We dig a good Leslie cabinet emulating effects pedal around here, and one that is low-budget-friendly is always a welcome perk. The Big Spender Spinning Speaker, designed and distributed as Billionaire by Danelectro, covers both areas, while managing to create some incredibly useful and tone-enhancing sounds.
Self-described as the “best ever spinning speaker tones,” the Big Spender does in fact utilize just a couple of parameters to create big, fat, lush Leslie-type sounds with minimal effort. The Volume knob actually has TWO uses here, setting both the output AND the amount of dirt present. As you turn it up, you get a bit of overdrive blending into the mix, like you’d get from an old amplifier. Very cool and something you don’t see everyday. Treble adjusts the effect’s tone, getting nice and dark when fully counter-clockwise, and adding in more high end and sparkle as you turn it to the right. Speed sets the rate of the “speaker rotations,” from a slow, easy warble to high-speed fury that gets into vintage tremolo territory.
The Ramp switch is another excellent addition to a seemingly simple pedal, too, as it either increases or decreases the speed over the course of 10 seconds. When the light is solid green and you hit the Ramp switch, you’ll move to a faster spin; when it’s solid red, the speed decreases gradually. As a secret bonus, if the light is red and you hit the footswitch twice, the speed will increase TWICE as fast as you play, for another tricky maneuver to explore on your journey.
Sporting a snazzy die cast case and a high gloss classic car-like finish, the Big Spender is not only sonically pleasing, but aesthetically vibrant as well. There are a bunch of pedals in the Billionaire lineup, and we’re going to try and bring them all to you in the near future. Thanks to the Danelectro folks for letting us check out this first fun pedal – if you’re looking to add a bit of something that’s missing to your setup, and haven’t been able to pinpoint what it it, maybe you should give the Big Spender Spinning Speaker a….spin.
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