Native Instruments B4

Kurzweil PC1X, Yamaha PSR-GX76, MOTU Fastlane USB, Hot-rod MOSFET Homebuild Leslie 145 (http://www.vintagemusicprojects.com), Behringer 802 mixer, Behringer KX1200 keyboard amp, Leslie mic'ed with 3 SM58 mics 2 upper, 1 lower, KX1200 direct in to house board, Native Instruments B4, PIII 850 MHz, Soundblaster Live 5.1 sound card with KX Project Driver.

See my review above. This commentary is in response to the guy above who said this thing sounds bad.

My advice: buy the licensed version with all the tonewheel sets which includes a B3 in every state of disrepair you can imagine; Run it through a decent PC with a decent soundcard and low latency driver, and a real Leslie;

See the majority of the comments here - it doesn't get better than this, even compared to the hardware clones. Takes a little longer to setup, but audience can't tell the difference and being an experienced keyboard player neither can I and I've been playing for 32 years on and off.

I use it standalone as I have no need for a VSTi host. See my original review

See my original review above.

See my original review - never crashed and I use it for live performance 2 times a week for 3-4 hour gigs.

I've been playing keybaords in a 70's rock band for about 6 years and before that i used to play a bit keyboard in a bad black metal band...
The Organ i've beed played is some useless GM sounds, Yammaha organs that sounded like crapp, Crumor Organizer and som other crappy none tonewheel organs, I used a lot of distortion and other modulations to make it sound a bot more cool. I havde tried some Hammond organs and thougt i sounded really pissing good, and deicided to buy one, that was before I even known about the price and i was a bit freaked out.

No problem at all, if you know how install a game and workded a bit with midi there should be no problem....

There is one thing I don't like and thats the only thing I can complain about, but it can be my crappy soundcard, the sounds a bit compressed, needs more bottom and punch to be the real thing.

With a good soundcard this should sound great, I'm thinking of buying a USB Aduiophile 24/96 (since i use a laptop) used for about 100$ and hope for low latency, with my sounblaster (crapp) my latency goes down to 35ms whitout sounding crappy, (If you know it doesn't work well together with the audiophile USB plz e-mail me). I hope for about 10ms delay. But the sound i great and fit very well with my band...

I've been playing since I was 14 and I'm 46 - took about 15 years off from regular playing when my kids were born so I started back in the '70s and have played various organs through several home-built (and recently hot-rodded scratch-built Leslie 145). I've also owned and/or played various Hammonds (L-100, B3, etc.), Fender Rhodes, Korg MS 20 (mono 2-osc analog synth), Mini-Moog, Crumar strings, Crumar Organizer, Wurly, Yamaha, Kurzweil and various other keyboards over the years.

This review is for the Native Instruments B4 and I'm using it in standalone mode with an 850 MHz PIII, 384 Mb, Win XP Home, MOTU FastLane USB Midi 2x2, Creative SBLive! 5.1 with the kXProject Driver Version 5.10.0.3537 through a hot-rod Leslie 145 (see the construction notes at http://www.vintagemusicprojects.com/HomebrewLeslieConstr.html) Using the sound card and driver I am able to achieve less than or equal to 5 milliseconds latency between key down and sound production to the Leslie.

The interface is very intuitive if you are familiar with tonewheel/drawbar organs. The software is copy protected by indentations drilled into the disk beyond the readable area required for software installation, and infrequently at program startup it prompts you to insert the installation CD. Not a problem for me - If I as a software vendor created something this good I would protect it from piracy as well!

Getting a good sound out of it, for those who aren't familar with drawbar/tonewheel generation is easy due to the 120 preset configurations which come with the software. There are a few quirky things about the UI when it comes to saving your own bank of preset sounds (I use the out-of-the-box configs but with the Leslie sim turned off and load these when I start). The manual clears these things up and has several good sections for those who are new to tonewheel/drawbar sound generation.

B4 compared to a real Hammond through a Leslie in an A-B comparision I challenge even the most trained ear to discern the difference! And I'm not kidding either. The Leslie sim while not a real Leslie (and I can tell the difference) with a set of stereo speakers is about as close as it gets and is very convincing. With a real Leslie and the various acoustic things it does to the sound no simulator can interact with a room in this manner, but from a convincing standpoint it very close for a listening audience. Output is stereo and is highly polyphonic, limited practically by the horsepower of the machine you run it on.

Price paid was excluding the price of a PC which can be had for around $300 these days excluding a monitor. The PC I'm running it on is about 3 years old and used and I got the PC partially in trade for some computer work I did. With this setup and full-on dual manual control it only uses about 3-6% of the CPU and about 10-15% of available memory.

Computer keyboard is also mapped to functions of the virtual instrument such as rocker switches, preset and bank selections, and Leslie sim speed switch.

I've built a real-time control surface for this unit which employs real Hammond drawbars from an L3 along with toggle and rotary switches, but it is still in the prototype stage and not yet ready for primetime.

Still for the styles of music I play using presets is much faster to get an "instant" setup rather than pulling a bunch of drawbars and having to throw a bunch of switches.

In my opinion it's much lighter than a B3, sounds just as good, and it doesn't get much better than this.

I play music since 1990 as a Keyboard player. I'm interest in hammond sounds since 1998. I've been in a discussion List called Hammond Italia for about 3 years and I've learnt and I'm learining a great amount of hammond-related stuff. 90% of Hammond Italia List member like B4 sound and this opinion is related to people who plays Hammond consoles on stages or living rooms. I've purchased the tonewheel version so it's the 1.1.1 software version. I use B4 in live situations with my Oberheim ob3 squared as a master. I've programmed a map which involves Ob3 midi messages to control B4. This map suits perfectly with b4 virtual controls. I use b4 in standalone or with many vst hosts in conjunction with virtual compressor. I run plugins on an IBM Thinkpad PIII with 128 mb RAM. I run al my equipement on the band P.A.

The interface is very intuitive except for some controls (leslie spread, balance). All controls can be midi controlled. The sound is good out of the box. Than You can tweak knobs in order to achieve some particular effects trying to recreate for example leslie on stop, speeds, hammond without leslie, some leslie tonal charaters tweaking tone knobs.

It sounds great, the resonance produced on upper octaves are ear piercing! The distortion is really good, chorus effect is lush and very close to the real thing. Leslie effect is the great feature of this programme. I know that real leslie can be beaten but B4 leslie effet is a great substitue for travelling hammond players.

The price really worth. I choose this plugin because it can be run on standalone and when I discovered B4 I didn't know anything about vst world. I can't afford Hammond but I played it in some occasions. I think that B4 is the best choice for an hammond clone. There are good hardware clones out there but if you own a Pc, B4 is the most affordable choice. The software is strong built. It nevere crashed any time. It sucks a 15% of my 550 mhz CPU. I wish it had some leslie models selection or a better internalHammond amplification sim. One thing lacks for all: spring reverb!

I'm mainly a guitarist who plays a little bit of keyboards. I'm running this on an AMD K6-2 350 MHz Win2k machine with a Turtle Beach soundcard, and I have no problems with latency.

The interface is just like playing a real B3, except the drawbars for the manuals are backwards (upper manual should be on the left and vice versa). It's easy to install. The only copy protection is having to insert the CD every time you want to play it.

Setting everything up is no different than if you were on an actual organ. Everything's pretty much self-explanatory.

The sound is amazing. Everything sounds, well, like a B3. I've played it live several times, and I've been really happy with it. The one thing I love about this thing is that it has balls. Some of the other fake Hammonds I've played have had the sound right but not the feel. This one gets it all right. You hit a high note and it's there. Turn up the drive and it'll growl.

The presets are really nice. Most of them are organized by song, so you can find the sound for, say, Gimme Some Lovin', really quickly.

The Leslie simulation is excellent.

It's well worth what I paid for it. A great piece of software. If you need a B3 and don't want to buy one of the expensive Hammond clones or lug around the original, it's great.

It's never crashed on me, and it runs fine on my comparatively slow machine.

I'm using B4 in standalone mode on a Windows XP 3.2 Pentium, listening through headphones.

Interface is intuitive and graphically cool. I'm bothered, however, that every freakin' NI product has its own idiosyncratic way of storing and retrieving presets. I own several NI products, and would find life easier if they all acted the same. I strongly encourage NI to determine their "best practices" for UIs, and improve all their products accordingly. For example, it would be nice to be able to change the current preset with the mouse ... why do I have to use the computer keyboard?

I have the tonewheel extension set (Vox, Harmonium, Farfisa) which is very cool, but you can't save a preset with its associated tonewheel. Say you tweak a preset with the Vox tonewheel and save it, but when you retrieve that preset the Vox tonewheel is not automatically loaded. This is not a good thing.

The manual is typical for NI: several mistakes, some bad grammer, and a few moron-level errors (like referring to the B4 as Spectral Delay, which is a totally different NI product). Fortunately the B4 is so simple that the manual covers all the bases without much confusion.

Sound quality is very good. Presets are very good. Lots of tweakability in drawbars and all the other doodads.

Sound quality is great, but UI needs improvements. The tonewheel extension set is way cool, but useless because presets aren't stored with the tonewheel you used when you created the preset. If you just want to use the standard factory presets, and you don't care about the extra tonewheels, you'll think B4 is a sufficient B3 emulation.

I'm a semipro rock-psychedelic keyboardist, i play piano, ep, analogue synth and specially combo organ e hammond organ.
My istrument on stage is the wonderfull Clavia NordElectro2 73.

I have try the NI B4 Version 1.1.1, play with M-Audio Audiophile 24/96 at the max resolution.

The interface is intuitive, but organ and setup is on
different pages.
The MIDI controller on market to play clone/organ is poor... waterfall keyboard, drawbar, sweel pedal... A normal master keyboard and a PC is totally insufficient.

Poor, very, very poor...
in comparison with original organ and in comparison with other clonewheel.
The leakage missing, bad highter harmonics, sound too compress,
without bass, it play flat and nasal
http://www.pucpuc.net/mosite/ne_vs_b4.mp3

Virtual instrument IMHO useless.
It's uneasy to use, it's impossible to play like an organ,
it have creepy sound.
Better than the organ on Korg M1, Roland D50, but pitiful in comparison with any other clone.

I've been playing around with pianos/keyboards for about 13 years, but I've only serioulsy been pursuing keys/synths in my recordings for about a year.

I ended up acquiring the B4 software through a friend of mine to use with Sonar XL 2.0. I didn't get the DXi plug-in for it, so I'm using it completely stand-alone. As far as keys go, I've got a Samick weighted digital piano, an old Roland Juno 60 (completely analog, no MIDI), and a Radium 49-key USB MIDI controller. The B4 software interfaces magically with the Radium, but more on that later.

Like falling off a log. The program itself has a very intuitive interface. It's basically a top-view of an actual Hammond, with all the drawbars, controls, and manuals of an organ. Using it is as easy as moving a mouse. Couldn't be easier...

... Until you throw in the Radium into the mix. As far as I know, Native Instruments and M-Audio have no affiliation with one another, so the fact that they interface so well together is astonishing. Being that the Radium is simply a dumb and (rightfully so) generic controller, I'm going to have to give the credit to Native. All the parameters are physically controllable with the Radium. For those who have never seen the board itself, it's got 8 MIDI parameter faders and 8 MIDI parameter knobs, a modulation wheel and a pitch bend wheel. Delightfully, the Radium's faders all control the drawbars, and the modulation wheel toggles the leslie speed. Some of the knobs don't do anything by default, but others control all the knob-like functions, like the preset control. It all just worked as soon as I got it all set up. I had this thing making dynamic on-the-fly music 30 seconds out of the box with the B4 software.

In a word, perfect.

When I first acquired the software, I was a bit skeptical about the performance of the software. I was giddy about the ease of interface, but was unsure of how it would perform sound-wise. I was shocked and amazed.

The presets alone were enough to keep a smile on my face. Nothing short of perfect. The sound was all there, from the shimmering Leslie effect to that throaty thunderin bass. The highs soar, the mids are heavenly, and the bass is awe-inspiring.

However, all sounds aside, my favorite effect was the rotary speaker sound. Now it aint much to get an organ to sound like it has a rotary speaker. Hell, most Casio keyboards have one preset or another that features a terrible facsimile of a rotary speaker sound. But even in a synth with tweakable parameters, you're going to be hard-pressed to find a module or synth that will do anything but one set speed. You might be able to tweak it, but it'd be missing one of the fundamental components of the Hammond sound; the ramp-up or ramp-down. When you flick that switch on a real Hammond, your speaker will crank up to speed or wind down, not that instantaneous crap featured on most synths. Such is the case for the B4 software. You get that ramp-up/ramp-down sound to a T. Perfect!!

Oh yeah, you also get buzzes, crosstalk, stereotypical Hammond quirks, and 6 different global presets describing the quality of the organ you're sitting at.

If you can get this software, you will be happy for life. I used to be part of the melancholy masses who thought the only way to get a Hammond sound was from an actual Hammond, and I didn't have $5000 or enough strong backs to haul one around, so I was very pleased when I got this software. Instantaneously, I got a new sound that is featured on nearly every recording I lay down anymore.

It's also worth mentioning that the software is very reliable. No crashes, not hard to configure, no BS. I had some issues recording stand-alone with Sonar, but I found that if I have the B4 program opened BEFORE I open Sonar, everything is fine. It's not a resource-hog either.

In conclusion, the only thing this program is missing is a solid walnut cabinet.

Just a short review here...basically, I'm a guitarist and bassist learning keyboards. I've got an Evolution 61-key USB midi controller keyboard, running into a P4. Its a beautiful sounding instrument!!!!! The patches are good, and playing around really teaches you about the instrument and how to dial up sounds. I've grown tremendously since getting this keyboard, and it has made me realize how crappy the organ patches are on the expensive keyboards at my church (where I play mostly guitar in a couple praise teams). Seriously, this is the sort of thing that makes you want to buy a laptop so you could take it everywhere! (dont have the money)

Very easy. I wish I had a more elaborate controller so I could have drawbar control on the fly, but I can't complain. If they could somehow make a hardware version of the B4...with drawbars, a leslie switch, waterfall keys, and all the appropriate rocker switches (i wouldnt even want/need patch memory, just give me the sound in an instrument!) they seriously could charge a lot of money, and get it.

Everything you need to dial up any organ sound (OK, any hammond organ sound, but the tonewheels pack gives you several others...although I personally found out how much I preferred the hammond after toying with the others for a while...too much cheese). I wish there was an easy way to add reverb though...I'm using it standalone and haven't figured it out yet. But reverb is obviously not an important organ effect, and certainly never came with the organs.

Fan-diddly-tastic!!!

Rich, organic, its-alive sort of sounds. Helped a lot by the leslie, of course...which is the best simulation I've ever heard. I wish I could get that sound in an effects box!!! But yeah, the tonewheel sound is definately good (you can strip it down to that by turning off percussion, leslie, drive, keyclick, and chorus/vibrato...just the pure tonewheel sound), but when all the other colouring factors come in, you've got something that just makes you smile when you hear it. I will use this all the time! You can add some very tube-y (for software, at least) grit to the sound, and although I prefer the sound without chorus/vibrato (sounds purer to me, less organ-y), they do sound very authentic and very good. Presets again are very nice, and easily tweaked. Latin 66 is a favorite of mine. I love the acceleration/deceleration of the leslie, its marvelous. definately my favorite softsynth, closely followed by the inimitable applied acoustics lounge lizard. with those two tools, I can make some funky music.

Definately worth it. go spend your hard-earned money, you won't regret this plugin. If you've got a fast laptop, find a way to rig it up, as this is really one of the best (and cheapest) B3 simulations out there!

I've been playing for about 10 years and I was strictly analog for the first 9 until a good friend turned me on to Cakewalk Sonar. After that I was going digital without looking back (at least for recording. Instruments and effects are another story). Anyway, being an avid fan of the B3 and B4, I kind of had an attitude about this program before I really sat down with it, but I was pleasantly surprised by the B4 soft synth.

A breeze. I had it up and running within a minute or so. It's got the most intuitive GUI I've seen for a synth, where you basically SEE the organ. You see drawbars, knobs, both manuals, wood, everything. When I first saw it, I'll admit I had an attitude, "like any program could replicate the B3, pfft." But the GUI grew on me, at first if nothing more than ease of use. I have to hand it to NI, the thing is as easy to use as a real organ. If you want to adjust your Leslie speed, you flip the switch. If you want to adjust a drawbar, just pull on it. I love it. And it's got a whole load of presets that'll get you off and jamming in no time. Interfaces well with my Midiman Radium USB controller.

Again, I was very biased when I heard of this program originally, but I was won over in the end. Short of buying an actual organ, you're not going to find a more realistic synth (soft or otherwise), module, or any other facsimile that'll make a more convincing Hammond sound. This thing is capable of reproducing every sound the actual organ makes, because you're editing the exact same parameters in the synth as you would on the organ itself.

The sounds are very convincing, but not perfect, or rather I should say too perfect. While the synth did an incredible job reproducing crosstalk and noise associated with the mechanical B4, it was still a little "digital" sounding. I'm being extremely picky when I say that though, almost anal.

The "Rotary Speaker" sim (leslie is trademarked, apparently) sounds excellent, and it winds up and slows down like a real leslie would, which I thought was neat.

Overall, I'm extremely impressed by the sound of this synth. It's the best one out there, for sure.

This one's a keeper on my digi-rig. I'm primarily a studio kid, so it's not going to see any gigging action, but you can bet your boots it's going to be on A LOT of my recordings. This thing is great.

I have played piano as my main instrument for 15 years, with 4 years primarily on keyboard. This year I purchased an XP-30 synth, and have started (in the last months) to experiment with organs and analog synths. I'm not an organ pro - I'm familiar with the B3 sound and feel, but I've not played on one extensively.

Software version is 1.1.1, with the ToneWheels Bundle installed. The program can be used stand-alone (which I do mostly) and can also be used with any VSTi (eg emagic Logic, Cubase) or [with an update] DXi (eg SONAR) compatible software.

I am using B4 to get as much experience with the B3 sound as is realistically possible for a full-time University student. I use the B4 mostly for non-live experimentation, experience and plain fun. My main music style is contemporary worship but I listen to all kinds of music for inspiration and influence.

Current System: Athlon XP1800+, 512MB DDR RAM, 40GB HDD, crusty nVidia onboard soundcard.

Usually listen through headphones, though sometimes run the output through some BOSE Interaudio speakers.

The B4's interface is extremely intuitive - as some have written elsewhere, perhaps too much so. A B3 fanatic will tell you straight away that the upper manual drawbars should be on the left (makes sense: right hand on upper, left hand moving drawbars), but they are on the right in the B4. The Percussion switch is actually on when "up" on a B3, but on when "down" on the B4.

I was pleased to find that the Space Bar was implemented as the Leslie Rotator toggle - something so commonly used needs to be easy to swat without too much precision!

Installation was straightforward, no problems at all. A VSTi plug-in folder from a compatible host program was automatically detected.

The B4 supports full automation with VSTi 2.0. MIDI control is simply implemented, giving the ability to select a channel for upper, lower and pedal. The drawbars transmit MIDI control messages rather than Hammond proprietary B3 messages, which is easier to use.

To get a good sound out of it, I plugged in my headphones and MIDI keyboard and played. Sounded great straight off; sounded better after some tweaking and fiddling. Learning curve is very quickly crested!

Manual is fine, haven't needed it overmuch so far.

It sounds fabulous. I was glad to discover the flexibility provided by the Tone Wheels bundle. I haven't played it live yet, but I intend to get hold of a decent soundcard (perhaps even an Audiophile USB) and try it out. The key to it is to ensure that the output is as clean as possible - it would be a shame to degrade such an excellent sound reproduction with a noisy soundcard output (like mine currently...).

The B4 is as expressive as an organ can be... seriously, you either use it with velocity sensitivity on or off. The rest of the expression comes from the controller and the player.

Stereo operation, of course: there's no other way to properly reproduce the fabulous Leslie speaker. B4 has options for microphone spread, distance, pan, etc. The Leslie is well done, too - it's a credit to the programmers that the excellent tonewheel emulation is backed up by decent Leslie effects.

It's fully polyphonic... How many fingers do you have? :-)

By the way, the interface is really very good. Gets you into the mood with all that wood finish.

I am usually reluctant to give a 10/10, but this time... The B4 sounds excellent, and I have been able to accurately reproduce the sound of a number of real B3 recordings on the B4.

Certainly worth the money, considering that I don't have the thousands required for an authentic Hammond B3 (oh, that I had the money!). Furthermore, a real B3 can be temperamental, requires heaps of TLC, will deteriorate over time and is hard to transport.

Favourite feature is the changeable tonewheels. I can have a poorly-treated 20-year-old B3 in one minute, a 10-minute old B3 the next, and a Farfisa if I change my mind! I also love the fact that the Leslie effect can be inserted on its own into VSTi/DXi programs.

I was concerned just once when using the B4 with my XP-30 - I transposed the upper manual in the B4 "Key Split" menu, pressed a key on the XP-30, held the sustain pedal and released the pedal. The note remained on, cancelling only when I pressed and released the key again. This is only a minor problem - I simply transposed the XP-30 and reset the Key Split option in B4. It's the only real "glitch" I have found so far.

I don't really go for the positioning of the drawbars... When you're mousing around on the computer, left or right is irrelevant. I don't see why the uppers had to be on the right. Native Instruments could include an option in the config for "Classic" B4 with all interface elements similar to a B3, as well as the "NI" original B4 layout.

Uses 4% CPU at most on my Athlon XP1800+ in SONAR 2.2 XL. Couldn't get it to use more than 2% as standalone. Consumes 16ish MB RAM on my machine, which is no problem.

It's never crashed on me. I leave it open on my computer for long periods, tweaking here and there - no troubles yet.

The B4 is an excellent, well-rounded piece of software. Of course nothing will beat the revered Hammond B3 (an emulator has to emulate SOMETHING...) but the B4 is a great purchase for anyone except the absolute purist B3 player. Well done Native Instruments.

I have been playing keys since I was 8. I also ply Bass, Guitars, Drums, HArmonica, and sing lead and backing Vocals in a working band for the past 13 years. I have B4 1.1, and I have been using it so far in stand alone mode. I am planning on using it with an fxpansion VST to DX adapter, to run in the synth rack in Cakewalk Sonar 2.0XL. I am making music that requires vintage style instrumentation. (i.e. guitars, pianos, Hammond B3's, Wurlitzers, Fender Rhodes,Acoustic Drums, Bass.) I run a Pentium 3,1GHZ system , with 512 MB of RAM, Turtle Beach Santa Cruz Sound Card, Altec Lansing 885 THX 4.1 Surround Sound speaker setup, DVD-Rom, CD-RW, NVIDIA Geforce2 32MB Video Card, and over 140 GB of hard drive space. I use Cakewalk Sonar 2.0XL for recording, and Sonic Foundry Soundforge 6 for mastering. I use Propellerheads Reason 2.0 for my keyboard sounds, and now B4 as well. I control all the MIDI sounds through a Fatar Studiologic SL-880 88 note master controller.

I had B4 up and running within 5 minutes after initial installation. All I had to do was basically setup my input/output ports for midi. Pick a MIDI channel, and specify my audio out. That's it. I had no problems at all with the setup. The interface looks just like a B3, complete with all controls, plus Mic placement controls. To get a good sound out of it was easy, just play the keys, if you don't like the sound, tweak the drawbars. It's that simple. The manual looks to be helpful, but I was too busy using it to read through the manual!

I swear to god if you didn't tell anybody, they would say it's a B3. I have a keyboardist in my band (I play Bass in the band). And he has had all the vintage keyboards at one time or another. He even owns a B3 (in disrepair), and a Korg CX3. He was absolutely flabbergasted at the sound quality, and the realism of the sounds. He is even going to get this plugin, so he has the sounds of a B3 at home. rather than lugging his CX3 from our practice location or worse, refurbishing his B3 and hauling it up form his basement (scary proposition, I have heard all the horror stories of the load in's/out's they have had over 30 years!). The presets are incredible, and if you don't have enough, make some of your own, it's easy.

Worth every single penny, I bought a refill for Reason that had Hammond samples, but there was no expressiveness, this is unbeleivable. I think my favorite feature is the rotary speaker simulation (they could call it a a Leslie if it wasn't copyrighted/trademarked), it is the balls. full rotor control high and low, speed, etc. It hasn't crashed yet, and I don't expect it will. Best software synth I have, and after Reason 2.0, I thought I wouldn't be saying this, but it's all true. Only thing I wish it had, was someone to play it for me!! (my organ chops need to be honed a bit)Now Go Get Your Own!!!!

I know what I like.

Simple to use. Over 100 presets.

Absolutely, the best B3 sim I've heard to date. I'm using it on a current project ant it rocks!

Has never crashed. Favorite feature is the generous selection of well-crafted presets. Uses less than 5% of the CPU on my 2.0GHZ P4.

playing keyboards for 6 years, and own all the vintage monsters like fender rhodes, wurlitzer, yamaha cp80...
native instruments b4 + tonewheel set

could not be easyer, an runs even on a fucking old 400 MHZ pentium with 8ms delay! can play it on my 2000MHZ notebook wit 2ms delay (with emi2/6 connected)
AND IT NEVER CRASHES!!

i hate digital instruments, but love the vintage monsters. but this thing basically is a b3 in a small box!
and it sounds great!!!!!!!!
forget the cx3 or the roland vk7! you want a hammond b3? go for the b4!!

i would buy it again, because its simply the best.

I've been playing a different real Hammond organs for more than 15 years now, going from the Real thing B3 over digital emulator XB2 and module X1M. But for several months now I've been using the B4 VSTi in Cubase VST 5.1

The installation was a breeze and the interface is very clear and logical. If you've ever worked with a real Hammond or drawbar organ you should be able to figure out every control.
Swinging the modulation wheel on your midi-keyboard starts the leslie-effect, but you can also program it via midi in your sequencer.

Off course sound is very personal but I like it very much. Although completely digital, the B4 has the dirtyness of a real 'imperfect B3'
People used to playing a digital Hammond will find a bit different but nevertheless the feeling is sensational and expressive.
It cuts through a mix and with a little reverb it can sound very sweet.
Also the built-in distortion is very good.

After testing a few other organ plug-ins, the B4 is definetly worth it's money.

software version 1.1.1
All sounds are fantastic! no kidding,
Editing, and saving and set up are a no brainer

I think it is 91 tone polyphony but as a guitar player using the roland gr-33 much more than 20-30 notes is hard to come by. It allows all the key click, drive, mic placement, slack belts you could want (except perhaps leakage) but hey you reall do get THE SOUND. You can also get a whole range of optional tone wheel sets that can be recalled to give diferent voices (i dont have this but check their web site - also listen to the german interview, if you dont speak German you may not be able to tell the diference (may be there was none??)But wait, there's more - these tone wheel sets can also emulate a farfisa and a vox continential (but no melotron yet)

The sounds and dynamics are wonderful- just make sure you amp/speaker can move a large amount of air, you will need it

It is worth every penny of what i paid I paid for it infact it is worth ...well don't get me started. If you have a midi keyboard and a laptop and a midi interface and a decent sound card you would be kicking yourself if you failed to try out the evaluation copy of the software before buying any other B3 emulation device. It is such a great emulation you can really see how the b3 works and why it has staying powerer, fantastic. And I don't like digital products!

Ahh, here is the rub. it runs on a PC running windows. Once i get it up and running it seems ok though i use it on both a 98 and 2000 laptop with MOTU flyer or USB interface

have not had the pleasure of contact with them

I find it very easy to use in stand alone mode on a PC laptop using a Midiman Midisport 2x2 under Win2k. Getting the latency adjusted low enough for live use on my 650mHz laptop took a while (had to play with the B4 latency settings and stop all unneeded Win2k services).

The control over the sound is amazing. Using the PC keyboard, mouse, and/or MIDI controller every parameter from the drawbars, to Leslie fast/slow switch to preamp drive amount is controllable in real-time. It'll even do some things a real B3 can't, like respond to MIDI velocity info (or not).

It blows away every other organ patch I've ever heard from other h/w and s/w synths. It's truely amazing to hear these sounds coming out of my laptop. The leslie sim is also the best I've ever heard.

If you have a laptop with a sound card and a MIDI interface, it's like having a 6lb B3! I'd love to see someone make an inxpensive ($100 or so) drawbar controller.

This is tight code! I was initially afraid to gig with it but after a few successful rehearsals my first gig with it went fine. No crashes.

If you want, you can simply install it and play it. The presets are nice, especially if you dig around some more. The manual is adequate, but is to a degree superfluous. The advantage is that they actually tell you how a Hammond makes its sound, so novices can hopefully use that to figure out how to best use the software.

It makes all the sound I need. I use it in standalone mode, not as a VST or Cakewalk plug in, and it works great on both my mac and pc.

The user interface is as nice as they come.

I suggest that you buy a Peavey PC1600x to go with this unit. Then, you can have 16 long throw faders to use as drawbars, 16 buttons for switches, a big-ass knob for whatever, and 2, count 'em, 2, pedal inputs. I use one for volume and one for amp drive.

There's no way to really emulate a Hammond without a volume pedal, and the PC1600 and B4 make it easy.

I can go to a gig with a keyboard (or 2 if I want a 2 manual setup), my notebook, my PC1600, and I basically have a B3 and leslie.

BTW, it's amazing. They modeled the B3 and Leslie as 2 entirely separate entites. So you can plug in your guitar and run it through the Leslie system. Brilliant.

I depend on the B4, I don't depend on my computers. So I consider the B4 extremely reliable, but never a computer, unless it's running VMS (but that's another story). I have a synth that I use as a controller that works as my backup.

Oh, and it has never, ever crashed. Go figure.

Asked several questions before I bought it, and all were responded to within 1 day.

easy to use as a stand alone and a vst plug. i use the stand alone on a laptop with a usb sound card.

everything the b3 has. i wired a real leslie switch to the express input of my keyboard and was able to assign the switch to control the leslie. i just wish they made an affordabl midi draw bar controller. for noe i can only remotely control 4 drawbars. i also wish you could use pitch bend, for those funky tunes. other then that this is great. i use a 700mhz celeron compaq laptop with 316mb of memory with a midiman usb midi interface and an egosys u2a usb sound card using a custom asio driver. this driver gives me 7 ms of latency, which is pretty good.

as good as it gets next to the real thing, and ive tried alot of simulated b3's. you can run other instruments through the b4 and use the lezlie, overdrive, and vibrato effects. it sounded really cool with a guitar ran through it. i recommend running it through a stereo rig, the lezlie effects will blow your mind. it dosent sound flangy like other simulators.

this product is great and i love it. i get compliments everywhere i play about how real it sounds. musicians always want to sit in using my stuff. a real b3 will cost you around $5000.00 and isnt fun to haul around. the b4 cost me 100.00 and weighs about 4 lbs abd sounds just like a b3.

if you have a fast computer with alot of memory that is reliable. the software is only as good as your computer.

good luck getting advanced help. i basically had to figure everything out with trial and error. but i eventually got it

It's as easy to use any any VST plug-in.

This thing has all the controls of the Hammond B3. All drawbars, leslie speed, overdrive, etc. Comes with some great presets as well.

I think this as good as your gonna get to a reproduction of a Hammond B3. It is remarkably warm sounding, something rare in the digital domain. Do not shell out the cash for a hardware B3 simulator without checking this plug-in out. Fills the room with that warm tone! Im very impressed with the sound!

This is personally my favorite VST instrument out there. Second to the Pro Five, also by Native Instruments. The sound is very suprising. Native Instruments puts out some great sounding software. Reaktor is also great but it's too complicated. I like easy to use things so I that can concentrate on making music, not building rockets.

Its only as reliable as your operating system and sequencing program.
The actual plug-in hasn't crashed on me, but Cubase is hardly a crash-proof program.