@dougalex
Definitely notice that same drawbar bleed, but its less noticeable in a full band environment vs. played by itself.
Blue3 v. B4II
Whenever I really needed just pure low drawbars, I would have to switch to VB3.
And, LOL, 
I am well on my way to owning all the major Hammond VSTs out there so… hey, I will not give up on any of them! 
Yes that was the first “relief” I felt when I eventually turned off Crosstalk.
I love “spit” (key click)… but not crosstalk (an authentic detail that I hardly ever want 
)
Kinda interesting though … the whole thread started with your comment
I did a simple A/B comparison with B4II and B4II just sounded more clear and “right” to me.
and yet it turns out that…
but not crosstalk (an authentic detail that I hardly ever want :innocent:)
… you don’t want a plugin that actually sounds like a real Hammond 
My two cents
Spit (key click) is something you can can easily notice and it “adds something desirable”
To really notice Crosstalk, you probably have to turn it up to the point it is really just adding mud.
Or to put it another way: If I want high harmonics I will add them intentionally 
If a digital recorder had a “authentic analog crosstalk feature”, I would not use that either 
I know some Hammond purists (particularly gospel and jazz) out there would be shaking their head at my facetiousness, but I am at least half serious here.
Sure — but liking/not liking that is a subjective position, not an objective one. Nor does it correlate to how a real Hammond sounds…and of course that ignores the fact that B3s themselves didn’t consistently sound identical.
Let’s not forget that many B3 players ran their B3s through external pedals (fuzz, distortion) among other things and when you listened to them on a record (or live) they were tweaked by engineer or FOH anyway.
Anyway, it’s fun to discuss this stuff.
@dougalex you said you tried B5, did you buy it to try it?? I’ve seen many reports of it being incredibly authentic, but maybe just doesn’t quite wail like Blue 3 or VB3 II in rock context… something that would be important to me, but I’ve never had the chance to try it.
I have been demoing Blue 3 and VB3 II, and like them both… but I like VB3 as well, so continue to just use that for now. I found that the better result for for me was to use IK Leslie, rather than any particualr difference between those three.
I used B4 and B4II back in the day… and they were certainly great. But the overdrive in B4II was horrendous and a bad step backward from B4 and made it ultimately unusable for me… and I believe I am remembering correctly I could not go back to B4, so at that point I moved on to VB3.
I did buy B5. It seems definately good enough to own. (I think $99 euro converts to about $112).
I decided, for me, there is no way I am going to find out which one I like most without learning them fully and using them. I might even find I like using different ones on different songs.
So I now own all the ones now discussed most: Blue3, VB3-II, B5 (and as part of Arturia VCollection I also have B-3V,ver2).
Hammond is an area I am obsessive about, so it made sense for me to be extravagant and just buy them all. If they were closer to $200, as opposed to $100, I might have just picked one and be done with it.
Edit: As I continue to evaluate, I will report any interesting findings.
I currently own VB3 (v1) as well as Arturia B3 (v1 and v2). I have to say that Arturia B3 V2 was a HUGE improvement over V1 and has become my go-to. Of course, I only use any Hammond style sounds on maybe 4 songs a night at most or I might rethink my Hammond strategy.
I used B4II for several years before I committed to an all 64-bit plugin arsenal and the only bad thing I would say about it was it sometimes sounded flat (pitch-wise) compared to a real A440 even when tuned…
X
R u talking about the NI Organ from vintage organs ?, it’s been out forever , if the ll is an upgrade , where would that be?
That is not what we’re talking about here. B4II is a standalone VST that uses modeling to model an organ. It was discontinued by NI many years ago. Vintage Organs is a Kontakt based instrument that uses samples of modeling. It was offered essentially as a replacement for B4II when B4II was discontinued but it isn’t nearly as good.
I was disappointed in the discontinuation of B4II as well as PRO-53 which was discontinued at the same time. B4II and Pro-53 were strictly 32-bit plugins. I think NI determined that the effort to update it to support 64-bit just didn’t have a real profit motive given the effort and expense. While I miss them, I can certainly understand the business reasoning behind it.
X
Before NI Vintage Organs (Kontakt Instument) there was a NI B4 and NI B4II (both 32bit VST, which were not Kontakt Instruments). NI never upgraded those VSTi to 64bit… which annoyed many happy users.
Oh, so I’m guessing best option only now is Vb3ll by GSI, but the Leslie sounds better in NI , GSI sounds mono, and the extra 150$, NI’s vintage , not great, but I double it up with Nordstage 2
Well, it’s a jungle out there, 
So I just bought them all. I even just purchased another one (DB-33 from pluginboutique.com) for $14 (note: requires ilok license software, but I have that)
But I know I am someone who would make use of owning different VST hammonds, while certainly other people would not ever want that.
https://www.pluginboutique.com/products/1684-DB-33?currency=USD&force_country=US&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI1eOUifyt4wIVXbnACh2-og3DEAQYASABEgLpdfD_BwE
So since a few people in this thread had mentioned Arturia’s B3 V2 I went back to that to give it a second chance. V1 was so bad I don’t think I originally gave V2 much of a chance. And in fact this time with patch 1 I turned on the fast leslie and it was just crazy… far worse than VB3II…I’m sure I didn’t go any further the first time, but this time went into settings and was able to slow down the speed to something that worked ok for me.
But a few weird things… using Soul Sacrifice patch on fast Leslie… (and playing Soul Sacrifice hahaha) hold a high G and punch a Gm and C beneath it and those lower notes don’t seem to blend in the Leslie swirl…it’s like they are dry and there is this other Leslie thing gong on.
Same patch, the drive knob has very slight, subtle effect I guess for any real over driven Leslie sound you need to put a distortion pedal in the effects. OK but here’s the weird thing, whatever effect you get from the drive (which also just seems a little off to me), it does not change at all with the expression pedal… the effect stays exactly the same at all volumes. obviously unlike how a Leslie would actually respond.
My favorite organ is Acoustic Samples B5 v2. The Leslie is superb, as is the vibrato/chorus. Blue 3 is excellent, too. The various organ models load instantly, unlike B5 v2, which take a few seconds. I like the fact that Spin can be used independently. I downloaded the VB3II demo, but have not spent enough time with it to form an opinion. I haven’t tried IK Multimedia’s Leslie yet, but so far the B5 v2 Leslie sounds the most authentic to my ears. Any suggestions on other rotary speaker options?
MRotary from Melda
PSP’s L’otary 2 is very good, but a bit heavy on the CPU.
http://www.pspaudioware.com/plugins/multimode_effects/psp_lotary/