Let me say this is one awesome instrument. I could never use all of the presets. Unbelievable, and it's darn near impossible to go wrong. My decision to purchase Charlie was based mostly on the sample MP3s of the various presets but I also heard other MP3s with some licks using Charlie's organ sounds.
When I started to use this to create some licks for my Band-In-A-Box MIDI arrangements that I imported into Tracktion I couldn't believe the quality of the samples. They are 100% true to life of the classic Hammond B3 organ. I was listening to "Old Times, Good Times" with Stephen Stills on the organ and Jimi Hendrix playing the guitar and a few of the presets in Charlie sound EXACTLY like the organ sound in that song, "Opening Fast" sounds just like it, and this made me even more confident in Charlie, there are just too many realistic organ sounds to even begin to use all of them. The Italian organs are brilliant and really shine through any arrangements that would use them.
The user interface is uncluttered and very polished, it is reminiscent of the classic 60s and 70s drawbar organs.
The sound quality is a clean 10 out of 10. Feature wise it is excellent, the only let-down is that there are only two rotor speeds for the presets that sampled rotary speakers, but the quality of the sampling will more than make up for it. And you can switch percussion on or off, whatever you please.
Charlie is a very stable VST. Only had one crash in an entire month of extensively using it.
The documentation is good, but this organ instrument is so easy to use that thorough documentation isn't all that necessary.
I found Charlie to be rather expensive, but for the price you will truly get what you pay for. Hundreds of organ sounds, each with their own nuances, it is impossible to go wrong with Charlie. If you prefer the ability to dynamically change rotor speeds and drawbar settings there are other organ instruments that will allow you to do this. Native Instruments B4 is one, and for those of you who have Hypersonic there is NB-3 that will be available.
If you're after true-to-life authentic organ sounds from the Hammond B3 then Charlie is what you're looking for. The rich authenticity of the classic organ sounds is breathtaking.Read Review
