Rotronic Usb To Serial Parallel Driver
Magali Swinderman
I am using the Rotronic HC2-ic102 probe. The correct driver for the probe is installed and the probe works on another computer system using the same Labview code. When I use the HC2 probe on my computer system i get the following error,
Could it be that the computer system I am using has two seperate drives a C: Drive and a Drive. Labview 2012 is installed on the Drive. I have tried running the Labview code on both drives but I still get the same error. The labview code is a single Vi saved in a folder with the DLL supplied by rotronic. Does anyone have an ideas why I am getting this error?
The error description says 'TIMEOUT_ERROR' - which is the error thrown by the .NET library - it sounds like the library is not receiving a response from the device so it is timing out. How is it connected? Is it on a different port (e.g. COM2 instead of COM1 if it's serial)? How is the port specified?
Hi! Has this been solved by any chance? I am using the same HC2-IC102 probe, with the same USB connection and I am getting the same exact error, as if the driver were corrupted. Did you figure out where the error was and how to solve it? Thanks!
There's a lot more to the Vibratone sound than one SRV song! The history of rock music is full of the Vibratone sound, but while there's plenty published about the Leslie cabinets designed for organs, there's not much written about the Vibratone, and definitely nothing in-depth. I own an early model Vibratone (s/n 1061) and have also built a "Vibratone clone" from an internal Leslie unit out of a junked organ. And as a guitar player and music listener, I have fallen in love with the Vibratone sound. The information I have collected will tell you more about the Vibratone than I have found at any other source, and I hope that this page will open your ears to the real magic of the Leslie sound, specifically as it is used by guitar players, and maybe help you get that sound in your own music.
Below, I'll tell you how a Vibratone works, give you a list of rock songs to listen for Vibratones in, tell you why you might want to use one, and why not. I'll share some thoughts on playing style and the Vibratone, and I'll list the many clones and knock-offs that have appeared over the years. (You could get one of those, if you can't find a Vibratone.)
Like most Leslies, the Vibratone has two speeds, dubbed chorale (slow) and tremelo (fast). The chorale speed, also called chorus, is about 40 revolutions per minute, while the tremelo is about 340 rpm. The chorale effect is a slow, shimmering kind of sound on which the familiar chorus pedal is based. It can be very subtle or can wash over the whole tonality of the instrument, depending upon how it's miked. You may or may not even notice it unless you're listening for it. On the other hand, the tremelo effect is a fast, warbling effect that is immediately recognizable and unmistakably organ-like, though again miking will make it more or less prominent.
But there are some differences that make the Vibratone a unique variety of Leslie. Unlike most Leslie speakers, these cabinets are unamplified, acting as an extension speaker for an instrument amplifier. And unlike other Leslie cabinets, they take 1/4" phono plug inputs, like a guitar speaker cabinet. And they're built like guitar cabinets, with a Tolex covering, sparkly grillcloth, and handles, while the classic Leslie for organs is an elegant piece of hardwood furniture. Most likely, the intent was to give players of "combo" organs (e.g. Vox, Farfisa) access to the Leslie sound. They already had amps, so all they needed was the cabinet. But the chart successes of several songs with Leslie guitar sounds in 1965 and 1966 may have alerted them to the larger market for the cabinets.
The other functional difference between the Vibratone and the Leslie cabinets used for organs, besides lack of internal amplification, is that the Vibratone has only one speaker/rotor. Some Leslie models (e.g. 25) and built-in Leslie units have the same mechanism, but the sound usually associated with organ Leslies is produced by models like the 122 or 147, which have a large bass speaker (15") with a rotating drum, similar to the Vibratone, but also route the high frequencies to a compression driver in the top of the cabinet. This driver feeds a spinning plastic horn which rotates in the opposite direction to the drum, adding to the density of the phasing effects. Additionally, the treble horn and bass rotor turn at slightly different speeds, so they don't produce the same sound every revolution. As a result, the phasing effects gained from one of these cabinets is more complex than the Vibratone's. But the fundamentals of the sound are the same, and both are immediately recognizable.
The Leslie design has the deflectors rotating in the horizontal plane (radiating from the louvres in the cabinet), while the Vibratone's rotor moves in a vertical plane (radiating from the sides and top, not from the front grill). Thus, the Leslie "sprays" the sound around the room at the same level, while the Vibratone "sprays" the sound to its side, then above itself, then to its other side. This makes putting the sound out to your audience a little more challenging, which will be considered later. Some of the cabinets listed below in "other Leslie and similar speakers" duplicate the two speaker, horn-and-drum arrangement, and some have only the spinning horns. Thus, there are several variations on the Leslie theme as amplifier extension cabinets.
The Fender Vibratone is the exact equivalent of the Leslie 16 (which is identical except for the logo and the way the back panel attaches) and Leslie 18 (basically identical except for the logo and full-range 12" speaker). Virtually the same mechanical arrangement was also used in many Leslie organ cabinets such as the Model 25, but they are not included in this overview. The song list below relies mostly on my ears and their ability to distinguish between the Leslie sound and an electronic phaser or chorus. That's usally pretty easy to do. What's much more difficult is to tell whether a Vibratone is being used, or a Leslie cabinet with an internal amp and a preamp pedal (an add-on interface allowing 1/4" phono jacks to provide input to ann organ Leslie). The many ways to mike these cabinets for recording makes it virtually impossible to identify a "Vibratone sound" as opposed to a "Leslie 25 sound" or even a "Leslie 147 sound".
It is quite possible that the Cordovox CL-10 was the inspiration for the guitar-oriented Vibratone. Cordovox made accordion synths, and the CL-10 was a small box (the same cab as their amps and synths) with the drop-in Leslie units used in home organs. Maybe guitarists got the idea from accordion players who copped the idea from organists? There is a great shot of a CL-10 onstage in Elvis Presley's 1966 movie Spinout, used as the sole cabinet under a blonde Bandmaster head. We can speculate that someone at Leslie saw the movie and the light bulb went on. (Search online for a video of the song "Stop, Look and Listen" to see this historic performance.)
Somehow, Leslie/CBS got the message, and the Vibratone was born in 1967. Mostly Vibratones are used as guitar effects, but somtimes to modify the sound of voices and other instruments, for example, the eerie vocals on Pink Floyd's "Time" from Dark Side of the Moon. Many of these recordings also have Hammond organs with Leslies, of course, but that's another topic altogether and this list was chosen to highlight the Vibratone sound on other instruments.
The rotor in the Vibratone is made from molded Styrofoam. Most Leslie cabinets for organs had rotors made from plywood, though the foam rotor was also used in Leslie units that were built into home organs. (More on that later.)
The rear view shows a Leslie 18. The Vibratone's rear panel is not removable, but the components are the same. At the bottom left is the connector box and power supply. The on/off switch, fuse and power status light are on this box, as are the connectors for the cable harness and the internal wiring. You can see that most of a Vibratone cabinet is air, but all that wood adds up to a box that weighs about the same as a Fender Twin Reverb, but is bulkier.
The Vibratone has a wiring harness with a two-button footswitch pedal that uses the same housing as the Fender amps of the late 1960s. The footswitch terminates two cables with 1/4" phono connectors -- one plug and one jack. To connect the Vibratone, the harness' plug is inserted into the amplifier's main speaker jack, and the amp's cabinet or internal speakers are plugged into the harness' jack. This puts the Vibratone and its switches between the amp and the speakers. One of the switches on the pedal routes the sound either to the amp's speakers or to the Vibratone. The other switch changes the rotor between chorus and tremelo speeds. On later models, there was also a cylindrical crossover that restricted the frequencies sent to the Vibratone (seen at left in the photo).
Note to Vibratone shoppers if you're thinking of buying a Vibratone or Leslie 16/18 without the cable harness and footswitch: It's difficult to find parts to build these, but it is possible to do it yourself, and many have done it. If you are capable of building the harness yourself, then you should demand a substantial discount on the cabinet's price because, without the footswitch, it's either unusable or it has been butchered up to try to provide the same functions. I have not seen very many cabinets that came out well after such a treatment.
Cosmetically,both the Vibratone and the Leslie models followed Fender design standards. All were covered in pebble-textured Tolex. The early models had turquoise and silver grill cloth (even in 1965-7) with the cast Fender logo. The grill cloth was surrounded by a thin aluminum border referred to as a "drip edge", and this grill style (turquoise cloth with drip edge) was applied to the entire Fender amp line in 1968 and 1969. Although the photo from the 1970 Fender flyer shows a plain grill cloth, as far as I can tell the Vibratones retained the aluminum trim strip throughout production. Starting sometime in 1968, Vibratone models received the so-called "solid state styling" logo, with a large metal nameplate replacing the cast logo. In 1968, it appears that some Vibratones were produced with a hybrid styling -- the cabinet pictured here seems to be a completely original 1968 model, sporting an unhappy combination of both logo plates.