people. The organ is my primary keyboard, and the sound is very important to me. Like many organists, I'm very discriminating about getting "that sound" from my Hammond and leslie simulators -- but I also recognize that trying to do so is a little like trying to sound like an acoustic guitar with an electric guitar and an acoustic simulator pedal. So I'm not going to give any absolutes about whether this effect is good or bad, but my opinions should be clear from my descriptions above: It's no Lesie, but it's about 75% of the sound at 20% the price and 1% the weight, and taken together, those are better stats than all the competitors I can think of. My last comment is that this box is especially nice for guitarists for two reasons: (1) it has a dedicated guitar front input aside from the rear stereo connections; and (2) guitarists don't really need fakey tube pre-amps in their leslie box, because they have the real thing done well in their amps. I would make the same suggestion to keyboard players, by the way -- using a tube preamp into your straight ahead mixer/PA setup is going to sound much more sterile then pumping your leslie signal into a good tube amp (I used my blackface Fender Pro Reverb with good results). But that's another story. . . .