Native Instruments B4 - Why?

[RABid]

Can anyone tell me why Native Instruments dropped B4, their B3 emulator and went to a sample based instrument a few years ago? I never understood that move and it still bothers me. B4 was the second VSTi I ever bought, right after their P5 emulation. I really liked it, and when they dropped it I lost some trust in that company, never knowing what they might drop next. In reality, B4 is the only instrument that I can think of that they dropped, so that bothers me even more. Why would they drop it rather than doing updates? (I know they have dropped some Kontact player instruments. I have a few that I have to jump through hoops to install now.)

[Nicky]

Yeah that's an odd one...I recently opened an old pro tools session that had printed B4 parts, sounded as good or better than plug-ins I use now...I never use their sample based Kontakt "vintage organs".

[Markay]

B4 was the first Hammond VST i purchased. But it was a resource hog. I then moved on to B3 1.4 and life was good. I own NI Vintage Organs, a later incarnation of B4. But B5 is now my goto Hammond virtual instrument, it works fine as does VB3. So why stress over NI's on again off again support of a Hammond emulation when their are plenty of much better alterantives?

[AnotherScott]

Why would they drop it rather than doing updates?

Sometimes things like this happen because the developer who coded something is no longer with the company, and especially if the code is not well documented with comments, it can be difficult for someone else to pick it up.

[johnchop]

They dropped Pro-53, their Prophet emulation, which always liked, but it"s not hard to find a software VA that sounds as good and has more features. It happens.

 

Sometimes the conversion from 32-bit to 64-but wasn"t worth the effort.

[ElmerJFudd]

I"d imagine they know what their sales data says about where they should spend their development hours. This forum is not an accurate gauge of overall music makers" obsession with virtual B3s. And with there being so many options - IK scoring the Hammond Licensing, GSi being such a fanatic about the vintage sounds, Blue, etc. I would imagine NI is doing better in other areas.

[KuruPrionz]

A few years ago is an eternity in software.

Nothing is set in stone. NI isn't the only company to abandon and move on. Won't be the first time and it won't be the last.

 

It won't miraculously re-appear either, progress marches on...

[AnotherScott]

progress marches on...

though occasionally in reverse.

[KuruPrionz]

progress marches on...

though occasionally in reverse.

 

As often as not, yes.

[Mark Schmieder]

At they time, they even had a long-winded justification for how samples are a much better way to do Hammond clones than modeling is.

[AnotherScott]

At they time, they even had a long-winded justification for how samples are a much better way to do Hammond clones than modeling is.

And there's no right answer there. AcousticSamples gets great results out of using samples in B5.

[RABid]

At they time, they even had a long-winded justification for how samples are a much better way to do Hammond clones than modeling is.

And there's no right answer there. AcousticSamples gets great results out of using samples in B5.

 

But sampled Leslie emulation sucks.

[AnotherScott]

But sampled Leslie emulation sucks.

Yes. They didn't defend that, did they?

[KuruPrionz]

At they time, they even had a long-winded justification for how samples are a much better way to do Hammond clones than modeling is.

And there's no right answer there. AcousticSamples gets great results out of using samples in B5.

 

But sampled Leslie emulation sucks.

 

Compared to an actual Leslie, EVERY attempt to reduce it to "stereo" and emulate the sound... sucks.

 

You have 2 speakers spinning 360 degrees at different speeds in the real world. An elaborate surround sound system might (maybe) get close to the same effect.

Everything else is "I like this better than that because I like this better than that." I've got a Peavey amp that has a nice sounding "Leslie-ish" effect on it but it's pure mono so it misses the mark by a long shot.

At the club, nobody notices or cares. At least nobody has ever commented on it. And, I don't have to maintain or move a Leslie speaker so I can settle for "pretty OK."

[AnotherScott]

I don't expect a Leslie sim to compare to a real Leslie in the room (though the Spacestation can get surprisingly close). But I do look for a Leslie sim to sound reasonably close to how a Leslie sounds on a recording (which may well even be mono).

[KuruPrionz]

I don't expect a Leslie sim to compare to a real Leslie in the room (though the Spacestation can get surprisingly close). But I do look for a Leslie sim to sound reasonably close to how a Leslie sounds on a recording (which may well even be mono).

 

 

But again, you are wanting it to sound like a certain sound that you like.

Which recording, which room, which mics and how were they positioned?

Everything makes a difference. I used to do sound for a band with a keyboard player who used a Leslie as his only speaker.

I had SM58s to work with and different mic positions (depending on stage size) and different rooms all made a difference.

Of course different PA systems dialed in for different room anomalies made a difference too.

Add in that I was often trying something new, looking for that "sound".

 

And, I was never really happy with the sound I got. Sometimes it was less worse than others.

I have the IK TrackS Leslie and I think it sounds pretty cool but I don't use it on keyboards.

[AnotherScott]

But again, you are wanting it to sound like a certain sound that you like.

Which recording, which room, which mics and how were they positioned?

Actually, I'm not sure that really matters. Okay, maybe I can say the Leslie on recording X sounds better than the Leslie on recording Y... but the point is, it still sounds like a real Leslie. And I think the Vent and some internal sims and software emulations do pass this test, and THEN you can argue about which Leslie it sounds like, how it's miked, whether it sounds like this recording or that, etc., and determine subjectively that some are better than others (i.e. to your taste). But there are still lots of keyboards where you can listen to some aspect of the rotary effect (maybe the speed transitions, maybe the fast speed, whatever) and go, "nope, that's not a real Leslie." But because my threshold is "only" for it to sound like it could possibly be taken for how a Leslie sounds on a recording, I'm easier to satisfy than people who want it to sound like it's in the room, because that's much harder, and in fact I assume impossible if you're playing out of a single (mono) speaker, or out of a traditionally placed pair of speakers, or listening in headphones (unless maybe there's some binaural trickery going on).

[KuruPrionz]

But again, you are wanting it to sound like a certain sound that you like.

Which recording, which room, which mics and how were they positioned?

Actually, I'm not sure that really matters. Okay, maybe I can say the Leslie on recording X sounds better than the Leslie on recording Y... but the point is, it still sounds like a real Leslie. And I think the Vent and some internal sims and software emulations do pass this test, and THEN you can argue about which Leslie it sounds like, how it's miked, whether it sounds like this recording or that, etc., and determine subjectively that some are better than others (i.e. to your taste). But there are still lots of keyboards where you can listen to some aspect of the rotary effect (maybe the speed transitions, maybe the fast speed, whatever) and go, "nope, that's not a real Leslie." But because my threshold is "only" for it to sound like it could possibly be taken for how a Leslie sounds on a recording, I'm easier to satisfy than people who want it to sound like it's in the room, because that's much harder, and in fact I assume impossible if you're playing out of a single (mono) speaker, or out of a traditionally placed pair of speakers, or listening in headphones (unless maybe there's some binaural trickery going on).

 

I get your point, we are probably not too far off in our way of thinking about these sounds. The compromise is always the difference between a Leslie and nearly every other set of speakers. I hope my point still holds some water, the Leslies I've had experience with can sound dramatically different depending the space where they are deployed.

 

I am also looking for a sound that I like and is good enough to entertain listeners. I don't play keys, I love rotary sims on guitars. I look for something that responds well and if a plug in sounds "3d" in stereo.

I don't mean that it sounds as spacious and engaging as an actual rotary speaker, that's unobtainable by practical means. I also like the motion of sound created by using a modulation on one side of a dual mono system and a non-modulated tone on the other side.

 

A long time ago, I sat on top of a huge, gorgeous hardwood veneer finished Leslie speaker hooked up to a guitar amp and played a Gibson ES-335 12 string for 20 minutes before a friend took a turn.

I DO know what a Leslie sounds like. The easiest way to really get is it still to use the speaker. It's pretty common to mic the woofer and horn separately for live and sometimes recording. I don't know how they make the plugins, the advantage Modeling has over Sampling is that sampling a Leslie correctly will require an amazing room with multi-directional mics (ambisonics?) and possibly some compensation for phase issues caused by physical distance. Modeling should be much easer to eliminate phasing problems when the sound is being tweaked. Which is where a matter of taste comes back in. Those who tweak and advise on tweaking may or may not have different tastes than the end user.

 

I think that is paramount, you do have to like the tones you are making or life will bring you to tears. Cheers, Kuru

[RABid]

At they time, they even had a long-winded justification for how samples are a much better way to do Hammond clones than modeling is.

And there's no right answer there. AcousticSamples gets great results out of using samples in B5.

 

But sampled Leslie emulation sucks.

 

Compared to an actual Leslie, EVERY attempt to reduce it to "stereo" and emulate the sound... sucks.

 

...

 

Well of course, but sampled Leslie is at a much higher level of suckage. Rotator speed and alignment across samples that is not aligned is horrible, and it is almost impossible to align them because you do not hit the notes at the same time.

 

Listen, I'm just saying this VST was popular and yet it went away. Why? I'm inclined to agree with the person that said the programmer probably left and the program was not well documented. I'm glad other companies have decent emulations available. But did NI REALLY believe their own latitude that told us that sampled product was an improvement?

[AnotherScott]

the advantage Modeling has over Sampling is that sampling a Leslie correctly will require an amazing room with multi-directional mics (ambisonics?) and possibly some compensation for phase issues caused by physical distance. Modeling should be much easer to eliminate phasing problems when the sound is being tweaked.

It's much more basic than that. The reason you can't sample a Leslie is that a Leslie is not a sound. It's an effect. It's impossible to sample an effect, which by itself is silence... you could only sample the effect ON a sound. (For nitpickers, sure, a Leslie sample by itself could give you motor and wind noise. That's not the goal here.)

 

So let's say you sample a "Leslie on an organ," you are now sampling a single fixed sound going through a Leslie. Playing one note may sound authentic. But as soon as you play a second simultaneous note, it's no longer the sound of an organ going through a Leslie, but the sound of two different organs going through two different Leslies, because the rotations on the two notes will not be in sync with each other. You may be okay if you're playing a chord and you've sampled each note individually with no stretching, but even then if you hold a note and then play another, you're screwed. Maybe there's a solution to this by taking a "free running" approach where all the samples are "playing" all the time (though you only hear the ones whose keys you've depressed), but that's not how most sample based systems work, and requires enormous polyphony, and still leaves you with issues like what to do about percussion. And now, what if the player wants to be able to alter the drawbar settings? Now you'd have to sample each individual drawbar alone going through the Leslie (letting the player stack the multiple samples to taste), further compounding these issues. Also, you can't change the rotary speed e.g. from slow to fast. Some attempts have been done by sampling the slow Leslie and the Fast leslie, and using the mod wheel to crossfade between the two sample sets, but that does not give you the actual acceleration/deceleration sound. Sampling organ through Leslie is just not going to give you anything like authenticity, long before you get to the issues you're talking about like dealing with room reflections and miking techniques.

 

And none of that gives you what you want, the sound of a guitar going through a Leslie. To do that with a sampled rather than modeled Leslie, you'd have to record the sound of the guitar going through the Leslie. If you wanted to play that sound from a guitar, you would need to convert the guitar to MIDI to trigger the sampled sound (and you'd have the sound of the recorded guitar going through the Leslie, not the sound of the guitar you're playing).

[Aynsley Green]

Ahhhh, Native Instruments B4, that takes me back. The arrival of the Nord Electro 2 and the B4 plugin at the turn of the millennium was arguably what brought the Hammond sound back from the dead.

 

The more recent Native Instruments Vintage Organs is...bizarre. Pull out all the drawbars, set the Leslie to Fast and behold the glory of phasey samples digitally distorting. Just bizarre.

 

VB3II is probably the best plugin going these days.

[davinwv]

VB3II is probably the best plugin going these days.

 

I have Acousticsamples B5 v3, VB3ii, and IK Multimedia B-3X. I don't have GG Audio Blue3. I used VB3 1.4 for several years, then switched to B5 v2 for a few years. Once B-3X came out, it is all I have used. IMO, it totally beats up on VB3ii and B5 v2/v3. The Leslie in B-3X is just next level!

 

I also have a B3/147 to A/B against.

 

As always, though - YMNV, horses for courses, etc.

[EricBarker]

I always figured it was internal reasons. At the time they were trying to get away from making new full PROGRAMS, and consolidate all their offerings under a few umbrellas: Kontakt, Reaktor, and Guitar Rig (for effects). I suspect they transferred their coding staff over to scripting these high-level environments, and tried to fashion themselves mainly a PATCH developer instead of a VI company. Crying shame because B4-2 was an amazing B3 emulator. I actually preferred it to VB3 until v2 came out.

[KuruPrionz]

the advantage Modeling has over Sampling is that sampling a Leslie correctly will require an amazing room with multi-directional mics (ambisonics?) and possibly some compensation for phase issues caused by physical distance. Modeling should be much easer to eliminate phasing problems when the sound is being tweaked.

It's much more basic than that. The reason you can't sample a Leslie is that a Leslie is not a sound. It's an effect. It's impossible to sample an effect, which by itself is silence... you could only sample the effect ON a sound. (For nitpickers, sure, a Leslie sample by itself could give you motor and wind noise. That's not the goal here.)

 

So let's say you sample a "Leslie on an organ," you are now sampling a single fixed sound going through a Leslie. Playing one note may sound authentic. But as soon as you play a second simultaneous note, it's no longer the sound of an organ going through a Leslie, but the sound of two different organs going through two different Leslies, because the rotations on the two notes will not be in sync with each other. You may be okay if you're playing a chord and you've sampled each note individually with no stretching, but even then if you hold a note and then play another, you're screwed. Maybe there's a solution to this by taking a "free running" approach where all the samples are "playing" all the time (though you only hear the ones whose keys you've depressed), but that's not how most sample based systems work, and requires enormous polyphony, and still leaves you with issues like what to do about percussion. And now, what if the player wants to be able to alter the drawbar settings? Now you'd have to sample each individual drawbar alone going through the Leslie (letting the player stack the multiple samples to taste), further compounding these issues. Also, you can't change the rotary speed e.g. from slow to fast. Some attempts have been done by sampling the slow Leslie and the Fast leslie, and using the mod wheel to crossfade between the two sample sets, but that does not give you the actual acceleration/deceleration sound. Sampling organ through Leslie is just not going to give you anything like authenticity, long before you get to the issues you're talking about like dealing with room reflections and miking techniques.

 

And none of that gives you what you want, the sound of a guitar going through a Leslie. To do that with a sampled rather than modeled Leslie, you'd have to record the sound of the guitar going through the Leslie. If you wanted to play that sound from a guitar, you would need to convert the guitar to MIDI to trigger the sampled sound (and you'd have the sound of the recorded guitar going through the Leslie, not the sound of the guitar you're playing).

 

Very interesting post, Another Scott, thanks for sharing.

You are correct that I'm not a deep-diver into this stuff.

I've got a fair amount of NI software but mostly use the drum stuff. I do play some synth patches with a Fishman Triple Play, just to have some new tones.

 

Just as software changes, so can the user base. We can vote with our $$$ and there have never been more choices for plugins or more interesting plugins.

I save all my installers (when I can, not a big fan of NI's Native Access deal) so I can easily restore if I need to do so.

If B4 was 32 bit, I couldn't use it now anyway.

[Aynsley Green]

VB3II is probably the best plugin going these days.

 

I have Acousticsamples B5 v3, VB3ii, and IK Multimedia B-3X. I don't have GG Audio Blue3. I used VB3 1.4 for several years, then switched to B5 v2 for a few years. Once B-3X came out, it is all I have used. IMO, it totally beats up on VB3ii and B5 v2/v3. The Leslie in B-3X is just next level!

 

I also have a B3/147 to A/B against.

 

As always, though - YMNV, horses for courses, etc.

 

I've been using VB3ii for long a while, but I shall check out B-3X!

[TomKittel]

VB3II is probably the best plugin going these days.

 

Once B-3X came out, it is all I have used. IMO, it totally beats up on VB3ii and B5 v2/v3. The Leslie in B-3X is just next level!

 

 

Same here. Haven't used VB3II or B5 ever since I installed B3X on my PC and on my iPad.

[davinwv]

VB3II is probably the best plugin going these days.

 

Once B-3X came out, it is all I have used. IMO, it totally beats up on VB3ii and B5 v2/v3. The Leslie in B-3X is just next level!

 

 

Same here. Haven't used VB3II or B5 ever since I installed B3X on my PC and on my iPad.

 

I even updated B5 to v3 when it was released just to evaluate the update, but it still doesn't sound as good as B-3X. I just wish IK Multimedia would put a little work into making B-3X less resource-hungry on PC. It has been a hog since its release!

[RABid]

Yeow! $300 for B-3x? I'll hold off for a possible Black Friday sale.

[Stokely]

Yeah that's steep. I have B-3x on my ipad, which is a lot cheaper, but even so I might not have got it if I didn't have a few itunes xmas gift cards I had to spend on something....

 

I wish NI would update Kontakt and FM8 interface-wise. They are painful at high rez. Absynth is also a forgotten one but the guy who programmed it moved on and has his own thing going on, so maybe that's more understandable.

 

They definitely don't move at light speed when it comes to updating their stuff, in fact they rarely do. Massive X is a completely new synth so it doesn't count. Guitar Rig desperately needs an overhaul compared to other modelers.

[davinwv]

Yeow! $300 for B-3x? I'll hold off for a possible Black Friday sale.

 

I think I paid $135 or so for the PC version during a sale and also applying a few JamPoints.