Blue3 Tonewheel Organ by Cherry Audio virtual instrument interface

Blue3 Tonewheel Organ: Modeled B-3 Style Virtual Instrument by Cherry Audio

Rated 4.7/5 on Plugin Boutique (17 ratings)

Blue3 Tonewheel Organ is a virtual instrument by Cherry Audio that models classic tonewheel organs without samples. It is available as VST3, VST2, AU, AAX and standalone for Windows and macOS.

VST3VST2AUAAXStandaloneWindowsmacOS

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01Overview

Blue3 Tonewheel Organ recreates the sound of classic tonewheel organs using modeling rather than samples. Cherry Audio builds it around 31 tonewheel sets based on vintage B-3, C-3, A-100, L-100, CV and M-3 instruments, with 91 modeled tonewheels and phase synchronization. The plugin covers full upper, lower and pedal manual polyphony, and adds a rotary speaker section, three stompbox-style effects and a seven-band graphic EQ. It ships with over 200 presets.

Best for

Blues and gospel organ
Jazz comping
Rock organ parts
Rotary speaker tones
Live stage organ
Studio keyboard tracking

Developer: Cherry Audio
Category: Virtual Instruments
Store: Plugin Boutique

02Key features

What you get

Modeled tonewheel organ engine with no samples used
31 tonewheel sets based on vintage organ instruments
91 modeled tonewheels with accurate phase synchronization
Full polyphony for upper, lower and pedal manuals
Rotary speaker simulations with adjustable speed and acceleration
Three stompbox-style effects: tape echo, reverb and seven-band EQ
Over 200 presets from classic to modern tones
Full MIDI control and DAW automation for all controls

03In depth

Tonewheel Organ Sound and Character

Blue3 models its tonewheels and scanner vibrato/chorus rather than playing back recordings. Condition settings for tonewheel crosstalk, flutter, leakage, noise and transformer behavior let you shape how worn or clean the instrument sounds. Four tube simulations emulate the preamp and rotary enclosure amplifier, so you can move from clean to driven tones.

The rotary speaker section offers classic 122, 147, RA-200 and 4x12 guitar amp simulations, plus direct and custom options. Diffuser, Front Stop, Memphis and Wind settings give further control over the rotary sound, with adjustable speeds that accelerate and decelerate.

Controls, Workflow and Host Integration

The interface is split into Main, Edit, Cabinet and Perform pages and can be resized. Drawbar utilities include copy, swap, reset and randomize for the upper and lower manuals, and the keyboard split is customizable. Percussion for the top manual includes fine-tuning for volume, decay and harmonic selection.

All controls support MIDI learn, mapping and DAW automation. Cherry Audio's Focus zoom-in feature and standard zoom are included, and the DSP can be tuned with a user-adjustable oversampling quality control.

04Specs

Will it run?

Formats, systems and requirements as listed by Plugin Boutique. Missing details are left out, not guessed.

Developer	Cherry Audio
Type	Plugin
Category	Virtual Instruments
Formats	VST3, VST2, AU, AAX, Standalone
Operating systems	Windows, macOS

05FAQ

Questions, answered

What formats does Blue3 Tonewheel Organ support?

Blue3 is available as VST3, VST2, AU, AAX and standalone. It runs on Windows and macOS.

What do I need to run Blue3 Tonewheel Organ?

On macOS, it requires macOS 10.13 or above, supports macOS 13 Ventura and needs a 64-bit host. On Windows, it requires Windows 7 or above, including Windows 11, in 64-bit. A 3.4 GHz quad-core processor with 8GB of RAM is recommended on both platforms, and it needs 182 MB of disk space. An internet connection is required for product activation.