Synapse Audio OBSESSION is now available!

[Richard_Synapse]

For that matter, I probably had all the synths I needed to make music 6 years ago when I bought Synthmaster 2, Zebra 2 and Dune 2.

At least I recognize how spoiled we've all become with all these great toys.

There is for sure some important additions though you're missing out on, like the Shimmer hall in both DUNE 3 and Obsession

Richard

Oh I did upgrade to Dune 3. Also have Legend as well. Synapse Audio was one of my early entries into making music on the PC. This coming from the kid who had a Teac A3440 as his first recorder.

But seriously, with all the stuff I have, if I can't make music with it that people might actually enjoy, the problem is not with the stuff, it's with me.

Understandable, the paradox of choice with so many good plugins out there! Still I hope you'll get around to test drive Obsession - the voice board variation is ihmo what sets it apart from other synths

Richard

[wagtunes]

For that matter, I probably had all the synths I needed to make music 6 years ago when I bought Synthmaster 2, Zebra 2 and Dune 2.

At least I recognize how spoiled we've all become with all these great toys.

There is for sure some important additions though you're missing out on, like the Shimmer hall in both DUNE 3 and Obsession

Richard

Oh I did upgrade to Dune 3. Also have Legend as well. Synapse Audio was one of my early entries into making music on the PC. This coming from the kid who had a Teac A3440 as his first recorder.

But seriously, with all the stuff I have, if I can't make music with it that people might actually enjoy, the problem is not with the stuff, it's with me.

Understandable, the paradox of choice with so many good plugins out there! Still I hope you'll get around to test drive Obsession - the voice board variation is ihmo what sets it apart from other synths

Richard

I'm sure one day I will. I'm also pretty sure that when I do, I'll love it. There's nothing you've made yet that I haven't. But eventually you reach a point where you're chasing your tail and don't even know what it is you're looking for anymore.

That's what semi old age does to you.

[IncarnateX]

You shouldn't rely on internet opinions when there are such things as demo version and/or sound examples and/or vids, Wagtunes. For every topic you can find one million opinions and that hardly covers 7 billion on Earth anyway. Internet-opinions are a cherry picking game.

[cfernn]

Super confused by this decision by Synapse (unless I'm missing something?) --- In the step sequencer...when adjusting the pitch per step, is there any kind of snap/quantize option? It kind of sucks having to go by ear every time I'm drawing in steps, especially with such a precise editor.

[Lucastyle]

Super confused by this decision by Synapse (unless I'm missing something?) --- In the step sequencer...when adjusting the pitch per step, is there any kind of snap/quantize option? It kind of sucks having to go by ear every time I'm drawing in steps, especially with such a precise editor.

This, I also can't find if there is any numerical indication.

[wagtunes]

You shouldn't rely on internet opinions when there are such things as demo version and/or sound examples and/or vids, Wagtunes. For every topic you can find one million opinions and that hardly covers 7 billion on Earth anyway. Internet-opinions are a cherry picking game.

Again, my decision to pass on this has nothing to do with anything anybody said. It is purely business. Down the road, if things change, we'll see.

[v1o]

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.

I couldn't disagree more. While I like bx_oberhausen there's something slightly off about it. The sound is a bit too much in your face. It's not possible to make it smooth and mellow. I think OBSession is a little more versatile and has a wider sonic palette. To my ears bx_oberhausen sounds like a caricature of an Oberheim synth, where they've exaggerated the more well known sound characteristics and missed some of the other lesser known aspects of those synths. But for $20 bucks I can't complain its a great price for a synth that lacks versatility.

[vitocorleone123]

bx_oberhausen sounds a lot like an Ob-6 in terms of oscillators and the filter. A little darker. It can be smooth. Like an Ob-6 can be smooth. Check out The Luftrum 22 presets.

Obsession can definitely be more mellow and dreamy overall. They make a good pairing.

[Yorrrrrr]

I already got bored with bx_oberhausen. But it's fine for $20, no regrets.

[IncarnateX]

I do like the sound of OBSession but it is way too tame to be able to deliver what I want.

You never occured to me as an emulation fan, anyway. I have demoed it and besides from hearing a rather trivial but fine sounding VA, it is made with the same restrictions as the one it tries to be. Boring to me (but so is DIVA), but to each, his own. If I ever wanted a cliche’d analog pad or brass, Deepmind 6 does the job without trying to be something else than it is, a lovely analog polysynth. However, I do not think I ever will need such sounds. The scope beyond saws and squares are just too rich to leave unexplored in favor of retrospective emulations. There are some great digital minded VSTis, AUs and REs out there, surely.

[abernathy]

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.

I couldn't disagree more. While I like bx_oberhausen there's something slightly off about it. The sound is a bit too much in your face. It's not possible to make it smooth and mellow. I think OBSession is a little more versatile and has a wider sonic palette. To my ears bx_oberhausen sounds like a caricature of an Oberheim synth, where they've exaggerated the more well known sound characteristics and missed some of the other lesser known aspects of those synths. But for $20 bucks I can't complain its a great price for a synth that lacks versatility.

I originally thought bx_oberhausen was too harsh and forward sounding, but I realized it was mostly the effects causing this, especially AIR BAND. When I locked the effects OFF and went back through the presets it was like a different instrument. I don’t know why the preset designers felt the need to make presets so bright and un-vintage sounding.

[BONES]

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

That's because the Rack Unit version will use exactly the same GUI. To be fair, Synapse is a two man operation, they don't have the resources to be tailoring GUIs to different platforms. Sadly, though, we still have to deal with the fallout from that and when you see how elegantly other companies deal with it, it does make Synapse's front/back panel paradigm seem clunkier than it needs to be.

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.

It's like saying "I already have an SH101, I don't need a Jupiter 8". They are two completely different synths and, trust me, OBSession is the one you would prefer.

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..

Model D is a mixed bag, its filter really lets it down. And OB-Xa is definitely very tame compared to a SEM. I can show you if you like but last night I had bx-oberhausen trying to pump so much power through my speakers that it was interfering with the TV reception. Literally making the TV picture go all wonky. With similar settings, neither Legend nor OBSession were troubling the brickwall limiter on my master, much less Lt Olivia Benson. It's something you really do need to hear for yourself, it's possibly the most stark contrast I've ever experienced between filters. If you have Legend at one end of the scale and bx-oberhausen at the other, then every other filter I've used would fit somewhere in between those two, most crammed together somewhere near the middle. OBSession's filters are much closer to Legend's than they are to bx-oberhausen, especially the 4 pole.

Indeed. It would be hilarious to see how a blind test is failed consistently.

The problem is that those who bleat the loudest won't have the guts to put their money where their mouths are. As usual, they will turn it into something personal and suggest you are just trying to fool them so they look stupid (like most of them need any help in that department).

It's an interesting exercise, though. Last night I was trying to match sounds between Legend and bx_oberhausen and I thought it would be easy, as both synths display precise values - ms for envelopes and Hz for cutoff - but if I set Decay at 300ms, for example, Legend seems, audibly to have a much longer decay than bx_oberhausen. I put that down to the behaviour of the decay, how far along the exponential curve it is, but similar Cutoff values didn't seem to match up very well, either. In the end I just tried to get them sounding similar and didn't worry too much about the actual values.

FX processing is a wonderful thing. It can really mess things up to the point of it being unrecognizable.

You should be able to do that without external processing if you know what you're doing. My newest mixes have virtually no external processing and are some of the densest, yet clearest, I've ever managed. It's just about where you want to put your effort.

I couldn't disagree more. While I like bx_oberhausen there's something slightly off about it. The sound is a bit too much in your face. It's not possible to make it smooth and mellow.

Exactly! That's why I think it's great because that's what suits the music we make. It can definitely do smooth and mellow, it's just not what its best at. The kinds of sounds that I have to work really hard to squeeze out of OBSession just fall out of bx-oberhausen

I think OBSession is a little more versatile and has a wider sonic palette.

I'm not sure about that. The raw features aren't too dissimilar and while OBSession has the step LFO, bx_oberhausen has an arpeggiator so it's kind of swings and roundabouts, I think. The SEM filter also gives you a lot more versatility than the OB's filters, especially with the Mid-Side control that Brainworx added.

The bottom line, though, is that they are both really good synths, as in exceptionally good, just suited to different styles of music. We are so lucky to have such easy access to things that sound this good and cost almost nothing. It's easy to take it all for granted but if I seem dismissive of OBSession, it's only because it doesn't suit my needs and I am spoiled for choice, not because I think it's anything less than brilliant.

[Arashi]

Synapse Audio's synths have a certain sound, just like the synths from most other developers have a certain sound.

I've never been entirely convinced by the idea that everything made by one company has a "certain sound". Would be very interested to see any real evidence that supports this theory.

[zerocrossing]

You shouldn't rely on internet opinions when there are such things as demo version and/or sound examples and/or vids, Wagtunes. For every topic you can find one million opinions and that hardly covers 7 billion on Earth anyway. Internet-opinions are a cherry picking game.

What really blows my mind is that one would even offer up an opinion on a synth they hadn’t tried. Who was going to lose sleep knowing that someone here already has too many synths.

Guess what, everyone! I bought Obsession without demoing it! I have too many synths, and one of them was already OB-Xa V! And when the bx_oberhausen sale was announced, I f’n bought that one too! I’m drunk with power!

[zerocrossing]

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.

I couldn't disagree more. While I like bx_oberhausen there's something slightly off about it. The sound is a bit too much in your face. It's not possible to make it smooth and mellow. I think OBSession is a little more versatile and has a wider sonic palette. To my ears bx_oberhausen sounds like a caricature of an Oberheim synth, where they've exaggerated the more well known sound characteristics and missed some of the other lesser known aspects of those synths. But for $20 bucks I can't complain its a great price for a synth that lacks versatility.

I originally thought bx_oberhausen was too harsh and forward sounding, but I realized it was mostly the effects causing this, especially AIR BAND. When I locked the effects OFF and went back through the presets it was like a different instrument. I don’t know why the preset designers felt the need to make presets so bright and un-vintage sounding.

When I first heard about it, the price totally put me off. I tried the demo anyway and my usual tactic is to first see what the presets sound like, at least a dozen or so. They didn’t do much for me, and the CPU use seemed out of control, so I moved on. When I saw the sale for $20, I thought, maybe I missed something, so I checked it out. I didn’t bother listening to the presets, I just started off with the init patch. I pretty much fell for it right off. I don’t need every synth to be a synthesis playground. Sometimes a simple synth with great character is plenty. Anything more would distract from the composition.