A while back I bought Eddie Landsberg’s “Hammond Organ Bass Lines Demystified”. I didn’t get it out and start working on it until I listened to Toby Marshall’s rock and blues bass lines. I found a photo of him playing where I could see the drawbars and he has lower manual first three all the way out. I tried that and it gets the tone but wasn’t as loud. I thought perhaps the recording studio is achieving that with EQ but then researched if he is using pedals. I figured out he plays left hand bass on the lower manual mostly. Then it occurred to me that perhaps he has some Trek II type mod that plays the lower manual’s lowest 25 notes as bass pedal note/tones. Low and behold I found a check box in VB3 II that does just that and it’s pretty cool if you’re doing the trio thing.
Speaking of “trio thing”, one of the best, kick ass, 3-piece (organ, drums, guitar) rock bands I ever saw was in a HUGE club in Kentucky in 1975. The organist was absolutely amazing, and his use of the pedals were jaw dropping. The club had 3 music clubs in it. One each for Country, Rock, and Top 40. My band was the Top 40, and when we had break, we’d check out the other bands, and they, in turn would check us. I was a drummer at the time, and the drummer from that trio struck up a conversation with me. Come to find out, he was Clark Pierson, former Drummer with the Full Tilt Boogie Band (Janis Joplin), who also played on the “Pearl” album. He introduced me to the other members of his band(whose names I can’t remember), but always wondered later if that organist was Ken Pearson, also of FTBB.
Has anyone had a VB3 II problem with the volume not being loud enough in Cantabile 3? I brought the plugin volume as loud as it would go yet on some of the patches that is still less than the volume set for other instruments in the Song State/Set List. I had to actually increase the Cantabile rack volume to full for the patch called Sweet. admittedly it’s a mellow patch but others are lower too. Before tweaking volumes on the rest of the rack to equalize everything I wanted to see if anyone on the forum else has experienced this and found a workaround.
Not exactly, but something similar: (first, a disclaimer: I haven’t really had enough instances to make a definitive decision, so for now I am still testing).
Last weekend was the first time I used VB3-II (+ T-Racks Leslie) in a live show with my band, replacing Blue3. I was not sure if the levels were going to be quite right, so I made sure to assign the Volume control in VB3-II – separate from the Swell control which I manipulate with an expression pedal – to a knob on my keyboard controller, and gave it plenty of headroom. I’m glad I did. It seemed that on many songs, the sound didn’t cut through the mix enough, while on a few it was more than enough. I used those MIDI CC messages to alter the volume to compensate.
I’m not necessarily blaming VB3-II; it could be that I just need to tweak the sounds a little or create a few variations on my basic B-3 patch to account for different songs and textures. But it is something I need to work through if I plan to continue to use VB3-II instead of Blue3. (I still might opt for the Blue3/IK Leslie combination. I am definitely sold on IK Leslie; not sure on VB3-II.)
Sorry if I hijacked your question a little, but my situation is similar although not identical.
I’ve been in touch with Guido about this… he’s looking into it.
Brad
That’s great!! Thanks!
yeah me too, didn’t know why
So I’d like to give the IK Leslie a shot, but I’m confused as to what version I’m looking for. What is the difference between the T-RackS and the AmpliTube versions. Are youse guise using one of the AmpliTube amps along with the Leslie?
Thanks!
Rick
I will summarize what has been discussed regarding the difference between the T-Racks Leslie and the Amplitube Leslie. We believe the difference between the two is primarily the GUI and placement of the controls plus the fact that you must load Amplitube to run that version which may use more resources than T-Racks. I already use Amplitube for the SVT bass amp (never record without it) and IK is offering $45 off the Amplitube version so I bought that. When I did the two week demo I used the T-Racks version. I haven’t yet found any control on one that wasn’t in the other. I have no plan currently to use a guitar amp or pedal in my chain but the Amplitube UI would make doing so a snap.
Here is a summary by DarkStar on the IK Forum:
T-RackS Leslie:
– is a single plug-in, which will run in a DAW, T-RackS 5 (the (free) Custom Shop program or a paid-for edition) or the TR5 Suite plug-in,
– the GUI has 3 panels,
– the first panel is for the Setup, Amp and EQ controls
– the second is for selection of amp (from 5) and cab (from 6) and for mic positioning,
– and the third is for mic mixing,
– the Amp controls look generic.
AmpliTube Leslie:
– is 11 separate gear models: 5 Leslie Amps and 6 Leslie rotary-speaker cabinets
– they can only be loaded into the AmpliTube program or plug-in (the free Custom Shop program or a paid-for edition, v4 onwards),
– in AT4 CS the Cab Room GUI will look and be simpler (as for other AT cabinet models),
– the Amp controls are on each AMP GUI, which look like the different models,
– pop-out panels on the Cabs show Cabinet selection, mic mixing, EQ, (and speaker and room browser?),
– you can (when released) download full working models from the AmpliTube Custom Shop and try them out free of charge,
– I presume that they can be mixed and matched with other AT4 gear models.
V2.01 out… looks like the preset issues have been addressed- PLUS the all notes off bug, which was driving me nucking futz in Sonar. For sure a buy for me now as soon as I get a few spare bucks…
Thanks Fred, I appreciate the heads up!
Just downloaded vb3 II v 1.0.1. Preset issues resolved!!! Three cheers for Brad and Guido!!!
Yes, works here as well. I am building my racks finally.
Hi Curt,
I’ve been checking this out and it seems to be a combination of controls that would effect the final output but the rotary amp section mic distances etc … really affect the output and some patches are set radically different in those respects. Hard to say if it is the only factor though, I’m still going through it so if anything else shows up i will report it.
Dave
I can attest to this. Noticed this from the beginning. Some inconsistencies on volumes. When I run thru IK Leslie, I am having to boost on IK to get enough volume to cut thru live mix.
Hi Curt. This is what I am doing that really helps, without increasing volume with Cantabile.
Use a boost level on Generator Settings
Change Output Level
From what I am seeing, these 2 boosts do not cause clipping, and will give you a cleaner volume pre-Cantabile output gain. I haven’t fully tested everything yet, but I do not believe any preset changes will affect the output level. It seems to be global, and so far, the boost seems to be global as well, at least until you change generators.
Regards
Corky
Thanks Corky, The 1.01 update appears to have some good refinements over the initial release. Now that I have had more time to work with it VB3-II is quickly becoming my favorite Hammond substitute in C3, especially paired up with IKMultimedia Leslie. Guido could add support for Protools but until then I’ll continue with BlueCatAudio Patchworks.
Thanks for your recommendations.
Curt
Looks like the 1.02 update is out with patch change and parameter restore fixes!
Neil
Hm, am I missing something? Even though 1.0.2 is announced I only seem to be able to download 1.0.1 (from 19th of july) here…
same here, maybe we wait a bit 