E-MU B-3 Organ Module

If you're just switching among presets, its very easy to use. However, the "B-3" has tremendous programming depth, certainly in comparison to most B-3 imitators. So the complexity is there to delve into.

I think the most likely area of complexity will come with the keyboard controller interface. To get the most out of this module, you'll want to use a fairly sophistacated controller. There are 4 front panel knobs for real time control, and a button that toggles between three "levels," sort of giving you 12 real time controller knobs. How comfortable you'll feel using that system is a question you'll have to answer for yourself. I find it useful for programming, but not for performing. Fortunately there is midi control over most parameters you might want to change in real time.

I have so far found programming the B-3 to be fairly intuitive.

The manual is excellent. Written in a narrative style, by people who use english as their first language and who (one imagines, anyway) really care whether you understand and can get the most out of the product. All of which is usually lacking in the typical Yamaha or Roland manual. What comes in the box is a hard copy quick start manual, with the full manual on disk. This will probably come as a surprise to most buyers, and maybe a frustration to some.

This is an interesting beast. From a pure sound standpoint, it comes awfully close to the real thing. Its all based on sampling a real Hammond, and the reproduction is very good. However, the user interface is quite different than on a B-3. Primarily, it is not really set up to be manipulated by drawbars. The reviewer below describes how you might do that, using separate midi channels for each drawbar. I tend to think that would not work out very well. This module is really designed to be used with presets. Now, you can layer four voices in a preset, and so there is the opportunity to get very creative in how you do that. I'm having a great time with it. But its nothing like using drawbars.

64 voice polyphony, and I'm beginning to conclude that polyphony can easily become a limitation with this module. That's because, as I mentioned, programming it to allow for interesting morphing possibilities will tend to use up voices pretty quick. I think the turbo upgrade to 128 voices, when it becomes available, is going to be a popular option. I know I'll be getting it.

I think it sounds great. Very fat for a digitally sampled sound. The samples beautifully catch many of the beloved artifacts of a real Hammond: key click, leakage, grit, etc... The percussions sounds amazingly good and so does the vibrato/chorus.

The leslie effect is OK. The main problem I have with it is the speed changes don't sound realistic to me. They happen too quickly in the presets, but even if you slow it down, it still is not so great. This is important to me because in my playing I'm changing speeds quite a bit. So forget the EMU leslie simulation, I'm not using it. I run the output through a different leslie simulator, or a real leslie, and then everything's cool.

What I love about this module is not merely that it does such a good Hammond impersonation, but that it allows you to manipulate that sounds in many of the same ways you would a synthesizer. The EMU filters are great. You can really go places while still maintaining much of what's desirable in the Hammond sound. Is this concept going to be appealing to many people? I have no idea. Its very appealing to me. I love the meat and potatoes Hammond/Leslie sound, but I also love to take that sound out into the stratosphere with filters and effects.

A large part of being expressive with this module lies in its extensive midi control. The virtual patchbay allows for infinite possibilities. Again, its a whole different way of thinking about changing the Hammond sound in real time.

No problems so far. Front panel buttons and knobs seem of good quality. This is my first piece of EMU gear.

The review below talked about bang for the buck and I guess you'd have to rate this pretty high on that scale -- you can't get such a good Hammond sound for this price point from any other product. The Voce V5 goes for around $800-900, but lacks a leslie simulator. Since I don't use the EMU leslie simulator, that's actually a comparable purchase for me. Alot depends on how fanatical you are about getting the best B-3/leslie simulation.

The obvious product comparisons are the Voce, the Roland VK-7, and the Hammond XK-2. The XK-2, like the EMU, is sampled. I think the EMU sounds much better than the XK-2. I also prefer it to the VK-7. The Voce gives you a warm, fat sound, more analog in character than any of these others. But it doesn't reproduce the Hammond artifacts (leakage, etc.) nearly as well as the EMU. So, hey, you just gotta listen to both and decide what's more important. But I do think that, from a sound quality standpoint, the choice is between those two.

Then there's the whole drawbar issue. I can imagine a great many traditional B-3 players will want to have them, and that, if not totally ruling out the EMU, at least puts it at a significant disadvantage.

Maybe this is just a phase I'm going through, but I'm currently hooked on playing the EMU B-3, exploring its possibilities. Its possible that I will someday come back to needing drawbars. But right now I'm living without them.

For anyone thinking of getting a dedicated Hammond simulator, I'd think they would want to check this out. I would also highly recommend checking out the Voce V5, though they are harder to find. It might turn out to be a tough choice. Then there's the Nord Electro and the new dual-manual Oberheim, which are not yet to market but are much-anticipated. For the player who wants a great organ sound but doesn't want to haul the real thing, the choices are multiplying. My general advice would be to get the best leslie simulator you can afford, or maybe even consider using a real leslie. It is, in my humble opinion, the more important half of the Hammond/Leslie partnership. Play a casio through a Leslie 122 and you'll see what I mean.

Version 1.01. This module can be easy or hard, depending on the depth
you want to go to in programming it. My goal in trying this module
out was to set it up with my A-70 controller and use the sliders
on the A-70 for drawbar-like operation. I would have made my life
much easier had I looked at the manual first, since all the functions
I needed are nicely explained. The manual is very good, but is on
CD-ROM, so you either have to print it or stay near your computer.
I'll take a point off for that.

Once I understood the displays, I realized that everything I needed
was easily available. I was able to set up a basic sound, then add
harmonics on separate MIDI channels in a couple of minutes. Setting
up the A-70 proved to be most of the work. I can't immagine a way
to make it any easier than they did.

Naturally, selecting presets is a no-brainer.

64-note polyphony. This is not always enough when layering and doing
multi-timbral stuff. Some of the programs I tried on Midi CH1 are
multi-timbral already, so when you add harmonics on other channels,
you start eating notes real quick. However, this doesn't have to
be a problem. The front panel control knobs can be set up to control
layers (i.e. more drawbars), and the default seems to be two knobs
for layer volume, and two to control key click. This is already
halfway to what you might need. In the end, I think I'll end up
buying the Turbo upgrade when it becomes available, simply cuz I
don't want to have to even think about note robbing.

Effects.....not a huge array, but certainly they covered all the
basics. They seem easy enough to edit. The rotating speaker effect
is pretty good, but the default spin-up/down time feels a bit too
abrupt. This can be changed, though.

Expansion: One ROM slot. I haven't seen anything from Emu that
compels me to fill it.

For the price, you get a helluva lot of stuff. It's much, much
cheaper than competing products, given that the leslie effect is
there from the start.

I rate this category on bang/buck, not total feature count. Points
are taken off for note robbing, but this may be because I haven't
worked out all the layering controls, so take it with a grain of salt.

This is a ROMpler. Sampled B-3. It's gritty, there's lots of background
noise in a lot of the patches....motors, leakage, some electronic crap...
well, everything that you've come to know and love from the original.
They even got the drawbar ratchet, rotor motor, leakage, etc., all on
separate samples. If you wanted to really fool someone, set up a
MIDI channel to play all this crap in the background.
It's not sterile at all. Emu did a good job on this module.
I can't give this a 10, cuz there's nothing "pristine" about a B-3.

Effects: Of primary concern is the leslie effect. It's good, but
I haven't explored how deeply I can edit. There are some odities
about it, though. Using the mod wheel to switch rotor speeds is
real easy. However, if you use a footswitch (sustain ped on the
A-70), it controls the leslie with a toggled discrete, whith a
separate discrete for each layer. If you toggle the leslie fast for
a layer, then turn on another layer which didn't previously have
the leslie fast, the layer comes in with slow leslie. (Of course, you
can turn it on with the mod wheel, but I want to use a footswitch.)
When you hit the switch, the first layer goes slow, and the other
switches to fast. Out of sync. There are other options to control
it, so this is not such a big deal. One thing to note: A base sound
layer on slow with a high harmonic on fast sounds really, really cool.
It puts a really nice shimmer on top without going for the full-on
leslie. Interesting possibilities to explore.

The first unit I left the store with died after about 8 hours of burn-
in. The replacement works fine. Infant mortality will always claim
some units after leaving the factory. I hope this does not bode ill
for Emu's QC department. The failure was in the output stages
somewhere. The output suddenly started to crackle, then died. The
unit still powered up, but there was no output. A converter or an
op-amp.

Time will tell, but the unit appears to be well constructed. Ask me
in a year and I'll give you a firm opinion.

The manual is good enough, and the store I bought it from is really
cool, so I never had to deal with Emu directly.

OK, I'll give it a good rating here. For the price I paid (thanks
to a store's price matching policy and the cheap price offered by
Zzounds), it was a steal. A Voce V-5 plus effects unit would easily
put you over $1000, and this unit does a comparable (not the same
thing - it'll never really be a drawbar unit, but I can get all the
sounds I want) job for much less money. Unless you're a dedicated,
hard-core B-man and insist on a duplicate of the original's
functionality, this unit can do it right. Definitely a repeat buy.
Several friends who've stopped by to play with it are running out
to buy them this weekend. (Everyone was waiting for me to do the
dirtywork of wringing the unit out.)

A little tricky at first. Each sound consists of at least 4 samples and can additionally link with another two sounds. It has a very nice pallette of parameters and once you learn those, you can do about anything soundwise.

Polyphony is great - but watch out for some drop outs when you put together a "large" sound. But, that happens very, very rarely - and when it has happened, it has really been my fault in how I set up the sound. I can usually get as good or better sound with fewer samples anyway. I love the effects in this - they are very good - especially the distortion - it is very, very close to the real thing. You can expand this thing too with other Emu products - although I will probably never do that - I like a dedicated organ module. Finally, it has full midi capability.

Excellant sounding organ module. And, it will sound exactly as you program it - if it sounds bad, it is probably your fault. The samples are very realistic. I especially like the leslie simulation. One negative though - the output db is fairly weak. Simply turn up each sound within the module and the problem is cured. I have listened to virtually every organ module except the Voce V5. I think this is the best. I may be a little crazy in this - but I think the sampled B3 emulations are better. One time I worked with a Voce V3, Oberheim OB3sq, Roland VK-7 and a Roland 1080 with the 60's and 70's chip installed - all side by side. Later, I worked with the Emu B3. There is absololutely no question in my mind that the Roland 1080 with the 60's and 70's chip and the Emu B3 are the most superior of this group. Some people like to pull drawbars - and if that's the case, then I think the VK-7 and V3 are the best - but if you are after sound, buy this or buy the Roland 60's and 70's chip and put it in a 1010, 1080, 2080 or the new 3080. Of the Roland 60's and 70's chip and the Emu B3, I think the Emu has a more gritty realistic sound - it sounds great with my 2 watt Motion Sound rack mount leslie module.

Haven't had it long enough to tell. But every Emu product I have ever had or seen seems very reliable.

Emu is very accessible. Before I bought this, I called Emu and was actually connected with one of the guys who programmed this unit. He was very very helpful - try that with a big company.

I would buy it again - I use it with the 2 watt Motion Sound rack mount leslie module and it works great. I guess I would want to listen to a Voce V5 (I have never heard one) but I can't imagine it is better than this. And, the street price for this unit is very low.