Rotary chorus (aka Leslie) pedal

Anyone familiar with the later songs of The Beatles (especially Abbey Road, but also in the earlier "It's only love") will be familiar with the sound of a rotary chorus pedal, even if one is not aware of the name of this effect and what it imitates. Another example is in Simon and Garfunkel's "America": there's a guitar line at the beginning of the song that demonstrates the use of this sound. The rotary effect was one of the earliest modulation effects to be used in the music scene and imitates the Leslie speaker that was originally designed and developed for organs but afterwards used for guitars and vocals.

I've long wished for the ability to create such sounds, but the appropriate pedals have always been very expensive, far out of my price range. Thus I was surprised when I saw a YouTube video a few months ago by JHS pedals, where they announced that they had created three pedals that would sell at only $99 each. After thinking about this for a while, I decided to treat myself and order this pedal. Hopefully this is the last pedal that I will purchase*.

The price $99 means that I would have to pay tax should I buy it. Initially I was tempted to order the pedal direct from the manufacturers and get 10% off, but the shipping turned out to be very expensive. I ordered from Amazon for the equivalent of $119; shipping appears to be free. JHS do have a representative in Israel, but they didn't have this pedal. Also, I suspect that buying from a shop here might be more expensive. I was told that the pedal would arrive by 27 March, but it actually came a few days earlier. 

The pedal was supplied in a stout box with curly paper filling out the box. There is a small instruction booklet, but it's basically a short explanation of each of the controls in several languages. There is also what appears to be a sticker with the pedal's circuit displayed, although no values are given for any of the components, so this is somewhat mystifying. Once I disposed of the curly paper, I found at the bottom of the box a small JHS badge and a very thick plectrum (1.5mm) embossed with the JHS logo.

What does the pedal sound like? Well, to be honest, it doesn't sound very different to the sound achieved by a chorus pedal. I've set it at the moment with a relatively low intensity (equivalent to depth) and a medium speed; it sounds fine, but not special. At least it works, as opposed to the cheapo chorus pedal¹ that didn't really do anything (but neither did it cost anything).

I don't have any more room on my pedal board for any other pedals, so this had better be the last pedal. Several months ago, I wondered² why I laid the board out right to left; there's a very simple reason for this. The input socket for each pedal is on the pedal's right hand side and the output socket is on the left hand side, so obviously the input for the tuner is on the far right hand side and the output from the tuner fits into the input of the pedal to its left, etc.

* Some hope. A joke that was originally about computers but now modified: why is a guitar pedal like a woman? Because it always costs more than one expected, after a while one can't do without it, and after a longer period, one is not enough.

Internal links
[1] 1849
[2] 1798

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