Looking For a Great Sounding Hammond B3/Leslie Speaker VSTi

Aloha P,

In the mid to late 60’s while in my Kenny Burrell mode (Jimi Hendrix was just coming on the scene)
I did stints with Jimmy Smith, Jimmy McGriff, Jack McDuff and ‘Groove’ Holmes,
So I know how ‘picky’ organist can be about their sound.

While most of these guys wanted their sound to be ‘smooth’, Jack McDuff was going for
that Jon Lord sound (tho’ I did not know of Deep Purple at that time).

Problem was altho’ he could get it (or close to it) in the right hand, the ‘crunch’ would also
be in the left hand where (contrary to belief) most of the bass sound was played. (not the pedals)

A lil fact:
All of these guys rarely used the pedals except when either ‘showing off’ or
mainly in ballads. 99% of jazz organ bass sounds are done in the left hand.

Bottom line is I really know that B/C3 sound and IMHO no plug has what I remember in my head.

That being said:
give this one a listen. Not very expensive and can go from ‘clean’ to ‘dirty’ with no probs.
http://www.genuinesoundware.com/?a=showproduct&b=24

Leslie sounds.
Now that’s a whole other thread. Jimmy McGriff used two Leslies and had some sort of
contraption that would ‘sync’ the two. It rarely worked but when it did it was amazing!
Anyone remember the Yamaha Leslie? With the three moving speakers? I still have one in storage. :slight_smile:

Good Luck!
{‘-’}

Thanks curteye,

The feedback is appreciated and I love that tidbit about your associations with those great organists. You must have some pretty good stories to tell. :slight_smile: Very interesting… Especially that “Yamaha Leslie”. Cool!

I am going to check your suggestion a bit further. It is interesting that at first glance the link you provided is for a software named VB3. It shows a picture of the VB3 software interface that looks VERY SIMILAR to the old freeware ORGANizedTrio V31 VSTi that I have. Maybe the VB3 is an updated (pay) version of the old (freeware) software I was using for years. If so, I’m all in baby.

This is a link for the freeware ORGANizedTrio V31 that I have been using for years. The was the best software I could find to emulate the B3/Leslie sound I love. Again, it looks scarily similar to the VB3.

http://freemusicsoftware.org/467

Hey curteye,

As far as I can tell the VB3 software is an updated version of my old ORGANizedTrio software that I like so much. Cool! I downloaded the demo version and will check it out over the weekend. If it doesn’t fail during mp3 export like my old software was doing then I will be purchasing it. So… good find and thanks again. I am one happy guy. :slight_smile:

VB3 is nice because it generates the sounds on the fly rather than use samples (like NI’s Vintage Keys does). The net-net of that is that if you use automation to change the tone bars the sound updates like it should even in the middle of a held note. You don’t get that with NI’s B3/C3.

The VB3 is okay, so is NI I have both but don’t use them unless I have to. The VB3 sounds better to me but isn’t 64bit and I could never get it to work w/o crashing cubase. Maybe someone else has had better luck and also on website they say they have no intention (paraphrase) of going 64

This is just opinion but…There is Nothing (!!!) like the real thing the clone software just doesn’t do it for me. I also have tried 2 Leslie emulation pedals, one the Mini Vent and the other via Hammond/Leslie. They are both really well done pedals but the Ventilator is very gritty and would work great on a rock project out of the box. I imagine with a little tuning to it the Vent would work good for Jazz also. The Leslie I think is not much different than what comes in new Hammond organs…The Vent has Lots of beef. I tried those on a Hammond VK3c

Thanks folks for the input here…

I have been testing out the demo version of the VB3 software this weekend. It really does look and sound like a copy job of the ORGANized Trio 31 freeware I was using. VB3 is version 1.4 versus 1.0 for the latter and so far it seems to be working pretty good and not crashing CB7. Since there are no refunds I will do as the GSi website for the VB3 software suggests and test it thoroughly for a few weeks prior to spending the 50 euros (approx. $73 usd) for the full version.

VB3 is nice because it generates the sounds on the fly rather than use samples (like NI’s Vintage Keys does). The net-net of that is that if you use automation to change the tone bars the sound updates like it should even in the middle of a held note. You don’t get that with NI’s B3/C3.

NI’s Vintage Keys B3/C3 indeed blows chunks since they repackaged it as a rompler within the Komplete 8/9 suite.

On the other hand, if you are in possession of NI’s original B4 II, that’s a completely different story, as it generates its tone wheels from its own synth engine. No samples. This means it can (and does) respond to drawbar automation on the fly. Since I can only speak about how it works on the Mac platform, I can say this: it works fine on C7.0.6 running 10.6.8 thru 10.8.5 in either 32 or 64bit modes.

And it sounds pretty decent. Always has.

Ooooh…I didn’t get Vintage Keys until I bought Komplete 8 so I didn’t know this. :frowning:

I should point out the B4 II was discontinued by NI in late 2009. It was a 32 bit Standalone/Plug-in package. A lot of users hoped NI would continue its development into a 64 bit version…but it was not to be.

(Former) Cubase forum member PJ Geerlings made pretty good B3 and leslie VST’s called NuBiLE and SpinnerLE.
He also made an improved version called NuBi PLus.
I don’t know if they’re still available though…

Wim

I to love the B42 and I have the Drawbar (B4D) module that goes with it. I also have it installed on my muse receptor where it works great. Hate the changes NI made in komplete for Organ but the B4 drawbars (Made by Boehm) really work well with that and take away some of the issues they caused in preset recall.
I’ve thought about sell my B4D because I can only do Hammond (and only want to do hammond :slight_smile:now let me know (maybe there is something we can trade. I currently need a good studio quality hardware compressor but there maybe other things also!
Kenny

I have B4 and VB3, I prefer VB3. Also have Nubile and Spinner, which comes in a close third place, it is solid in some applications. All are worth having. :sunglasses:

http://web.archive.org/web/20061115084332/http://www.nubi3.com/zip/v120/NuBiSpnrLE.zip

Hey foolomon…

Thanks for the input. You and others seem to like the VB3 for it’s sound and automation capabilities ( I do too). Like I previously posted, I am currently testing the demo version for issues running in CB7. So, just wondering if you or anyone else could chime in to report issues/problems running VB3 with CB7 on a PC running Windows 7 64x.

No problems with VB3 and C7 here, Win7-64 :sunglasses:

Robin, thanks for the feedback. The “demo” version has been working fine all week for me too. So it looks like a paypal purchase is in order. :slight_smile:

:sunglasses: You won’t regret it.

those of you who got VB3 running in x64 without issues: I envy you :frowning:
Is that with jBridge, if so what version?

I’ve given up at the moment, won’t use it again until the 64bit version is released. Cubase (almost) never crashes on my desktop or laptop, but once VB3 is in the project it takes max 5 minutes to get that wonderful “Cubase has stopped working” message. With jBridge or without. On both desktop and laptop. And I’ve tried many times, because VB3 has the only realistic Leslie simulation in VSTI-land to my ears, I desperately want this to work.

Still hoping though: GSI website says (oct 28 2013): “From our own part, we can say that we are currently working on 64 bits updates of the most wanted GSi plugins (VB3, MrRay73mk2 and GS-201), others will follow. Unfortunately this is a very slow process and will take some time.”

Hey dirkpiano,

I tried out the demo version of VB3 duing last week (not using jBridge). All worked well until last night during export to mp3. Basically I get the “lost vst connections…” error. I was also using Amplitube 2 in the same project and that crashed at the same time. So, this looks like VB3 (on my system anyway) does not like to play with the others during mp3 export. This is the same error I got when using my old ORGANized Trio31 freeware which I’d swear VB3 was copied from. I think I will wait a bit for the 64 bit version before paying for the full version.

Thanks for your feedback and maybe someone will chime in to report their experience using jBridge.

FYI… against my better judgement I purchased the full version of VB3 a day or two after I posted my last post. Worked (2) projects so far with no problems. So it looks like my issue (crashing during mp3 export) might be an intermittent thing. Still, hope they issue a 64 bit version at some point.