NEO Instruments Ventilator II Reviews

Excellent sound, but needs better interfacing

I bought this in 2020 so I could play my Hammond C3 during lockdown without annoying my neighbours too much. I normally use a Leslie 122XB or a Leslie 2101.

Physically it's a nice solid metal box with conveniently-sized controls and pedals. I usually have it sitting on the bench next to me so I can get at the overdrive control while playing.

The sound of the emulation is excellent - it didn't take very much tweaking to match the speed dynamics of my 122XB, and the overdrive and blend controls give a decent range of sounds. In my home environment I think it sounds better than micing up either of the real Leslies - and it's certainly a lot less hassle.

Connecting up a real halfmoon switch is no problem - it's not obvious from the manual, but the "switch 2" mode works with a slow-stop-fast switch.

Feeding audio in from the organ at the right level was more difficult. You really do need to adjust it to just below the point where the overload LED lights for it to sound good - I ended up building an external attenuator to get the level from the organ down far enough. So wishlist item 1: the Vent really should have an input attenuator control (a preset pot on the back would be fine).

The output is a pair of unbalanced jacks. This is OK for a guitar pedal but you should budget for a stereo DI box if you need to run the output over anything but the shortest of cable runs. Wishlist item 2: balanced outputs.

Wishlist item 3 is that it'd be awfully nice to have some basic reverb built in. With the rotors stopped, the overdrive wound up a bit and a bit of external reverb added, it does a good PR40-style jazz sound; if there's DSP space this could be built in.

Overall this wasn't a cheap device, but I've been pretty happy with it and I think it's fair value for money. If you're using it with a digital organ or as a guitar effect then you'll probably be very happy with it; for use with a real organ it's a bit more effort to set up but does work well.

Superb 122 emulation

The effect itself is astonishingly close to the original, as other users are saying. My only slight complaint are that it's not possible to set different accelerations for the horn and the rotor (although of course you can select different speeds for them). It's true that some other Leslie simulators, usually found as an onboard effect of some digital organs, offer you more variables to tweak (for example different times for acceleration and deceleration), but the core effect of the Vent II is so remarkably good that no amount of tweaking can make them sound like this, so this undoubtedly wins.

Best of the best

better than the real thing, if you compare a real leslie-cabinet with carrying it, buying it, micing it and dial it.. It sounds out of this world.

I don't know where it does a better job...

... on keyboards or guitars. Might have to get another one so that both can have it at the same time...

The best Leslie I have ever tried, even better than the real thing.

Great sound

Sound is great, bit "clear" maybe but sounds as close to 122 as emulation can get, easy to operate, robust quality.

After a year still awesome

I have enjoy the authenticity of this for over a year now. I use it with my Nord Stage and it is an upgrade tot eh Nrod Modeling. I would highly reccomend

Amazing piece of kit!

I've not only used this with my guitar but also on recording and mixing my drum tracks you get some really great vintage sounds.

I've also use the Ventilator for live work will the guitar it makes such a difference to the tone of the guitar just by having the pedal switched on and with the stop switch engaged really warms up and thickens the tone.

An amazing piece of kit!

Not true bypass

The claim, repeated in the instructions that it is a true bypass is plain false.

The relay only switches the output signal. The input signal os the guitar is always connected to some tone-sucking circuit (at least caps, res and zeners...).

With an A/B box on a guitar-amp setup, it´s clear as daylight that it is not a true bypass.

Effect itself is great, but I want a product to be true to its claims.

The Ventilator II is not.

Leslie in a box

My friend and I have been discussing about Leslie and it's simulations for some time before we ran into this little box. The only thing remaining now is to some day raise money for the real Leslie, for everything else, there is the Ventilator.

Ventilator has the most realistic emulation of Leslie that i have ever heard, including software plugins and simulators on keyboards. The warmth and color of tone that it produces is remarkable and almost indistinguishable to real one. I know that Hammond purists will always have something to say about this, but for live situations that require portability and functionality, Ventilator wins. It has all the controls for shaping your virtual Leslie, and some of them would be almost impossible to set on a real one. The chassis is strong and very well built with protected knobs. The only thing that should maybe be lacking is option for saving multiple presets, but that is not really a problem - where would the fun of twisting pots in realtime situations be?

Excellent Leslie Fx Simulator

I have tried many other rotary speaker simulators and this is absolutely the best so far. It nails the Leslie sound effect really well: it sounds much more convincing than other analog Leslie simulators. It sounds great with both guitar and organ, and its features allow you to tweak the sound extensively, making it a very versatile fx pedal.

Plus, Guido (from Neo Instruments) provides an excellent customer service: I remember he promptly emailed me the owner's manual to check out even before getting the actual pedal.

I definitely recommend this fx pedal to anyone who's looking for an excellent Leaslie rotary speaker simulator. I have been using it for a few months now and i can say I am bsolutely happy with it.

Portable Leslie

Fantastic Leslie simulator, as close to a real Leslie as you can get!

Great Leslie sound

Very impressed with the sound, in mono or stereo. I am using with a Hammond XB1, and the results sound very realistically like a Hammond + Leslie. The XB1 has a built-in Leslie simulator, but its effect is very weak in comparison. I had been using the XB1 with a MotionSound Pro3, which has a good sound itself, but the Neo Ventilator II is much closer to the Leslie sound. A real rotating speaker like the Pro3's horn has a richer spatial effect when you're next to it, but for mic'ed use, there's no advantage (and the Pro 3 only has a mono mic whereas the Ventilator simulates a stereo mic on the rotating horn.)

The Ventilator II sound is a combination of effects: rotating speaker effect, Leslie tone (frequency response of Leslie amp/cabinet) and Leslie amp overdrive. All of these are done well, and the combination is very convincing.

The Ventilator II provides a lot of control over the sound; the set of controls seems well thought out, and the ranges of adjustment are sensible. The second set of functions is a bit confusing at first - it means that the knob position may not always represent the actual setting. (E.g. if you moved to the second set of functions, changed the knob position for the second function, and then return to the main set of functions. The unit does the right thing, as it retains the setting you previously had for the main function of the knob, but now the knob is in a different position from that.) In practice the second set is unlikely to be changed regularly, so this slightly confusing behavior is unlikely to be a problem beyond the initial set up.

The unit has a sturdy steel case, and feels like it should last well. The "wall wart" power supply with plastic case could be a potential weak point. At least this comes with various pins to suit different countries.