Arturia B-3 V Software Organ License

Tonewheel Organ Heavyweight

The B-3 V delivers the most authentic tonewheel organ and rotary speaker experience you’ll find anywhere, plus customizations that open up new creative opportunities.

Monarch of electronic organs, the rich sounding B3 has been a staple of jazz, gospel, rock, reggae and R&B—not to mention pro studios everywhere—for over a half century. Its electromagnetic tonewheel design gave it a beefy quality not found on later transistor organs. Our faithful homage includes an authentic rotary speaker and an array of stomp boxes, plus inspiring updates like analog circuit mods and drawbar modulation for new animated and syncopated effects.

Majestic Sound

The B-3 V gives you the sound of undisputed organ royalty—roadies not required.

No other organ captured the hearts of keyboardists, spanning so many genres and years. It had the subtlety for jazz at the hands of artists like Jimmy Smith, Joey Defrancesco and John Medeski. It had the grace for gospel, as demonstrated by Elbernita “Twinkie” Clark and Cory Henry. It had the energy to drive the reggae behind the likes of Bob Marley and Jimmy Cliff, and the soul of James Brown and Sly Stone. Most visibly, it had the raw power to hold its own in a rock world as diverse as ELP, Santana, Yes, Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, The Allman Brothers, and Blood, Sweet and Tears.

Whether you’re playing solo, in a group, or in a mix, Arturia’s B-3 V lets you cover the organ parts for any genre using the sound and feel of the real thing.

Unmatched Authenticity

Even if you already have a virtual tonewheel organ…

you owe it to yourself to try the B-3 V.

There are organs and there are B3s. Then there are B3 emulations and Arturia’s B-3 V. Where most other attempts are based on samples that only capture some of the qualities, we created the B-3V using the same critically acclaimed modeling technology that distinguishes our entire V Collection of classic instruments. We put that same attention to detail into the included rotary speaker as well.

Even Better With Age

The B-3 V improves on a classic, with everything you need in an organ rig and more built right in.

Rotary speakers have become an essential part of the tonewheel organ sound, so we’ve naturally included one. Why stop there? We’ve added lots of other options including multiple reverbs, an array of effects pedals, and even the ability to modify previously fixed analog circuit features like key click. Our most radical enhancement is the addition of a modulation section to automate the movement of drawbars using envelopes, LFOs and step sequencers, letting you infuse your music with new animated textures.

The Real Thing

The B-3 V recreates every aspect of the original classic with incredible realism.

The B-3 V’s namesake was electromechanical, employing a series of spinning tonewheels with adjacent pickups to produce flute-like tones in octaves and harmonics for each note. These could be variably mixed via a set of 9 drawbars per manual to achieve more robust additive timbres. In the B-3 V, we’ve meticulously modeled the individual components to achieve complete realism.

One of the things that distinguished the B3 from its earlier siblings was the percussion feature, which added a quickly decaying sound at either the second or third harmonic. This gave an edge to each key press that players across genres employed for extra punch and articulation, especially for solos. In the B-3V, we’ve faithfully modeled both the organ and rotating speaker together just as they should be.

Another signature characteristic of the B3 was its unique modulation circuit that let you switch between three different depths of vibrato or three different intensities of chorus. Yep, we modeled that authentically as well.

The B-3 V recreates every component of the famous B3 sound to give you the most faithful software emulation you’ll find anywhere.

Custom Mods You’ll Love

Lots of organists have spent good money modifying their B3s. We’ve hot-rodded the B-3 V with new mods you won’t ever find in custom shops.

Voice Modulator

Many organists are constantly changing drawbar settings to add character to what can otherwise be a rather static timbre. We’ve taken that concept to the max by allowing you to automate drawbars via LFO, envelopes and even a step sequence. These open up a whole new sound dimension of additive synthesis sound design applied to organ roots. Create sharp attacks with lots of harmonics that morph into a softer sound, evolving atmospheric textures, or propelling rhythmic harmonics that shift in sync with your DAW tempo.

Analog Mod

With the B-3 V, you can tweak previously unavailable analog characteristics including tonewheel leakage, drawbar leakage, key click volume and more. Variable preamp drive before your master gain stage allows you to dial in how clean or dirty you want your sound, just like a guitar amp. We’ve even added an envelope to let you shape attack and release, letting you easily cross over in the realm of pipe organs and string machines unlike you’ve ever heard before.

Rotary Speaker And Other Effects

Your B-3 V comes complete with every creative effect that’s ever been applied to an organ—plus some that haven’t until now.

Rotary Speaker

You’ll rarely see a B3 in the wild without a rotating speaker designed by Don Leslie. Consisting of a rotating drum for lower frequencies and rotating horns for high frequencies, it delivers a much heavier effect than vibrato due to its Doppler pitch-changing characteristic. Key to the sound is the ballistics of how the drum and horns accelerate and decelerate between the slow and fast speed setting —another thing samples just can’t fully capture.

We’ve authentically modeled both the closed and open cabinet versions, and added separate speed and acceleration controls for drum and horn, drum/horn balance, and mic placement, giving you unprecedented customization. You can easily map the essential rotary speaker Stop/Run and Slow/Fast switches to a footswitch or other controller of your choice.

Convolution Reverb

The B-3 V also comes with its own built-in convolution reverb. Choose from 20 different spring reverbs based on Impulse Responses from your favorite vintage amps and gear —plus some cool ones you may have never heard of— to place your tonewheel sounds in just the right space.

Effect Pedals

Fire up the built-in set of classic effect pedals including chorus, delay, phaser and flanger to bring additional character, animation and spaciousness to your sound. When it’s really time to rock, you’ll love kicking in the overdrive pedal for as much crunch as you need—with a nod to Jon Lord of Deep Purple fame. All of your effect settings are saved right with your presets for instant recall.

The rotary speaker and other built-in effects let you easily texture your organ sounds to make just the unique statement you want to make.

Pro Sound All Around

The B-3 V will be right at home in just about any musical style you play—from rock, prog and reggae to jazz, blues and R&B, right through to today’s dance bass lines.

We’ve invited top programmers and sound designers to set you up with all the presets you need for the definitive classic sounds across all those genres, plus get you started exploring the new creative options.

Preset Browser

Our redesigned preset browser lets you quickly find just the sound you’re looking for.

Search by name or simply select the appropriate tags to dial in on the exact sonic character you’re looking for. You can mark and recall your own favorites, enter comments, and set up playlists. There’s never been a more intuitive way to manage your library of designer and personal presets.

Resizable GUI

The user interfaces for all your Arturia instruments are now resizable, making it easy to work with any High Resolution screen, UHD or Retina.

You can decide whether you want to fill the screen with awesome graphic reproductions of classic instrument goodness, scale the window down when you’re working in a DAW and screen real estate is at a premium, or even zoom for detailed work.