I'm trying to help a local venue with an M2 find something to play it through. The built-in doesn't overdrive and isn't loud enough, and of course, doesn't spin.
I see a Motion Sound Sidewinder SR-112 available on ebay, with a reasonable shipping charge. The venue will spend up to say $300, and I'd be able to make an adaptor to plug it into this amp (which I believe was made for guitar). It has a tube preamp, which is hopeful.
Anyone ever played through one of these? We're not looking for the holy grail here, just something to make the M2 usable; good enough for blues jams & such.
My guess is that thing wouldn't work particularly well for an organ. It's designed for guitar, and won't have the frequency range to cover an organ. I'd be willing to bet it won't sound as good as the built in speaker.
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The SR-112 will work but the sound is going to be less than satisfying IMO. It will add some movement to the sound but as kanker pointed out, the frequency range is less than ideal for organ. BTW I assume this M2 has already had a 1/4 line output retrofitted? If not you will need to get a tech to do that in order to plug the organ into an external amplifier.
I would suggest looking for a Motion Sound Pro-3. The new model is called the Pro-3X and sells for around $750.00 give or take. You should be able to find an original Pro-3 or Pro-3T (tube pre-amp) used for far less. I am using an original Pro-3 with my Hammond XK3 when doing smaller jobs and it sounds great.
On the other hand I have an MTI Rotophaser sitting in my garage that could really use a good home.
sample pic-not actual unit
Internally is a rotating horn powered by a HF driver just like the top part of a Leslie. A footswitch allows for fast-slow-stop. Note there is no internal amplifier so you must use an external amp of some sort (years ago I used a 50 watt Sound City guitar amp head to power another Rotophaser that I owned until I had a local tech build a power amp inside the cabinet). I have two footswitches for the unit. All of the grill cloth is missing but it should still work fine. If interested I'll fire it up and make sure. You pay the shipping and it's yours (any additional donations to the "these Tums just aren't relieving my GAS" fund is entirely up to you.
NOTE: Both the Pro-3 or the Rotophaser require an additional powered speaker to reproduce the lower frequencies since both units only consist of the high frequency driver shooting in to the rotating horn. This can be a small and very basic bass amp, keyboard amp, etc. The Motion Sound Pro-3 has a low rotor output that simulates the lower drum movement while the Rotophaser does not which isn't really a bad thing; the most important part of the Leslie sound is coming from the horn and allowing the bass frequencies to remain unaffected produces a more defined overall sound. In fact it is not all that uncommon to unplug the motor for the lower drum rotor of a real Leslie when kicking bass from the organ.
Dave
Edited by DaveMcM (06/30/0805:54 AM) Edit Reason: added note
Thanks, Dave -- I suspect that you and Kanker are both correct that it won't have enough punch in the treble.
If I could find a Pro3T for 300 I'd jump, but so far no luck. Even finding a Pro3 for that price has been difficult lately. I suppose adding a tube screamer or something to the pro3 might compensate for the lack of tubes, enough for this purpose.
Better yet would be to find a way to mod the M2's built-in amp to overdrive its tubes. There isn't any such control on the back panel, unfortunately. Maybe there's a trim pot inside.
I will be able to make a line conversion kit, which isn't that tough a trick.
