And…I think that is why B5 suffers live. It has to do with the Leslie sim it has. Neil Durant tried the B5 thru the VB3fx and said it didn’t have as much bite as the VB3. So…who really knows? I tried B5 with the UVI Rotary in two songs last night live. It was somewhat better, and did seem to have more life to it. Will take some tweaking before I give it thumbs up. I am also going to try it with VB3 to see what I get.
Holy Moely!! Just tried it with VB3…and just with default settings, it put unexpected power into VB3. The highs are really bright and realistic like the B5 but it retained those lows that VB3 is known for. Don’t know if there is a difference in EQ or what, but it got me excited. Fred…get your Rotary going and see what you hear on VB3.
Yeah Terry…tell Guido it’s time for VB3 v2 software to be released while you are talking to him.
I have spent 2 hrs with B5 and VB3, running them them through UVI Rotary. I would have gone to my grave swearing that VB3 was perfect as it is. I stand, reluctantly, corrected. This Rotary brings amazing life to VB3. It really helps B5, but VB3 kicks it’s ass.
I’d say that the microphone positioning feature ALONE is worth the price of admission to Rotary!
I just listened to a few demos, and it looks like I’ll be spending a hundred bucks this week on VB3 and Rotary… such is life.
I was hoping I could put some audio examples together, but not setup to do so tonight. You will not be disappointed with VB3. I love the sound of B5, but it doesn’t work live. I am going to experiment tomorrow with Rotary again. As of right now, I will be buying it by the April 5 deadline introductory price. Was so glad UVI had a demo version to try.
2 hrs later…
So, I stayed up late and did it anyway.
I recorded B5 and VB3 using their own leslie fx, then through the UVI Rotary. I setup both organs as close to the same as I could. Both had full drawbars and vibrato C3. I started each with brake position, then chorale position, then fast position on the Leslie switch.
2 and 4 do it for me.
VB3 Thru Rotary
2 sounds better to me and the second riff in number 4 is good.
But I’m not an organ grinder so I don’t really know so much …
IMHO, Rotary upped the game for VB3, but I haven’t used it live yet. Rotary upped the B5 game live, but when recorded, the B5 was much better with it’s own fx. The UVI Rotary was straight out of the box with no tweeks.
Hmmm… based on those the slow setting on Rotary sounds a little artificially chorused to me and VB3 Leslie still wins. But the fast setting sounds great and I think Rotary has the edge there. When I have a chance to get the demo working (won’t be today!) I’ll play with it more. The all VB3 organ example is much lower in volume and it’s tough to decide without the volumes matching- the human brain has a strong “louder is better!” bias that’s hard to overcome
I’ve been waiting to chime in on this topic because I play a lot of Hammond style organ songs and have been trying things out. I have the Acoustic Samples B5 product and VB3 and I have PSP L’otary for leslie. I like the warmth and cleanness of B5 but am not a fan of the leslie built in because it’s too subtle for live work and the library and scripting are very cpu heavy so not great at low latency ( and it cpu spikes on acceleration and deceleration of the rotor speed causing crackling at low latency). It’s great for pad but not a lead beast. VB3 is not as clean but full of character. I prefer to play through the l’otery for rotary effect, it took some tweeking for sure but is I think quite a good emulation and even though it’s also resource hungry it is stable as far as load goes. The high quality mode at least on my system is noticable as far as quality of the sound but adds double the cpu hit so I only use it to record in the studio.
Oh, and I love the lever feature, I have Roland Damper pedal that feeds variable CC to the lever so I can do really cool tricks with the speed control of the rotor motors. I have settled on running VB3 through the L’otary and have built a few setup states. I, like @Corky also await the update from AS on the B5, I would use it more if some of the cpu issues and the rotary effect was better.
Well… heck. Now you have me going back to L’otary to try fooling with it again (in addition to trying to get Rotary to work! If you have a chance can you post a screenshot of your settings? Would like to see them…
Yea sure, I realize it’s subjective and dependent on the monitor you use but you can experiment with the mic placement switch to great effect, good hunting …
A big reason I bought UVI’s Rotary yesterday was because it boasts such a low hit on the CPU (well, and the amazing mic placements!) Really, that lean CPU hit was a major selling point.
I will definitely be using this on plenty of other sounds besides organs, I guarantee that!
I was able to get a realistic Steppenwolf sound (with the loose belts) out of L’otary, and still use it when I need to. I just liked the VB3 rotary better for most of my songs. I guess, like Fred, I am going to have to give it a 2nd look.
OK, I know I really didn’t like the Melda at all. Well, unless you want to mutate it into something really crazy, like a 7 horn Leslie made of glass- in that respect you can do some really nutty things with it as a bizarre guitar or vocal processor. But for organ forget it, I’ve got enough on my plate, I’m not re-visiting that thing
Terry, the UVI is much better in my opinion. I have had the Melda for quite some time, and there are a lot of settings to play with. It has a warmer sound than L’otary. I spent a lot of time with it, but with all its parameters, it just seems to leave me wanting more. Not a bad Leslie sim, just didn’t excite me.
