Native Instruments’ beloved B4 organ soft synth now has a sequel, available now. The B4 II is a major overhaul of emulated organ, with a new “more authentic” sound and features. Building on Native’s success emulating amps and effects in Guitar Rig, B4 II has a new emulated tube amp, spring reverb, and studio reverb. If you want to go under the hood and tweak your organ to your liking (okay, that sounded wrong), new effects and tonewheel sets can recreate various vintage organs or produce wild, experimental organ sounds. There’s a bass-pedal legato mode and second rotating speaker for more playing versatility, too. As usual with Native’s soft synths, if you find all the customization options overwhelming you can simply dial up one of a healthy selection of presets, made easier by a new preset manager.
One of the best new features, though, is in the fine print: finally, native has added full MIDI assignments and MIDI learn mode, so you can use your hardware controller of choice. Native also offers a bundle with their B4D drawbar controller, just in case those faders on your keyboard don’t feel quite right.
I’ll be looking closer at this one soon — can’t wait to get my hands on it.