Synapse Audio OBSESSION is now available!

[Ingonator]

I know I said it before, but again, please fix the osc 1 frequency selector. I have to do five full mouse wheel scrolls in order to switch to the next octave (unless I dial back in the other direction, which only requires a single notch the way it should be).

I guess you mean Osc 2, not Osc 1. Osc 1 has only octave settings, not semitones and in Osc 1 it does not seem to work with the mouse wheel.
Besides that IMHO it is much easier to adjust it with click+hold and moving the mouse up/down. I think i never used the mouse wheel for this specific task (and also not for most other knobs at the main GUI) but if you use the mouse wheel all the time you can of course do that.
FWIW for me in Osc 2 it takes 3 mouse wheel scrolls for one octave (both up and down).

[e-crooner]

I know I said it before, but again, please fix the osc 1 frequency selector. I have to do five full mouse wheel scrolls in order to switch to the next octave (unless I dial back in the other direction, which only requires a single notch the way it should be).

I guess you mean Osc 2, not Osc 1. Osc 1 has only octave settings, not semitones and in Osc 1 it does not seem to work with the mouse wheel.
Besides that IMHO it is much easier to adjust it with click+hold and moving the mouse up/down. I think i never used the mouse wheel for this specific task (and also not for most other knobs at the main GUI) but if you use the mouse wheel all the time you can of course do that.
FWIW for me in Osc 2 it takes 3 mouse wheel scrolls for one octave (both up and down).

No, I did mean osc 1, that's why I mentioned octaves, not semitones.
The osc 2 semitone selector works fine, yes.

[e-crooner]

I am not sure that is the case, the keytracking via the mod matrix seems to be stronger than the button, and the two seem to somehow add up when both are applied at the same time.

There are two options for adding keytracking and assigning a "Const" source to "Flt Keytrack" (= 1st option) at +100 has the same result as with the TRACK button at 100% (= on).

Assigning the 2 different keytracking mod sources ("Keytrck C0" and "Keytrk C4") to Cutoff indeed gives a different result. When the TRACK button is activated the modulation in the mod matrix indeed adds up to the 100% from the button.
For the 1st option the TRACK button in the filter section has to be activated to get it working, for the 2nd one that usees the keytrack mod sources not.

I my own patches i only used the first option with the TRACK button activated and "Const" assigned to "Flt Keytrack".

What does using a constant value as a modulation source for filter keytracking even do? Adding what to what?

When the Track button is off, there actually seems to be negative keytracking (judging from what I hear when playing very low and very high notes with the cutoff frequency and mod amount both set to zero).

A "Const" mod source is nothing else than a "Constant" value like the name suggests, opposing to using e.g. a LFO or an envelope. In the case of assigning "Const" to "Flt Keytrack" the Const value represents the keytracking percentage. With "Osc 1/2 Semi" coarse tuning it represents the amount of semitones (+24 for +2 octaves).
When assigned to Osc 1/2 pulse width it is relative to the value set in the main GUI so not an absolute value, same with the Cutoff, the Osc volumes and the Volume mod destination. This is why you can enhance the range of the Cutoff and pulse width this way (or reduce it with a negative mod amount). When used with the "Volume" destination you can make the patch louder when it is too quiet. I had used that for some of my patches. In this case assigning velocity to the volume still works properly, just the overall volume will be increased.

When the TRACK button is off and no filter keytracking modulation is used in the mod matrix i dooubt that there is negative keytracking added.

OK, thanks for the explanation.
Keytracking has always been a bit less intuitive to me. Basically, I just use it as a 'the higher the note, the brighter the sound' control, set by ear.

[e-crooner]

Was just programming a kitschy pop synth bass sound, I can't recall it in the demo, but maybe you can - and want to

https://app.box.com/s/axa6yyaylp1i0wxpmlsyqtqesh0mzapj

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

No, I did mean osc 1, that's why I mentioned octaves, not semitones.
The osc 2 semitone selector works fine, yes.

What type of controller are you using? Is it an endless rotary encoder that transmits very fine values? I've got it mapped to a standard knob on my hardware controller and it works exactly as expected. There's no extra twisting or rotations needed.

[e-crooner]

No, I did mean osc 1, that's why I mentioned octaves, not semitones.
The osc 2 semitone selector works fine, yes.

What type of controller are you using? Is it an endless rotary encoder that transmits very fine values? I've got it mapped to a standard knob on my hardware controller and it works exactly as expected. There's no extra twisting or rotations needed.

Controller, hehe, I use the mouse, you know, hovering the mouse over the control and turning the mouse wheel, old-skool

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

No, I did mean osc 1, that's why I mentioned octaves, not semitones.
The osc 2 semitone selector works fine, yes.

What type of controller are you using? Is it an endless rotary encoder that transmits very fine values? I've got it mapped to a standard knob on my hardware controller and it works exactly as expected. There's no extra twisting or rotations needed.

Controller, hehe, I use the mouse, you know, hovering the mouse over the control and turning the mouse wheel, old-skool

Ah yeah, ok...that wasn't clear to me at first. I thought you meant with a hardware controller. Yes, just tried it out and the mousewheel behavior of that is indeed pretty rough.

[Yorrrrrr]

Somebody at GS uploaded this great sound example. It really shows Obsession's quality:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/eci4wtb09dnhr ... n.m4a?dl=0

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Somebody at GS uploaded this great sound example. It really shows Obsession's quality:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/eci4wtb09dnhr ... n.m4a?dl=0

I dunno...sounds too synthesized to me.

[Arashi]

Don't forget Odyssey. For my money it is still the best of the lot. There is just something about its sound - if I use Odyssey (Korg's VSTi) for a part it will just sound "better". The others are all great (maybe not Legend) but none of them are special in the way Odyssey is for me. I've been getting more into Korg's Mono/Poly since the GUI revamp, too, and it is definitely right up there with the others.

I bought it yesterday and checked it out. I have a hardware ARP Odyssey module and it quickly became one of my all time favorite synths, so my expectations are pretty high. All I've done so far is match the patch I've been using on the hardware lately. Like every other plugin, some of the parameter ranges differ from the hardware, so it took a bit of fiddling, but I have to say it's really damn close. While it's pretty hard to get them to sound exactly the same, it does sound great.

I use a Kenton Pro Solo mk3 with my Odyssey, which gives me mono and legato modes, and translates velocity to filter cutoff via the pedal jack. I was happy to see the plugin has both of those modes, and even has a slider for velocity that works the same way. While holding down a note, if you play a second one, then release, the filter cutoff holds the position you set with the second note. This can have an interesting effect if you play secondary notes at different velocities with gaps in between. This works as expected in the plugin.

All in all, I'm impressed, and glad to have a plugin version that can travel with me, not to mention polyphony and all the other features in the extra panel at the top (which I haven't checked out yet).

I agree about the older Korg plugins as well. I had started to think they're not so good anymore, but after buying an MS-20 Mini I found the plugin can get impressively close after I put in the effort to figure out how to translate patches from the (hilariously meaningless) knob positions on the hardware. Not bad for a 16 year old emulation. The UI refresh made all those older plugins a lot nicer to use, and I have a new appreciation for them.

[Sorry, I seem to have drifted off topic here.]

[Arashi]

Also, I find myself regularly finding myself in Voice Edit mode when I don't mean to be. I'll move the Attack knob on my controller and not see it update on the GUI, and I'll think "what the hell?" Then boom! Oh yeah, I'm in voice edit mode. Might be some kind of way to make it more obvious to user's they're in this mode. The GUI is kind of dark to begin with so the x'd out buttons and small red indicator in the bottom left aren't as obvious as perhaps they could be. Not sure what the solution might be here.

Yeah, I think this is a bit of a usability problem. I like the way U-he handled this in Repro — when you switch to "Tweaks" view, it looks like the top cover of the synth has been removed, exposing the circuits. Since Obsession is not really designed to look like hardware, an appropriate solution in this case might be a more abstract version of that — perhaps hide the "grill" and show a darker background so it looks like you're accessing a layer that's below the main panel. I realize the physical shape of the knobs changes, and that's obvious when you're switching to and from voice edit mode, but that doesn't really help if you're looking at the plugin and trying to figure out what mode it's in (was it round caps on the main panel and thin handles in voice edit, or vice versa?). Another possible cue would be to dim the labels for disabled controls.

[BONES]

I'd be in favour of inverting the background colour to make it lighter, more like a SEM.

[revvy]

So many great FRs here for an already stonking synth and I believe Synapse have a history of chunky and thoughtful updates.

Good times for synth lovers.

[waltercruz]

Somebody at GS uploaded this great sound example. It really shows Obsession's quality:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/eci4wtb09dnhr ... n.m4a?dl=0

Awesome patch!

[Sound Author]

I've noticed this odd behavior with voice panning in Dual mode. After you right-click and select "Initialize Patch/Voice Adjustments" and turn the global Spread knob up, voices 1&2 pan left, then voices 2&3 pan right, etc. This is obviously the desired result, but the strange thing is that you can't get voices 1&2 to pan hard right if you change the Pan knob positions in the Voice Adjustment Edit Section, and vice versa for each subsequent pair of voices. So it seems that Dual mode is somehow pre-configured for that teeter-tottering left/right/left/right panning behavior and isn't really suited for the more random panning behavior you can program in Single mode. Have I got that right or have I missed something?