Synapse Audio OBSESSION is now available!

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

I really don't want to hate on Arturia (or on any other company), but, it's really beyond me how their synths are so highly rated among some. IMO, that kind of quality maybe was fine 15 years ago, but not today, when we have all that great stuff available.

GUI's. People love skeuomorphic GUI's. Creates an association with the original synths. And I mean, the features, layout, and UI of those synths were part of the charm. You might've bought a synth back then because it had polyphony, 2 oscs, crossmod/sync, etc. and it was within your price range. I doubt most musicians at the time were anywhere near as obsessive and nerdy about the technical aspects as we are (spoiled much?). Like, do you think Bernie Worrall was aware of the finer differences between Prophet-5's with SSM's vs. Curtis chips, or do you think he was much more interested in a polyphonic synth with presets he could take on the road that felt good to play? So if the Arturia's have the same UI, same basic features, and sound reasonably good, I think a lot of musicians are happy to say "close enough for me." I've got a buddy who loves the Arturia stuff, makes great music, and doesn't know the first thing about Prophet revisions or SEM vs. Curtis filters in a Oberheim.

[chk071]

Yeah, I must admit that, on the technical side, the plugins are great. On the emulation or DSP side, there's much better stuff out there.

I guess the "official licensing" also plays a role. There's simply no other emulations which have the original synth's name on them.

[Ingonator]

After already owning Arturia SEM V2 (as part of V-Collection) for several years i finally i gave the trial version of bx_oberhausen a go. First i have to say that with some tweaks and a bass booster plugin like e.g. Wave OneKnob Phatter (that i use for most Arturia plugins) i can get almost similar results with SEM V2 (the "keyboard follow" and "8 voice programmer" pages are quite helpful for adjusting/tweaking the plugin).

I admit that the sound qualty of bx_oberhausen is oustanding (same is true for OBSession...) and it has a few nice additional features compared to a real SEM but the reason why i still highly prefer OBsession in comparison is not really about the sound quality.

Both bx_oberhausen and OBsession are HUGELY different in their basic sound and IMHO also due to a difference in the features a direct comparison of them is quite pointless. Would make even more sense comparing OBsession and Repro-5 (which are based on the same Filter, Osc and envelope chips) than those 2 Oberheim emulations.

Replicating several of my OBsession patches in bx_oberhausen is almost impossible while the same is true vice versa.
Besides the differnt filter also the envelope hehavior seems to be quite different in both synths and the missing Release knob in both the real SEM and the emulation is a no go for me (i got the same problems with the envelopes in Arturia SEM V2). I am very happy that in The Legend full ADSR envelopes were included and not the original ADS (or ADSD) ones.

There are reasons why after several years of owning Arturia SEM V2 i only created a few of my own patches with it and the reason is not that it sound really bad (actually it seems to be one of the best sounding Arturia plugins).
There simply is something about the basic sound and those envelopes that i don't really like and i found exacty the same with bx_oberhausen.

Those SEM emulations might be great for certain sounds like Basses and Leads but for most other stuff including typical polyphonic sounds i prefer what i get from OBsession (and FWIW OBsession could do great Basses and Leads too...). For me it is easy to get great sounds out of OBsession while with those SEM emulations it takes a lot of tweaking to get the sounds that i really like, especially when talking about sounds that rea not Basses or Leads.

Besides that IMHO also the Choruus and Reverb effects in bx_oberhausen do not sound remotely as good as in OBsession.

Even if i am still able to buy bx_oberhausen for around 20 € i could still not decide to buy it.
At the moment i will mostly use OBsession and if i need a morphable SEM filter i got Arturia SEM V2 (+ some additional bass boosting), OB-Xd and U-He Diva.

I mentioned i do not really need a SEM filter in OBsession but somehow i feel that at least for my taste it would sound better there than it does in a dedicated SEM emulation (and i also like the results can get from it in e.g. OB-Xd and Diva).
Independent of that i would be much more interested in a new Matrix-12/Xpander emulation than in an Eight Voice. The Matrix-12 by Arturia is already quite nice (and i used it more often than SEM V2) but one from Synapse Audio would be just awesome.

The full featured trial verrsion of bx_oberhausen will still work for around 13 days so maybe i will change my mind after that time and get it with another sale in the future. At the moment i don't think that this is very likely but who knows...

[BONES]

Both bx_oberhausen and OBsession are HUGELY different in their basic sound and IMHO also due to a difference in the features a direct comparison of them is quite pointless. Would make even more sense comparing OBsession and Repro-5 (which are based on the same Filter, Osc and envelope chips) than those 2 Oberheim emulations.

What is the point of comparing two things that are basically the same? Surely the point of a comparison is to see which of two different things is better at any given task?

... the missing Release knob in both the real SEM and the emulation is a no go for me

You do realise it uses the decay knob for release, right? The two times are different in one envelope but the same in the other, as per the original (according to the manual). When you think about it, it's quite clever because sounds with fast decay, like basslines, usually don't want much release, either, whereas patches that have a slower decay usually work with a longer release, too. So far it has worked well for me.

There simply is something about the basic sound and those envelopes that i don't really like and i found exacty the same with bx_oberhausen.

Then I must conclude that you are crazy because I love it! The envelopes are super snappy, I can't get close to them with Legend.

Those SEM emulations might be great for certain sounds like Basses and Leads but for most other stuff including typical polyphonic sounds i prefer what i get from OBsession (and FWIW OBsession could do great Basses and Leads too...).

The problem with OBSession is that none of it's filters are in the same ballpark as the SEM filter. It has speaker destroying capabilities with low cutoff settings and lots of resonance. For me it is the gold standard of analogue filters.

For me it is easy to get great sounds out of OBsession while with those SEM emulations it takes a lot of tweaking to get the sounds that i really like, especially when talking about sounds that rea not Basses or Leads.

I've been getting some amazing pads, nice strings, decent drones, fantastic arps and basslines that blow anything you can make with OBSession into the weeds. You're correct in saying they are very different synths but it's the same things that make them both great. It's that indefinable lushness in the sound, a sort of thickness and natural movement that's hard to describe and impossible to quantify.

Besides that IMHO also the Choruus and Reverb effects in bx_oberhausen do not sound remotely as good as in OBsession.

Maybe but the delay works well enough and it has three effects OBSession doesn't have at all. The blue Air thing gives patches a bit of sparkle, although I have no idea what it does, and I like the distortion effect a lot more than the largely useless saturation in OBSession. If I want shimmer I have Raum and that free Valhalla thing.

Independent of that i would be much more interested in a new Matrix-12/Xpander emulation than in an Eight Voice. The Matrix-12 by Arturia is already quite nice (and i used it more often than SEM V2) but one from Synapse Audio would be just awesome.

I'd rather look forward to the next thing I haven't even thought of yet. I have just about had my fill of emulations, I reckon. I want something new that pushes boundaries.

[AnX]

I just want something I can make 27 brass sounds with...again

[SLiC]

I'd rather look forward to the next thing I haven't even thought of yet. I have just about had my fill of emulations, I reckon. I want something new that pushes boundaries.

I would say the platform boundaries are being pushed are in VCV rack modules - 2000 of them, many very leftfield! People build what interests them when its all free/open source, I guess commercial developers have to build what they think will sell....and people keep asking for old synths to be modelled and/or for analogue emulations to get better/more accurate. There are a few interesting synths on the horizon that are distinctly 'modern....https://rhizomatic.xyz/ (the 'new' Absynth) and I think Rapid deserves a mention as its adding granular this month and is just so easy to use with the 'layers' concept...a great example of a modern synths with a new workflow paradigm that doesn't try to emulate anything.

[BONES]

Yeah.. nah. I should have said something useful that pushes boundaries, not something that is different for the sake of being different. I'd use TRK-01 as the perfect example - it doesn't do anything extraordinary but by taking a different approach it makes it easy for me to do things differently and (mostly) to the better. Phase Plant would be another example - instead of just conforming to the same modular paradigm as everyone else, Kilohearts thought about it in a different way and came up with something I find far more engaging than any modular. Diva does something similar and is also more engaging for it. Those are the sorts of things that get me interested, not something completely unfamiliar that takes 20 pages to explain.

[Ingonator]

I think where we agree is that bx_oberhausen (and other dedicated SEM module emulations) both in terms of basic sound and features are no replacement for OBsession and that they are just different synths.
Due to the differences independent of sound quality (which is very high for both) it is possible that you like one of them more than the the other one.
On the other hand due to the differnces it might indeed make sense to have both.

... the missing Release knob in both the real SEM and the emulation is a no go for me

You do realise it uses the decay knob for release, right? The two times are different in one envelope but the same in the other, as per the original (according to the manual). When you think about it, it's quite clever because sounds with fast decay, like basslines, usually don't want much release, either, whereas patches that have a slower decay usually work with a longer release, too. So far it has worked well for me.

Yes i know about that and it is the same as in the original Minimoog.

In OBsession (and other synths) i made many patches where i had a longer decay and a short and/or shorter release (or the opposite which is having a longer release compared to the decay) and this is not possible when the release amount ís similar and/or coupled to the decay.

I don't think that there is something "clever" about not having a dedicated Release knob and as already mentioned i am very happy that The Legend has full ADSR envelopes which IMHO is a big imrovement ober the original design in the Minimoog Model D.

[BONES]

No, we don't agree at all. As far as I'm concerned, bx_oberhausen shits all over OBSession because the source material from which it was made is fundamentally better. It also has a better interface and workflow so I can see myself using it all the time. I do like the sound of OBSession but it is way too tame to be able to deliver what I want. And flipping between the front and back panels gets old very quickly. Like preset handling, that is something everyone else does better than Synapse. The only places I've used OBSession so far are generic parts that I could have done with anything. Like DUNE and Legend, it is not a synth I would have bought if I had to pay for it. One day, I am sure Rich will make something new that interests me but this certainly isn't it.

[dionenoid]

I do like the sound of OBSession but it is way too tame to be able to deliver what I want. And flipping between the front and back panels gets old very quickly.

Totally agree.

[Lucastyle]

I do like the sound of OBSession but it is way too tame to be able to deliver what I want. And flipping between the front and back panels gets old very quickly.

Totally agree.

Yeah I also have to admit that Synapse's GUI implementation is really cumbersome, it's like going back to Propellerhead's Reason.

[wagtunes]

Ultimately, I've decided to pass on this. Nothing to do with how it sounds, though I haven't even demo'd it yet.

1. I just don't need it.

2. My latest library release, a popular VST, has been a total disaster. So investing money in a synth now for business purposes is pointless.

3. Money is tight.

Additionally, from the comments I've read, while this is a nice sounding plugin, as far as Oberheim emulations go, it appears PA's is the better option, though I won't be getting that either.

Gonna save my money for when I really, really need something.

[urosh]

Additionally, from the comments I've read, while this is a nice sounding plugin, as far as Oberheim emulations go, it appears PA's is the better option,

How did you conclude that?

[Yorrrrrr]

Maybe for DUNE that would be the case. But then other products are emulations modeled meticulously after certain vintage hardware synths. So I guess the Model D and OB-Xa are also “tame” and “soft”, who knows..

[AnX]

Additionally, from the comments I've read, while this is a nice sounding plugin, as far as Oberheim emulations go, it appears PA's is the better option,

How did you conclude that?

by not trying either of them, obviously