IK Multimeda B3x on sale

Yes, paid $20 more cyber week, no big deal. First software B3 I felt worth buying, and using in lieu of my Korg CX-3 (DSP generation). Only wish is that the Leslie sim was as good as my Ventilator, but it's adequate for typical.

When you say "Leslie sim was as good as the Ventilator", are you talking purely about the sound quality or also about the user interface experience?

I have a Ventilator hooked up to my Hammond M3 and, tone wise, I want for nothing, short of owning a real Leslie or possibly a real B3. Also, the ability to easily turn dedicated knobs on the Ventilator, while sitting at the M3, is a definite plus.

That being said, the ability to change keys, transpose, fix midi notes, etc. with something like the IK does have it's advantages, provided the sound is good.

As far as sound, I've been curious about the IK B3. I already have the IK standalone Leslie, but I suppose I could be convinced to pick up the IK B3 for the current sale price. Is the standalone Leslie from IK the same as the Leslie packaged with the IK B3?

I don't know if the standalone and the one in B-X3 are the same. It's not that the one in B-X3 sounds poor, it's just that the Ventilator sounds great, especially in stereo rotor speed changes. I actually haven't had the opportunity to put them side by side to see just how much difference there is. But I didn't get the same thrill from the IK sim. I also have PSP's L'otary—very flexible and usable, but not the same tone as the Ventilator.

BTW, I see I've had it since 2011, I wrote this article in 2013 to address an annoyance... Ventilator adapter in a mint tin

I think the Leslie (which by the way they also use the name Leslie & Hammond) in the IK B3 is the best I've heard for plugin. Have not tried the Ventilator but then again it's hardware.

Yeah, the Ventilator is hardware, but it's DSP. As I recall, it was developed on computer under Creamware DSP, then became a pedal (with a SHARC) for commercial release.

The Ventilator is a bit more dramatic (animation in the stereo image), but I like its rotor deceleration in particular. My Leslie 122 is in disrepair (no motivation to fix it after getting the Ventilator), but when I used to play with it, rotor speed changes were mostly about speeding up in order to be able spin it back down—I love that sound. The Ventilator gives me that, but I don't get the same excitement from the one in the B-3X. It doesn't seem to have enough control range and independent control of the rotors to get the same feeling. I sometimes collaborate with my old bandmate, so he try to stay compatible with what matters most, so I talked him into getting a Ventilator years ago, and recently set him up with a new computer and software, including B-3X. I didn't even mention the Leslie portion—he finally got around to trying the plugin this past week, and told me he'd be running it out to the Ventilator.

To be clear, I'm sure I'll use the one in the B-3X plugin for most or all, because the very idea of using the plugin instead on my CX-3 + Ventilator is to more easily tweak sound after the performance (Ill still use my CX-3 keyboard, because it's just not right without waterfall keys). So, I prefer to avoid trips back out of the box. But if I really need that deceleration...(acceleration too—the Ventilator conveys a good sense of mass).

This was all BX3

music.apple.com/us/album/throwaway-heart/1596665502?i=1596665503

It used to have a Dynaco mono tube amp in it, not sure why I ever got rid of that 

With the idea of breaking down the differences between the Ventilator and IK (in B-3X) Leslie sims, and a secondary goal of seeing how close I could get the two:

First, I checked with my buddy, to see if our idea of the differences was the same. It was—we both felt independence of the rotors was more apparent in the Ventilator. I also recognized that the cabinet sound was different, and wondered if that might account for the separation. In that regard, I wanted to figure out if a little EQ to get the cabinet sound closer would do the trick, and it not, whether a little EQ would give more satisfying separation, even if the sound didn't match the Ventilator. The later would be fine—as long as it sounds good, it doesn't need to match the Ventilator. But the former would be interesting.

I routed the direct (no Leslie sim) IK B-3X through my board to the Ventilator and back in to record it, and also recorded the IK with its sim to another track. Randomly named, randomly ordered files:

fji.wav

wti.wav

I want to see comments first. You can guess which is which, or just say whether you like one better than the other, how much, and why. I'll give the unequalized audio later, and show the curve.

Fji x2 here, much more gravitas!