Wishlist for the next version of B4

My hammond source for many years was a sample I did of a leading touring hammond player's instrument in LA. I recorded every note with and without leslie, with just one basic drawbar setting (884, I think.) cranked up loud!

Anyway, despite having no drawbar control, it was a lot of fun to play. And I noticed, as I was preparing the samples, that every single note produced a clear short percussive tone on the key release. It had some of the pitch and tone of the drawbars, and a lot of the "click" of the key down.

I thought I could never enjoy playing the B4 without key-up sounds, but I am nevertheless enjoying it a lot. But I will say, if there are plans for an upgrade, this is one piece of functionality that would make real hammond players go "ahh".

I will also mention that many hammonds have a much more distinctive attack than the B4. "Click" is an extremely simple word for a very complex sound, but unfortunately a pretty accurate description of what the B4 does. I would like to see some additional attention given to the modeling of this part of the sound.

Now, off to see if the latest update fixes my stuck notes, which have suddenly started appearing now that I'm using it dual manual with 2 keyboards

(Same single processor, tho....)

Cheers!

 

Hi there,

I also enjoy playing B4 a lot, and after comparing it with the sound of real B3s, there a few things that I hope will be improved for the next version. I happened to send an email to NI the other day asking them whether they were interested in hearing B4 users' comments, but haven't received an answer yet. That would be nice if there was an interactive exchange between the guys at NI and the people who design the software. (hey can you hear us up there??!)

as you said, the keyclick is an important part of the Hammond sound. if only this could get closer to the real thing on B4, that would already be a big step. I don't know exactly what it is, but the attack on the B3 sort of growls, while on the B4, as you said, it's still just "click".

anyway, cheers
Martin

 

Re: Wishlist for the next version of B4 / Keyclick

I have a theory about the difference in "keyclick" in the B4 vs the B3. Each key in the B3 engages several "switches" or rather spring contacts I think, each contact makes a sort of "click". Given several "clicks" slightly separated in time makes a more growling effect as some of you already has noticed.

Also I noted that th B3 "click" has a certain amount of "bang" in it. I suspect the reason is that the "bang"s original sound source is from the generator which has an not too small amount of low frequeny components in it.

Clones like the Korg CX3 has actually captured a bit of the sound quite well, but thay are of course overdoing it....