Great detail on the expression pedal. 
I posted this 6 months ago.
I guess GSI just couldn’t follow through. Only 5 days left of 2019. Not surprised.
The IK Leslie and B3X distortion is gone now - I reinstalled my previous UMC202HD driver and all is working
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That’s Great Doug !!
PRESET MANIA 3 – GREGG ALLMAN 1
Gregg was not a show-off keyboardist, unlike many of his era. However, he was a great, in-in-the-pocket band member. He was a triple threat….influenced by Jazz, Blues, and Gospel, which are the makings of a great Hammond player. His use of percussion in doubling/harmonizing guitar phrases solidified the unique Allman Brothers sound.
Allman used the B and Bb/A# preset as his main tools in shaping his sound, and would adjust drawbars as he played. He almost always used the “Gospel” C3 chorus, which helped to define, and push his Leslie. His signature Leslie “pulse” in “Jessica” is one I’ve been trying to emulate for decades, as represented here for the 1st few seconds:
With VSTs, I am much closer to recreating it now. I will have settings for it in future Allman posts.
The presets in this first installment, are common to Allman, and are suited to songs, such as “Melissa”, “Midnight Rider (original)”, and other, laid-back, organ lesser in the mix songs. In fact, it is difficult to determine the Hammond tone in several songs. But, I have tools! Here is the MR organ/vocal stem I acquired by chance:
Midnight Rider Organ_1.mp3 - Google Drive
In Midnight Rider, Allman has the Vibrato/Chorus C3 off. He uses the “B” key preset droning a D-Dsus pad, slow Leslie, during the verses. He quickly hits fast Leslie and “Bb” key preset during “But I’m not gonna let them catch me no, not gonna let them catch the midnight rider”, then quickly back to the D drone pad setting. The same Bb key and fast Leslie is used during the guitar lead. (B and A preset switch in VB3 1.4 and VB3 II, and Set 2 and Set 1 in B5)
THE PRESETS
VB3 1.4
VB3_x64 1-Gregg Allman 1 VB3 1.4 - CR.cantabileprogram (15.5 KB)
VB3 1.4 with IK Leslie v5.1
VB3_x64 1-Gregg Allman 1 VB3 1.4 IK Leslie- CR.CantabileProgram (15.5 KB)
TR5 Leslie 1-Allman 1 TR5 VB3 1.4 - CR.CantabileProgram (11.0 KB)
BLUE 3 v2.2.2
Blue3 1-Allman 1 Blue3 - CR.cantabileprogram (24.0 KB)
BLUE 3 v2.2.2 + IK LESLIE v5.1
Blue3 1-Allman 1 Blue3 IK Leslie- CR.CantabileProgram (24.1 KB)
TR5 Leslie 1-Allman 1 TR5 Blue3 - CR.cantabileprogram (11.0 KB)
VB3 II v2.1 with resident Leslie
VB3-II 1-Allman 1 VB3 II - CR.cantabileprogram (32.9 KB)
VB3 II v2.1 with IK LESLIE v5.1
VB3-II 1-Allman 1 VB3 II IK Leslie - CR.CantabileProgram (33.0 KB)
TR5 Leslie 1-Allman 1 TR5 VB3 II - CR.cantabileprogram (10.9 KB)
B-5 v2.5
B-5 v2.5 + IK LESLIE v5.1
TR5 Leslie 1-Allman 1 IK Leslie B5 - CR.cantabileprogram (11.2 KB)
B-3X v1.1.0
Hammond B-3X 1-Gregg Allman 1.CantabileProgram (34.2 KB)
PLEASE UNDERSTAND—PRESETS ARE ONLY A ROADMAP to a defined sound. Most organists constantly adjust drawbars, percussion, vibrato/chorus, and Leslie switches. What sounds great in one venue will not sound the same in another. So, adjustments are always necessary.
ENJOY !!
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Just a quick note on working with the Hammond Clones.
IMHO:
B-3X has been much easier, then the rest, to dial in a decent tone. Many parameters to adjust, and the Leslie is great. There are a few things I find not quite right, but it is still in it’s infancy, and hopefully future updates will make a difference.
B-5 is not too bad in dialing a tone. The distortion is not the best, but using it lightly, and with some adjustments in the Leslie, I can get it to sound great on it’s own. IK Leslie is not always the best with B-5. Love many of the tones I am able to get in the plug itself. There is room for improvement though.
Blue3 has many parameters, so dialing in a tone should be easier, but it takes persistence, and a knowledge of it’s inner workings. Yes, the distortion is sub-par, and it takes some effort to tame the Leslie. The beauty of it, is the many tonewheel sets. They really can make a difference in certain adjustments I was trying to tweak.
VB3 II is…, well, shall we say, somewhat ok. It does clean tones very well. I still use it in a few songs. I was also able to get several great tones out of it. What I have found so far, is many parameters are subtle in range, and neither add, nor take away from the tone. The Hammond part of the plug is really good, but the Leslie section is not what I expected from GSI. Adding IK Leslie really brings VB3 II to life, and very competitive with the others. I did everything I could do to make VB3 II sound like the presets I was emulating. Sometimes it was close. But many times it fell short. IK saved it everytime.
VB3 1.4…need I say anything? It is still great for many things. I always found the higher tones a bit muted, and with no sheen like a real Hammond. Oh well, a little EQ, eh? It is quickly becoming outdated, but IK Leslie gives it some new life.
Corky
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Pretty much concur. I like layering VB3 1.4 and B-3X together, it’s huge. Yeah, the doubled up Leslies are a tad unrealistic but it seems to work surprisingly well. After all, using dual Leslies onstage is not entirely unheard of. Of course you could route them through a single instance of IK Leslie but part of what I like are the combined subtleties of the way each one overdrives.
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I’ve been experimenting with many different ideas on the clones. Right now, just posting presets without anything added, other than IK Leslie. Trying to keep it pure to the plugin.
Lee Michaels is one of my coming posts. Knowing that his rig was hot rodded by Bill Beer, it would be difficult to achieve that sound on a VST, but I am trying. His lower manual was wired thru Bass amps, and his Leslies were modified with major amps, and high quality speakers of the time. He and his drummer produced a louder show than The Who ever performed. That sir, is a powerful Hammond, lol. 
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See what you think of this, I was messing around with it tonight… it’s my patch for Foreplay/Long Time by Boston. Sadly I only did it for B3-X, an as a .fxp export. But I think it’s a good median sound of the slight drawbar changes he uses. For extra fun kick on the chorus stomp in the breakdown going into LT. I actually did this without a copy of the song around, from memory, so let me know if it seems way off. I may do a moded version later if it seems off to me.
Hammond B-3X FPLT.fxp (13.5 KB)
Let me know if you dig it!
Fred
Having a problem getting it to load as fxp.
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Interesting. That’s the drawbar setup for sure. Wonder why it is being squirrly…
It sounds real good here Fred, I like the C1 setting, it adds a nice touch to it. I’m not sure what problem Corky ran into.
Dave
HI Corky, thanks for posting the Gregg Allman presets. The B3-X one definitely has that huge tube driven sound he gets when he holds a chord and slowly brings up the volume at the ends of songs like Whipping Post or Hot 'Lanta. I’ve been using VB3 II / IK Leslie for the the C3 chorus with percussion that he uses with the Leslie on slow. I hear Jimmy Smith influence when he solos. When I first started using VB3 1.4 I had trouble getting that, the C3 chorus wasn’t quite right.
Listening to these presets is forcing me to get a better handle on managing presets. My B3-X controller settings keep getting overwritten, does anyone know a way to prevent that or somehow just load those settings?
I finally got it working! Been out taking care of some business today, so been out of pocket for awhile. I do dig it. It is close to what I’ve been using.
You are very welcome!
That’s cool!
I use the C3 Snapshot presets, just like the ones I’ve been posting, as my presets now. Just remember when you initially load them, save to rack (if in one), or save to song, then LOCK THEM. and save again to keep them locked.
As I said above, a volume pedal needs to be bound to the plugin expression pedal. Playing softer passages has a tiny bit of growl, but push it to the floor, and dirt comes out to play. The same way with guitar amps…get the tubes to break up the sound by using vol knob on guitar. B5 has settings for pedal adjustments and curve adjustments. Really great for long time real Hammond players. You will see better examples of this in my future Allman presets.
I am glad you are enjoying the presets…more to come soon.
Corky
Adding a bit of volume boost to the expression pedal is interesting. I’ve noticed that the expression pedals of Blue3, VB3 and VB3 II and B3-X all have a very similar effect which leads me to believe the VST developers have correctly emulated the function but…when I push it all the way down I don’t get the big volume swell I hear on recordings.
Pedal calibration could do the trick. Also set your output volume with pedal to the floor. I always have to increase it.
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL! 2020, wow. Wish my vision was 20/20. Add a few zeros and that would be more like it.
Just picked up the Hammond XK1c 2 days ago. I have constantly been revamping my setup, trying to find the right combination…whether it’s physical changes or C3/routing changes, it seems never ending. A wise man said “you cannot play your best if your setup/equipment is not comfortable”.
For quite a while I have made due. Part of my lack of comfort is that I am old school and really only in the last year and a half finally dove into the deep end of the pool with C3, VST’s and midi in general. Dave Dore’s advice has helped me tremendously…and that brings me to my XK1c. Up until this purchase, I have been using a Code 49 controller and Blue 3 and VB3II for my organ. I have always been worried about what happens if C3 dies on me and I have to go old school. I really have not had adequate or “comfortable backup” until now. This will be my controller for all organs (I do a lot of organ work) and the Code will be relegated to the other duties it already does.
I also purchased B-3X and from what I’ve heard demo wise and read here, I believe it will be my go to organ plug. I have been using TR Leslie with Blue 3 and VB3II, so I have been getting some nice organ tones. Now, I have the comfort of knowing that should I lose my VST collection for whatever reason, I have immediate backup that only requires me to turn up the volume.
The keyboard itself with the classic waterfall design is awesome to play. It has 64 factory presets and 64 user presets. I still have a lot of digging into the menu for Leslie settings and the organ setting themselves, but right out of the box, I plugged it in, slapped on some headphones, and played it for about an hour. I can’t wait to map it with the B-3X. I am in the process of doing some fabrication to my Z stand to be able to accommodate all 3 of my keys (Studio Logic SL88, XK1c and my M-Audio Code 49) so hopefully I can get everything set up…the sooner the better. I use a Behringer X32 as my interface (and mixer in general as I mix from stage) and a Behringer X18 as emergency backup.
If you’ve been giving thought as to whether to get one, so far I would heartily recommend it. It is only 16 lbs. and it sounds great. Being able to create 64 additional patches that work for me, along with the 64 factory ones, is more than I could hope for. Plus being able to pair it with B-3X…I am one happy camper.
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