Fender Vibratone questions

[kirk1701]

Fairly new to AT. I was looking forward to the Vibratone for the Beatles/Blind Faith/Derek and the Dominos thing. It's not entirely clear to me how it works. I'm working on AT 5 CS. Chain is EC strat > GAP Pre73 DI > Tascam US-600 > Reaper.

First, what does "aux cab" refer to?

Secondly, how to get more presence out of the slow chorale setting on the Vibratone? I'm not seeing any way to move or change mics around the cab. As it is, the swirl is a bit weak. Thoughts?

[kirk1701]

Nothing on this? I'm wondering why there aren't moveable mics on the Vibratone as with other cabs? Is this not available in AT 5 Custom Shop? The layout on this cabinet is not intuitive. I'm not new to recording and mixing either. I don’t follow the logic behind the design.

[garfy]

Hello kirk1701 and welcome to the forums.

Ok, nothing official in the manual so I did a bit of research and a bit of playing/listening.

According to Wikipedia the Vibratone had a built in crossover and the amp output was split between the Vibratone for the mid range and another cab for the hi/low. This can be borne out by changing the model of Aux Cabinet in AT5 to None. The lone Vibratone does then indeed just output midrange and I guess this was inherent in the use of just a single 10" speaker.

As for the not being able to move the mics, I would guess this is because the Vibratone rotates on a vertical plane (rather than the horizontal of traditional Leslies) and so moving the mics would just reduce the level of signal and not much else. This would also probably explain the definition of the swirl being 'weak' - it's just a bit more subtle compared to rotating horns.

To get more presence out of it, you could switch off the aux cab and add an EQ into the signal chain post cab. With the routing option in AT5 you could then reinstate the aux cab in a different part of the chain if you need the hi/lows put back in and balance them in the mixer.

Hope that's of some use.

[kirk1701]

That's very helpful! Thanks so much!