Synapse Audio OBSESSION is now available!

[AdvancedFollower]

if it sounds as good as their "legend" plugin its more or less a no brainer for oberheim hunters. paranoid hunters just wait for a starsky carr test on youtube ;D

…where he compares it to an OB-6, for some reason.

Maybe he didn't have an OB-Xa laying around...

I'm more interested in a video comparing the Arturia version to the Synapse to see if there's some differences that make it worth owning both.

[Rends]

I'm more interested in a video comparing the Arturia version to the Synapse to see if there's some differences that make it worth owning both.

Owning the Arturia Version I'm interested too.

[chk071]

I'd be very interested in a video comparing it to the real thing. Maybe not by Starsky Carr though. His comparisons are... well... not the best really. The only decent one I've seen so far, in terms of really matching the sounds, and offering proper A/B conditions was his comparison of the Pro-1 with the Behringer.

[Niowiad]

if it sounds as good as their "legend" plugin its more or less a no brainer for oberheim hunters. paranoid hunters just wait for a starsky carr test on youtube ;D

…where he compares it to an OB-6, for some reason.

Maybe he didn't have an OB-Xa laying around...

I'm more interested in a video comparing the Arturia version to the Synapse to see if there's some differences that make it worth owning both.

I'm just demoing and comparing now. They can sound similar when all the voices in Obsession are on an initialized stage (except for tuning and panning), but as soon as the voices' parameters are tweaked/randomized, they become two completely different things, as it was presumible after all.

The filter resonance might be even tamer than the Arturia version, which is not an issue for me if that's how the hardware unit behaved (as Richard rightly wrote), but several users have been criticizing Arturia exactly for this, claiming bad filter emulation.

I'll own the Arturia version because I'll eventually upgrade to VC8, but Obsession seems well worth buying as far as I'm concerned.

[SLiC]

The Arturia version has the function gen, more fx (inc distortion which is useful) and an extra multimode filter, so it can go further away from the original OBXA sound. Obsession just had a lovely sound and it seems 'snappier' to me....

I bought Obsession but I will get the Arturia version as part of V Collection 8 or 9 or whenever (I am on 6 now and haven't been tempted yet...)

[Richard_Synapse]

Quick question - if I purchase the VST now I can get the RE for Reason *at no cost* when it comes out? If so, that’s a great deal. Thank for any info.

Yes

Richard

[Ingonator]

The Arturia version has the function gen, more fx (inc distortion which is useful) and an extra multimode filter, so it can go further away from the original OBXA sound.

Besides the fact that OBSession already has 2 built-in bandpass filter modes (which is a proper analog model while i do not know what the multimode filter FX in OB-Xa V is based on) if you need a second filter and in case you own that plugin too you might combine OBsession with The Legend FX plugin (which has 2 additional bandpass modes too). You can route a MIDI track to the FX plugin for using the built-in envelopes and also the oscillators.

As i currently got OBsession, The Legend and DUNE 3 i think that those 3 plugins are a very powerful combination that together offer a huge range of different sounds.

[SLiC]

The Arturia version has the function gen, more fx (inc distortion which is useful) and an extra multimode filter, so it can go further away from the original OBXA sound.

Besides the fact that OBSession already has 2 built-in bandpass filter modes (which is a proper analog model while i do not know what the multimode filter FX in OB-Xa V is based on) if you need a second filter and in case you own that plugin too you might combine OBsession with The Legend FX plugin (which has 2 additional bandpass modes too). You can route a MIDI track to the FX plugin for using the built-in envelopes and also the oscillators.

As i currently got OBsession, The Legend and DUNE 3 i think that those 3 plugins are a very powerful combination that together offer a huge range of different sounds.

You can add external fx and filters (even external FG modulation) but that won't be in a pre-set or sound-pack, if you demo both you have what you have! They are both very capable for different reasons, I suspect may of us will end up with both when we update V Collection

[shortyedwards]

Quick question - if I purchase the VST now I can get the RE for Reason *at no cost* when it comes out? If so, that’s a great deal. Thank for any info.

Yes

Richard

Yeah man! Thank you!

[Arashi]

Forgive me for copying and pasting something I posted on another forum (GearSlutz), but I spent awhile writing up my thoughts about Obsession and thought it might be of interest here as well.

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Don't know how close to the original OB-Xa it is (haven't had a chance to play one), but Obsession sounds fantastic to me. A lot of the presets are really good.

Just for fun, I tried to match some of them on my OB-6. I don't expect them to sound exactly the same, since the components are quite different (especially the filter), but it's my only analog poly synth, and they are at least superficially similar in features. My goal was just to get them as close as possible, then flip back and forth and see if one of them is clearly thinner or less organic sounding than the other. I haven't exhaustively tested all the features, but for the few patches I attempted, Obsession is absolutely on the same level. In some cases I can get them to sound nearly identical (again, that wasn't the point of the exercise, but I had to focus on sounds that are possible on both synths to get any real sense of whether they're of similar depth and character).

What Synapse has done here is really impressive. I had high expectations from the makers of The Legend, and Obsession does not disappoint. Whether it's an accurate recreation of an actual OB-Xa is not something I can answer, but for anyone who loves classic analog poly synths and doesn't mind using plugins, this is a great addition to your arsenal. I think it's good enough to make a hardware version of it (with the emulation running on DSP chips, like Roland's boutiques or System-8), but that's probably far beyond the means of a small company like Synapse, so we will have to settle for a plugin version of it.

I attached one of the patches I made on my OB-6 for anyone else who wants to hear them side by side. This is my attempt to match the "Low Saw Bass" preset that comes with Obsession. I can't get the filter shape to match across the entire range of notes, because the Obsession patch uses a mod matrix slot to increase the keytracking slope, but it's pretty close at A2, +/- an octave or so. You will need to adjust the gain on your OB-6 to match the levels. This is a sysex dump. You'll need a sysex utility to send it to your OB-6. If you're not familiar with this, now is a good time to learn, as this is how you back up and restore your own patches too.

[Arashi]

I'm more interested in a video comparing the Arturia version to the Synapse to see if there's some differences that make it worth owning both.

Yeah, that is a much more interesting question. This is a somewhat unique opportunity in that we have two emulations of the same hardware released within weeks of each other, both of which represent the best efforts of two different developers, and both have to run on the same generation of computer hardware. I have both and think Arturia did a good job too — at least in the sense that it sounds good. I will definitely be doing my own comparisons, but I have no way of knowing how accurate the emulations are, as I've never used a real OB-Xa, and so far I haven't seen a competent comparison with the original hardware by anyone else. But it should at least be apparent if one sounds better than the other, or if they indeed have different strengths.

[Mutant]

Envelope shape is slightly wrong.
Should be a very easy fix though.

Check it against Van Halen - 1984.

I said more @ GS.

[Ingonator]

[nvm, problem solved...}

[exmatproton]

I attached one of the patches I made on my OB-6 for anyone else who wants to hear them side by side. This is my attempt to match the "Low Saw Bass" preset that comes with Obsession.

That "Low Saw Bass" is from me and i just tried to replicate it in the demo version of Arturia OB-Xa V.
Like with a few attemps with other OBsession patches in the past so far it is impossible to match them, mostly due to the envelope in the Arturia plugin being totally off and this seems to have a VERY slow attack and decay. It's not just the envelope, also the Cutoff and envelope amount seems to be totally different in both synths. Overall Arturia OB-Xa V seems to behave and sound like a totally differnt synth. Everyone who tells me they are very close or even identical must be hallucinating...
So far it is impossible to recreate some of my OBsession Brass and Bass sounds in the Arturia plugin.
It is much easier to replicate some of my OBsession patches in e.g. Repro-5 or Diva than in OB-Xa V.
When i can not even replicate a quite simple Bass sound from OBsession in OB-Xa V it is totally useless for more complex stuff. I looked at all settings in the synth to see if i missed a certain feature that causes the big difference but this does not seem to be the case.

Besides that the overall sound quality also seems to be much better in OBsession. With that Bass i tried to replicate and whhich did not really work so far the Low end was not really good or even bad while there is quite a lot of it in the OBsession patch.


UPDATE 1:
Just tried it again and still can not replicate the Bass sound in Arturia OB-Xa V, not even close. Same with a few other OBsession patches hat i checked.
Got the OB-Xa V demo installed since it was available but i guess it it is time to finally deinstall it. The plugin is pretty much useless for me compared to OBsession. FWIW i got Arturia V-Colellction 6 here and really like some of the plugins there, especially the digital emulations...

UPDATE 2:
Just tried to replicate my OBsession "Low Saw Bass" patch in Arturia SEM V2 (the full version) and while it does not sound identical there it is quite close and MUCH closer than i ever was able to get it in OB-Xa V.

Tried the same. Succeeded (after 2 minutes of work) to get the sound almost the same, by which point i found the sound of Arturia's patch sound better... ..Punchier and a bit more low end. SO the patches are not the same, but they are close.

[canadian_moose]

So that’s two opinions at totally opposite end of the spectrum in terms of comparisons then. One says the Arturia isn’t even close, the other says that they are close, but the Arturia sounds better.