Has anybody done a comparison between those two?
Which one do you think is better and why?

Hi
I'm not THE B3 expert and I do not own any of them, anyway I tried both many times and I found Charlie to be warmer and most "true" (sampling based stuff does it).
In Charlie you'll find a powerful synth engine if you want to edit the sounds (filters, LFOs, etc...).
In B4, you'll be able to edit the drawbar settings but if you're not familiar with additive synthesis it won't be very easy.
Charlie provides so many drwabar setting presets that it seems enough for me, but as I said, it's your choice, I'm much more in analog synths (I guess that's why I like the synth part of Charlie so much) than organs...
About the leslie, I did not find the B4 emulation convincing...
The Charlie sound is convincing because it's sampled but the drawback is that you can't change the speed...
Hope it helps...

Ummm, honestly, the last time I heard an organ was in church and that was a long, long time ago. Do people really still use those archaic things?

wavemeister wrote:

Ummm, honestly, the last time I heard an organ was in church and that was a long, long time ago. Do people really still use those archaic things?

I keep getting emails asking if I want to make mine larger

ianweb123 wrote:

I keep getting emails asking if I want to make mine larger

This one has a 64 foot pipe.

Me, I never had one bigger than 16 foot.

V.

As far as I'm concerned, I do prefer organic food, but considering the two previous posts it might be misunterpreted

Seems everybody receives these emails, how do they happen to know...

I haven't had the opportunity to play a real B3. However, I do know several people who have, and I've let them play around with B4, which I DO have - and they've told me that it's basically perfect. Given the consistently high quality of NI stuff, I would go with B4, which is more flexible anyway because you're not relying on samples.

Thanks Springuy and Zircon for your opinions.
To the other guys: Yes, the Hammond Organ sound is still essential to my music and I strongly believe that it will never go out of fashion.

zircon wrote:

I haven't had the opportunity to play a real B3. However, I do know several people who have, and I've let them play around with B4, which I DO have - and they've told me that it's basically perfect. Given the consistently high quality of NI stuff, I would go with B4, which is more flexible anyway because you're not relying on samples.

This topic was discussed a few weeks ago. Some of the issues are:

(1) Have you played Hammond before? If so, get B-4.

(2) If you want authentic look, drawbars, etc choose B-4. Besides keyboard split, B-4 is also multitimbral, for when you want to play it "like a real organ" with multiple manuals, pedals, etc. On the other hand, if you don't care about the drawbars and want a ROMpler with the synth-like capabilities of the UVI engine, choose Charlie.

(3) How many presets? B-4 comes with 120. I may have missed it, but I didn't see a specific number of presets for Charlie. Both have sufficient facilities for many variations (drawbars, vibrato, percussion, Leslie, overdrive, etc for B-4, envelopes, filter, LFOs etc for Charlie). For what it's worth, I use about six or so drawbar settings and a couple of presets for 95% of my playing on my 1962 A-105, I haven't seen B-4 change that much.

(4) Cost. Neither is cheap. At Sweetwater, Charlie is US$279.95, B-4 is $199.97 (and if the bonus tonewheel sets aren't included, add another $99.97 - when I bought B-4 in 2002, I paid $165 or so for both in a bundle.)

(5) If you just want a nice-sounding Hammond organ sound to fit in your mix, you probably could do well with either. You might want to also check out some of the various freebies floating around, as well as B-4 Express and DaOrgan.

(Disclaimer: I reviewed the B-4 and own two Hammonds).

Doug

B4....it's great IMHO, but costly yes. I bought mine last summer and paid 170+70 for the tone wheels.

Personally, I like the Sonic Implants samples, but, of course, you don't have the flexibility of these others; and a lot depends on your sampler.

Isn't charlie a rompler?

The tone wheel set started shipping free with B4 before last summer (that when I picked mine up, you might want to check into that hink, NI's pretty good on that stuff from what I here) so thats a plus.

There is a cross grade offer out is you want both, but I would certainly go with a classic first.