Ferrofish B4000+

I bought the Ferrofish B4000+ B3 module for better organ sounding for duo on the base of Korg PA600, which lacks on organ drawbars and depends on samples only.

I connected both Ferrofish and PA600 over MIDI, both audio outs of B3 module to the Behringer mixer X-air XR18.
I do not believe that on old leslies could provide bass under 70Hz and High tones over 10kHz, so I put the Low and High cut, then I used small amount of Hall, Echo, Tubes and Pultec EQ on main audio out, headphones out I set totally dry, and voila, it comes perfect through the mix!
May be it is not perfect (Who is :)) but it is very very good!!!
I am learning the drawbar combinations, sound and percussion settings, rotor principle, and I am not missing anything any more...
Music has became more live, or with the melody with right hand or with accompainment with the left one.
Sound is pretty good, rotor whistles out, the drive groan...
I only had to make little cut for cca 2 dB from 1,5kHZ further in high frequencies...

Pros:
- very good sounding response on drawbars
- lot of possibilities for simulating the amps and B3
- great rotor simulation with lot of options
- i have to explore a little the percussions, I have to load last firmware with improvements for percussions
- I believe that the price is very affordable for both B3 module and Rotor simulator

Cons:
- at the beginning lot of combinations are not so easy to be managed
- sometimes strange behavoir at changing the parameters on main keyboard, so I have to learn a little (this item should stay in Pros area...)
- i can hear a little noise from the unit on the speakers

As you can see I am very very hapy...
May be not very best, but with little tweaking you can step out with pretty good sounding B3 simulation

Thanks to Thomann for great trade, fast delivery as always!

Regards,
Željko

What a superb unit. This is how it should be: buy a new instrument and it brings a smile to your face.

The unit is well built, solid metal case. Knobs and sliders feel high quality.

The sound is excellent and variable in so many respects. Used live it sounds utterly great. From thundering, growly distored sounds to sweet, whistling high notes and everything inbetween.

One of the things I found out after I purchased which I have not seen in any reviews is that all of the controls on the unit are midi assignable, so rather than having to dig through the menus your favourite parameter can be assigned to a controller on a master keyboard, or a pedal.

Some slight, very slight niggles now: first of all, the leslie simulation while generally good has a really sharp resonance at about 3k - enough that I have to use a 12dB notch filter to take it out. When playing live, and loud, it gave my fellow bandmembers a shock! It might pay for serious use to consider an external rotating speaker simulator unit.

Second, although the sound quality is great, it won't give you every tonewheel organ sound you ever wanted - there is a lot of subtle variation in the original hammond organs that this can't reproduce. Perhaps a Hammond XM2 would do better, but I've not played one and they are three times the price with the controller unit.

In terms of value for money though this is unbeatable. A thoroughly great organ unit for a few hundred euros. Well done Ferrofish - how about a Vox Continental simulator next?

I do like this product. It's great for what it does. Mine came with the firmware already installed so I have had no bug issues. It's great as I have a mini Yamaha with roll off keys (PSS-680) and then the ferrofish with a midi cable and power lead so I can go to band practice and produce some great sounds with any midi controller! Menu diving is a bit hard to do on stage so make sure you bank a couple of presets. Still the little knob to change your presets is so sensitive that if you were on preset one and wanted to go to 2 you could jump up to 5 with the slightest turn. I nearly think I should bank them in even or odd number to give myself a bit more turning time. Minor criticism but if you need an organ sound with draw bars and can't afford a Hammond or don't have space for a 2 panel organ this is your best bet.

I've enjoyed daily use from my b4000+ for nearly a year. I've found their customer service quick and very helpful when I became confused (I didn't check to see where I was saving my presets).
The Leslie effect and its control (for both bass and treble) is at the core of the sound.
It's user memory is huge but as its a hands on device and you find yourself tweaking as you play, the memory space could take a decade to fill.
I use mine with a midi guitar (both hands on the neck in a stick style in 2 zones), the b4000+ has such a great sound I haven't missed touch sensitivity.

The reverb sound is good but reverb is a matter of taste and I often use an outboard effect.

Very pleased overall, I look forward to playing everyday