Upcoming Synapse OB-Xa: Obsession

[PAK]

what do you want, perhaps I can knock something up later?

This.

Personally, I'd rather you make some sounds where you choose high resonance with filter positions where you feel they produce the maximum filter harmonic details, then post those. That or a demo download

Note the object is to extract detail, not sweep. If you need an audio example to aim for, and since we want a level playing field, I'll also give the same example (At the 5:39 mark) someone else used to point out (correctly, btw) where Arturia's emulation fell down..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBZrAcaTTqE

[AnX]

ok, i dont have a boss chorus or strymon big sky, but i do have a couple of fizzy pads I can't try and tweak....

[chk071]

I wonder if the saturation/drive comes from the synth itself or from the fx units.

[PAK]

I wonder if the saturation/drive comes from the synth itself or from the fx units.

Some is definitely the synth itself. The CEM chips (on the OBXA, in particular) being well known for "fizz" or "sizzle" on the sound, which plays into it all. Some people hate that about it, btw. I prefer the sound of the SSM stuff myself (wish Korg would've done a proper flagship version of the Polysix / Trident), though how much of that is other factors, than chip, who knows..

Anyway, a greater ability to calibrate the individual voices should help a bit with the perception of this sort of thing (since, once used polyphonically, the different voices can each be doing their own resonance thing to a greater extent), though it will ultimately rest on how much other factors (so-called "non-linearities" etc) have been calculated for in the model.

[Captain]

Great post, spot on. Would love to know your EQ settings!

Thank you! I think I used some old iZotope EQ but haven't installed it on my new machine (and can't without a major hassle, thanks to Catalina, but that's a different story...), so can't check the settings. But I remember there was a massive high end boost, which is probably the most important "secret ingredient". I don't know if the original was indeed played through a guitar amp like some sources say, but just using enough EQ seems to get you pretty close.

Regarding Obsession,it is all about the voice variation, which has a major impact on most bass, brass, pad, and lead sounds. The Jump sound happens to be one of the few where the voice variation is negligible, since the sound is both too simple and too bright. So while it can be done easily in Obsession (and many other synths), it is wasting a ton of potential. It would be like buying a real CS-80 just to play the Jump sound, which is obviously insane

Yeah, I can imagine. Just for the heck of it, I yesterday tried recreating the core Jump patch with various synth plugins I happened to have, and I think the differences were so small that with the right EQ and reverb etc. they would be just as close to the original as my old example.

Anyway, thanks for joining the discussion, it was time we move forward! I have never used a real OB-X(a), but I'm really looking forward to create those sweet warm filtered on-the-edge-of-being-out-of-tune -type pads with Obsession! My favourite type of synth sound...

[AnX]

a quick effort

http://akadave.epizy.com/resosynth.ogg

[vurt]

a quick effort

http://akadave.epizy.com/resosynth.ogg

thats pretty darn tasty!
even on the phone speaker.

[Captain]

a quick effort

http://akadave.epizy.com/resosynth.ogg

So now we can move from the "Jump sound" to the "1984 sound" (the intro track on the album). Sounds great!

[waltercruz]

One crucial thing Arturia's emulation misses is the per voice adjustments of pretty much every parameter. That is the crux of OB sound. No two voices are alike, they all have subtle differences in everything, cutoff, resonance, envelope times, glide times... And Arturia doesnt do any of that apart from voice panning. Gee whiz.

... and these subtle differences are very important on Tom Sawyer Bass

[EnGee]

a quick effort

http://akadave.epizy.com/resosynth.ogg

Good work Nice organic sweep

[fandango]

a quick effort

http://akadave.epizy.com/resosynth.ogg

Love it!

[recursive one]

I like the Anx' clips, especially that rave siren patch is awesome.

But I've got the feeling that with some clever programming almost all these sounds could have been made in Dune3, I guess with some slight post-processing they would be almost indistinguishable.

An authentic Jump patch is frankly the last thing I would ever need, and overall Dune3 and Diva do a pretty good job as general purpose VAs with extras, so I wonder, what are the advantages of Obsession over these?

[BONES]

That said, to me it s the most pointless exercise imaginable.

You'd be right if it weren't that the synth is being presented as an OBXA emulation(?), and that basic sound is literally the one the synth is best known for.

Except, as we've discussed, what's on the record is not the raw sound of the synth that was used and if people are so stupid they don't get that, then they are probably too stupid to notice the difference anyway. The real test is no more than hearing the sound and thinking "that sounds like Jump". If you can do that, you've cracked it, I reckon.

I'm still awaiting examples showing the resonance detail of Synapses effort.

Sorry, I'm not posting examples of anything but surely there is enough to get an idea from the samples Anx has provided? As for being defensive, I have no skin in the game and absolutely nothing to get defensive about. That said, I am hugely impressed by OBSession, the whole is so much more than the sum of its parts so, yes, I think it is absolutely ridiculous that anyone would give flying f**k about just one patch. But this is KVR so it's my bad for expecting anything better.

the best bit is, none of those sounds are in the factory bank

Think of the money you'll make releasing them as a commercial bank!

[vitocorleone123]

I like the Anx' clips, especially that rave siren patch is awesome.

But I've got the feeling that with some clever programming almost all these sounds could have been made in Dune3, I guess with some slight post-processing they would be almost indistinguishable.

An authentic Jump patch is frankly the last thing I would ever need, and overall Dune3 and Diva do a pretty good job as general purpose VAs with extras, so I wonder, what are the advantages of Obsession over these?

If you can't hear the difference between an authentic Oberheim sound and other synths, and that difference, such as it is, does not appeal to you, then, no, you don't need to be concerned about Obsession.

Yes, many VAs can make sounds that sound similar. No, most VAs can't actually sound like hardware Oberheims, especially as you push the Oberheim aspects, let alone really sound like them rather than an approximation.

[Teksonik]

I'll also give the same example (At the 5:39 mark)

What an incredibly annoying sound......