KVR Audio

Dewdman42 · Post by **Dewdman42** » Sat Sep 28, 2019 4:51 pm

It sounds plasticy to me. Hey if this were under $100 I’d probably grab it anyway, but the price they are hoping to sell this for ultimately is insane when there are such other great hammonds out there, there are a number of decent ones in the $100 range, several of which I have already. This isn’t really adding anything new and certainly not for the price. I already have both t-racks and amplitude Leslie’s. They are pretty decent on their own but why would I pay again for yet another Hammond clone that sounds like the others except more plasticy? This is too late to the game, sorry ik

egbert · Post by **egbert** » Sat Sep 28, 2019 5:28 pm

@ Peter - Jon Lord showed how he used a Marshall with Hammond and Leslie in a video I saw. He ran his C3 into the Leslie, miced the bass rotor of the Leslie only and fed the miced signal into a Marshall driving a guitar cab.

So, not so much a blend of the two in parallel as the two amps in serial with the Leslie first. Any chance of getting this version of the FX chain into your Hammond sim. The guitar amp is a cool addition btw, just wondered if we could do it the way JL did.

glokraw · Post by **glokraw** » Sat Sep 28, 2019 11:26 pm

Running fine in Mint 18 linux, wine-staging 4.16, Reaper as host,
to me, a sign of solid no-frills coding.
The presets sound great, and will be fun to use the built-in effects,
and then with Amplitube 4 and some other usual suspects,
looking for that inner deep purple

emasters · Post by **emasters** » Sun Sep 29, 2019 9:15 pm

Sounds really good. I have a Hammond XK-3c (both manuals, pedals). Using the XK-3c as a controller is fantastic - IK (and Hammond) did a great job, both with the core organ features and Leslie emulation. Really fun to play! I'm able to get the manuals/pedals, half-moon leslie switch and expression pedal to integrate via MIDI. However, the drawbars and control switches don't integrate properly. Do have the correct integration profile selected and turned on. I ping'd IK support to see what I'm doing wrong. Jim's video shows the B-3X integrating properly with his XK-3. So clearly, it does work, so something in my config. I'll continue to use the XK-3c playing live. But for recording work, the B-3X is a fantastic optionl. Overall -- a great product at a competitive price. Nice job Peter & IK!

benjamind · Post by **benjamind** » Mon Sep 30, 2019 12:01 am

Best sounding virtual hammond I've ever heard. As for those who are saying it's plasticky and that it's late to the game, well the sound is definitely authentic to my ears and I have played a real hammond B3. Calling it plasticky, frankly, is an insult.

It's the effects that make the sound in a lot of cases. Amps and Leslie speakers are what give the B3 it's sound. And IK have some of the best amp sims out there.

As for being late to the game, well, I guess you could say that claim has an element of truth to it. It is pretty late since we have had pretty good sounding B3 emulations for at least a decade. But this one takes the cake.

We've had reasonably good and playable virtual guitar emulations for at least a decade, too. But when MODO GUITAR comes out, well, it'll be pretty late too. But always remember, good things take time and waiting is of the essence if you want good things. Good things come to those who wait.

Fleer · Post by **Fleer** » Mon Sep 30, 2019 3:36 am

@benjamind
Try GG-Audio’s Blue3 II with IK’s T-RackS Leslie. Interesting comparison there.

benjamind · Post by **benjamind** » Mon Sep 30, 2019 6:38 am

Fleer wrote: ↑Mon Sep 30, 2019 3:36 am @benjamind
Try GG-Audio’s Blue3 II with IK’s T-RackS Leslie. Interesting comparison there.

That combo would hold it's own. That emulation is probably the only thing, aside from the latest version of VB3, that can stand up to this emulation. All three are good choices as far as creating a convincing B3 sound is concerned.

There are a few different choices in this market now, whereas a few years ago there weren't nearly as many. I still like Guido's plugin, and of course, Blue3. The reason I like the IK version so much is because of the amps/leslie cabinets that it has built in to the instrument by default so no need to add a 3rd party effect to the output chain.

Peter - IK Multimedia · Mon Sep 30, 2019 5:04 pm

emasters wrote: ↑Sun Sep 29, 2019 9:15 pm Sounds really good. I have a Hammond XK-3c (both manuals, pedals). Using the XK-3c as a controller is fantastic - IK (and Hammond) did a great job, both with the core organ features and Leslie emulation. Really fun to play! I'm able to get the manuals/pedals, half-moon leslie switch and expression pedal to integrate via MIDI. However, the drawbars and control switches don't integrate properly. Do have the correct integration profile selected and turned on. I ping'd IK support to see what I'm doing wrong. Jim's video shows the B-3X integrating properly with his XK-3. So clearly, it does work, so something in my config. I'll continue to use the XK-3c playing live. But for recording work, the B-3X is a fantastic optionl. Overall -- a great product at a competitive price. Nice job Peter & IK!

Thanks! Nice controller, that really ups the game too. Others should note that while we obviously have the XK profile built in to Hammond B-3X, we do also have the SK profile there too for those users.

Spitfire31 · Post by **Spitfire31** » Tue Oct 01, 2019 7:43 pm

Talking about control, I downloaded the demo of B-3X and it does sound great, I have to say. And I'm a bit spoilt, owning (licenses for) VB3 II, B-5, Blue and Logic's B3.

But one (for me, and I guess for many others, too) critical omission will make me pass on B-3X (unless it's corrected before the intro price disappears).

There is no provision for using a MIDI CC 64 pedal for latched switching Leslie roto speed.

With latched, I mean one press on the pedal switches the rotors to tremolo and the next time I hit the pedal, the rotors slow down to chorale.

VB3 II has it. Blue has it. B-5 has it. PSP l'otary has it. Even the IKM standalone Leslie has it, fer cryin' out loud!

So, why doesn't B-3X? Incomprehensible oversight.

/Joachim

Ryan_IK · Post by **Ryan_IK** » Tue Oct 01, 2019 8:57 pm

Currently there is no control over Momentary/Latch functionality for the different MIDI assignments. While this is logged in as a user feature request, this is normally something to be adjusted on the controller being used. Check for this option in your MIDI controller user manual or control panel. This might be available.

If it is the case that no software exists for your device, then it is also possible to use MIDI translation software, for example:

Bomes MIDI translator (PC / Mac)

MIDI Pipe (Mac)

Guide for MIDI Pipe

For those out there who I'm sure read this and didn't like the thought of using any additional software, I do just want to reassure you guys that this was passed to the team to be looked into. In no way was this an oversight, since the initial release of Hammond B-3X provide the Hammond experience as approved by Hammond themselves, but thanks again for the interest and keeping the conversation going. We greatly appreciate it

Future feature requests should be funneled here to the official wish list: https://cgi.ikmultimedia.com/ikforum/vi ... 12&t=22351

zyzygis · Post by **zyzygis** » Tue Oct 01, 2019 10:39 pm

It’s very sad that IK are so bad at programming for midi and controller mapping. It is a serious oversight IMO.
I have contacted support about it but I don’t get the impression that IK think it’s important.
I get frustrated when I use the standalone software like Lurssen and AmpliTube and TRacks and there is no way to map my controller to anything.
There is some arcane midi assignment system in AmpliTube which I have never got to work even to map my expression pedal to the wah.
I don’t think it’s difficult to code midi assignment, most of the plugins I have seem to have it.

Dewdman42 · Post by **Dewdman42** » Tue Oct 01, 2019 10:42 pm

One question, I see that IK provided some kind of controller map for some well known Hammond Controllers. Is there any provision to setup maps for other controllers such as the DMC-122 or other non-Hammond branded controllers?

I have been playing with the demo. My first impression was that it sounds "plastic", but my impression is improving from that. By plastic I meant...kind of too clean and pure. What I have liked about VB3 and Blue3 is the ability to add a bunch of leakage and stuff that makes it all sound a little more vintage. Those two also have excellent distortion drive characteristics. I never could get along with NI's B4II because the drive on that one pretty much sucked.

Most other Hammond clone plugins also have an organ drive knob which can often be used to drive some nice distortion. VB3II and Blue3 both have that. B3X seems to miss this, relying on the Leslie Gain to achieve that sort of thing, or the TubeScreamer (yuck).

Blue3 and VB3II have a few more tone wheel sets to choose from compared to B3X and numerous more options for fine tuning the way they sound. On B3X side, its a nice feature to use the mixer to combine Leslie with guitar cab and even the direct sound if you want, they can all be mixed together. I didn't check yet, but suggestion for IK would be to be able to send the audio from those three output sections to multiple audio outs in order to send the DI out to external FX and T-Racks Leslie, while mixing the output from the guitar cab and leslie on separate channels in the DAW.

I already own both T-Racks and Amplitube versions of leslie. That makes the purchase very much not a no-brainer decision, even with the loyal customer cross grade and jam points.

So last night I setup a test comparison between several different plugins, in all cases I disabled their built in Leslie and ran it through T-Racks Leslie instead so that the leslie itself would be exactly the same in all cases.

The differences between the software definitely becomes very slight that way. What I do appreciate about B3X is that the Leslie is high quality like the T-Racks one and its built into the plugin, which simplifies setup. I might buy it just for that reason, even though I rather prefer so far the tones I am getting out of Blue3. It is not no-brainer pricing lets be clear, but I still might get it anyway just because the IK Leslie is currently pretty much best in class and with this it would be built into the same plugin. If this had come out a few years ago I would have gotten it because its all self contained and it does sound good. They are late though, and after I already spent bucks on T-Racks leslie, so the return value on buying it now is not as great as it would have been a year or two ago, simple as that.

I notice the EQ-PG pedal is used in the B3X for not only EQ but often its used in some presets to add some gain and grit...in a very good way. I was able to replicate the same thing by using my T-Racks version of that EQ...and could get the same sound using Blue3->EQ-PG->IK Leslie chain. But..obviously..its a much simpler setup when its all contained inside B3X.

Dewdman42 · Post by **Dewdman42** » Tue Oct 01, 2019 10:56 pm

I also have to say the lag in changing presets is a bit of an issue also. This doesn't effect use in the studio, but if I ever tried to gig out with this, it could be. I tested also with MainStage and it takes a few seconds to load every preset... BUT... in MainStage you can setup separate MainStage patches, each one with a different B3X instance on it. Then in MainStage you can change from one patch to the other instantly. It means more instances of B3X and whatever memory that entails..but it does work fine for quick preset changes that way. Not sure why B3X itself is so slow to change presets... seems like something that could be fixed honestly, and hope they will if they can.

Peter - IK Multimedia · Wed Oct 02, 2019 2:59 pm

Dewdman42 wrote: ↑Tue Oct 01, 2019 10:56 pm I also have to say the lag in changing presets is a bit of an issue also. This doesn't effect use in the studio, but if I ever tried to gig out with this, it could be. I tested also with MainStage and it takes a few seconds to load every preset... BUT... in MainStage you can setup separate MainStage patches, each one with a different B3X instance on it. Then in MainStage you can change from one patch to the other instantly. It means more instances of B3X and whatever memory that entails..but it does work fine for quick preset changes that way. Not sure why B3X itself is so slow to change presets... seems like something that could be fixed honestly, and hope they will if they can.

Changing presets is slower when there is a different tonewheel model in the new preset because the new tonewheel set needs to be loaded. If you use the *same* tonewheel set in your presets within the same song — like playing the same HW Hammond organ within the same song — the preset change is much faster.

However, and more important, this is also why we provide the inverted drawbar settings keys (same as the original hardware). If you just want to change drawbar settings, you press one of the inverted keys at the left, and the change is instantaneous, just like on the original hardware. You can have 24 totally customizable drawbar settings per preset.

Peter - IK Multimedia · Thu Oct 03, 2019 5:19 pm

I know the live stream was great and people liked it, but we also have videos like this that many seem to really like too:

https://youtu.be/TsosCZJ-QQ0

IKM launched a new Hammond organ