Gforce Oberheim OB-X

[waltercruz]

I tried the Sonic Project OP=X Pro a few years ago.. so long ago I can't remember why it didn't gel with me.

Probably interface, like most of us.

And then there is Obsession which to this date probably is the plugin I had most expectations for and disappointed me the most. As others have pointed the workflow is a bit ____...... but my bigger issue with it still is the factory preset. There is one factory preset in the entire thing I like, the one that BigTone did...Way too many presets that do not pay tribute the original sounds of the oberheim, its like ok here is a new synth, pretend you know nothing about its past or what it is famous for, now go make presets for it...was very very disappointing for me.

Honestly, I think that the same happens with The Legend. Nice synth, but the factory presets don't really focus that it's a minimoog emulation.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Honestly, I think that the same happens with The Legend. Nice synth, but the factory presets don't really focus that it's a minimoog emulation.

We're going slightly OT, but I think Obsession suffers first and foremost from the GUI with all the tabbing around. I don't think the FX are very good either (despite the shimmer that people seem to like - how often do I need that). The factory presets are honestly bottom of the list, but I do agree with the sentiment.

On the other hand, I love The Legend. Frankly, I'm on the back panel a lot less because I just mostly use it as a Minimoog, and the patches are a non-issue because its' easy enough to roll your own Minimoog patches. Perhaps, for those reasons, The Legend created a false sense of "this works" that went into the design of Obsession where suddenly the tabbing around became problematic.

Now to roll back on-topic, I do think I'll eventually pick up OB-X. Maybe when there's some sale in the distant future. But for now, I think I'll end up passing on it despite starting to really like it (I used my Macbook as a second demo after blowing the first - this time being more careful). OB-X does feel a bit like "Obsession but improved upon" in that it's got a one-page GUI, better FX, and better presets.

If Gforce rolls out a better GUI (in terms of label vs background color contrast) and were to improve the demo restrictions based on this feedback (even if it's just communicating it better), I'd seriously think about buying sooner.

[zvenx]

....

Honestly, I think that the same happens with The Legend. Nice synth, but the factory presets don't really focus that it's a minimoog emulation.

100% agree with you there.
At least with the Legend it is straightforward enough that I could make many of my own Basses and Leads, and then Model 72 (and to a lesser extend UAD's MiniMoog) and it no longer mattered.
rsp

[briefcasemanx]

This thing has the correct spit

[waltercruz]

If Gforce rolls out a better GUI (in terms of label vs background color contrast) and were to improve the demo restrictions based on this feedback (even if it's just communicating it better), I'd seriously think about buying sooner.

The white text on a grayish background happens on the real OB-X - and they kept in the OB-X8. It's hard to know if the contrast look good in the OB-X and OB-X8 by pictures (lightning makes things vary from picture to picture), but a change in GForce OB-X would be nice

[zvenx]

I paid special attention to that when I recently saw a hardware OB-X8 in Sam Ash..
The thing is that on a huge physical instrument with large fonts it isn't nearly an issue, it just doesn't translate well to a much smaller software interface with smaller fonts, imho.
rsp

[mi-os]

Contrary to what many said it's less about the white label contrast in itself, although it's an clear indicator there may be a problem, but more about the background color being too bright in general. The colors must be carefully finetuned to work best for screen, not a physical product.

edit: zvenx seems to have a similar thought

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Yeah, what works on a large physical object doesn't always work for screens. As evidenced here.

[mholloway]

What's more silly, is that even after you purchase GForce plugins, those so-called 'alpha' patches, will needlessly continue to remain designated as such (complete with unnecessary 'α' Greek letter flag in the browser), even though the user then has full access to 'all' patches, so no point in being separately designated as 'alpha'.

And since, there's nothing really to differentiate the seemingly arbitrarily selected/designated 'alpha' from 'non-alpha' patches, it renders that separation even more redundant. i.e. there's no real discernible difference in quality or usefulness.

They are showcase patches, plain and simple. Deal with it.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

"Deal with it" is how nothing improves. I think those are valid critiques. Gforce can either ignore the feedback or deal with it by trying to do better in the future. Mrjubbly has a valid criticism. If we're not here to talk about things we like/dislike related to the actual product, then what the hell is this forum for?

[bmanic]

"Deal with it" is how nothing improves. I think those are valid critiques. Gforce can either ignore the feedback or deal with it by trying to do better in the future. Mrjubbly has a valid criticism. If we're not here to talk about things we like/dislike related to the actual product, then what the hell is this forum for?

There's a whole generation that is growing up now that do not want discourse.. they only want echo chambers (aka "safe space").

[fisherKing]

"Deal with it" is how nothing improves. I think those are valid critiques. Gforce can either ignore the feedback or deal with it by trying to do better in the future. Mrjubbly has a valid criticism. If we're not here to talk about things we like/dislike related to the actual product, then what the hell is this forum for?

this forum is, first and foremost, for it's members. developers can choose to participate... or not. and opinions on a thread here don't speak for all the other music-makers in the world who don't live at KVR.

a developer can do what they like with the products they make, and, as anyone reading thru this forum knows, there are always opinions, and often all over the place.

but yeah, that text is hard to read (the white on grey), and i don't remember that as an issue on my brother's (hardware) OBX...

[bmanic]

As for OB-X, I put a few hours into it yesterday and was able to make some pretty nice sounds. This is to my ears one of the better analogue emulations in terms of sheer oscillators and how they blend together in a way that I find very few other plugins do.

The plugin is also quite capable as a synthesizer as a whole, with the various extra LFOs and Envelopes. I do really miss the lack of a keyboard tracking though as you very easily end up with a sound that plays much louder at higher note values than at low octave range.. which would be easily fixed with a simple keyboard tracking modulation source. This would also allow you to get much more complex sounds by having different envelope decay speeds at different keyboard ranges (a phenomenon of many acoustic instruments for instance).

Another issue with the plugin is the rather strange ranges of the various knobs. For instance on the delay FX module, the HPF range is just bizarre. Half the knob is within useful range while the rest is useless. Attack and decay knobs of the filters have very narrow sweet spots. Keyboard tracking for the filter is very touchy and again, the useful sweet spot range is about one eight of the knobs range.

In general the plugin feels "unpolished".. like there wasn't much actual thought put into the details. Almost like all effort went into the modeling and then the various UI things and how it operates and controls were a bit of an after thought.

Also the presets are pretty weak in my opinion. Not all that many actually impressive or useful ones. It's chock full of filler and very simple sounds that could be done with anything else. Very few that actually showcase what this thing is capable of or what makes it unique. It's capable of really interesting sounds but almost no presets seem to explore the more subtle ranges of the interesting uniqueness of the synth. For instance, very fast LFO rates sound really good on this synth and can be somewhat reliably applied as additional "pseudo noise" sources, yet nobody seems to explore this territory at all.

I'm also seeing no presets exploring any complex manipulation of the envelope timings using the additional LFO and Envelope to modulate them. It's all very safe and very vanilla.

Still, even with all the negatives of the user experience of this synth, the sound does justify a purchase at the intro price in my opinion. Even when owning other emulations of almost the same synth. This one sounds unique enough that I feel it warrants it.

Now it only remains to be seen if GForce is one of those companies that either listens or doesn't listen to user feedback. As far as I'm aware, they usually do not. This has been my feeling of the company since forever and was one of the main reasons I never really purchased any of their products before (except back in the day when they were the new kids on the block, got the original impOSCAR and Oddity back then).

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

I wonder if the knob ranges were actually part of the detailed modeling. I noticed that too and commented on that a few days ago. Like maybe some knobs are linear taper on the hardware, which would result in big jumps over small movements and they tried to capture that accurately. Just a possibility I'm open to. But yeah, very narrow sweet spots and sometimes the tiniest movement makes a big difference.

[Frantz]

As I mentioned earlier in this thread, I was also put off by the demo policy. It reminds me of walking into a store excited to look at a product but the sales staff gives you the stink eye. They have the good merchandise behind glass because you might steal something (use non-Alpha presets without buying the synth). Instead of being helpful, they give off the vibe that they would rather you to leave the store in a few minutes (6 hours in this case). When I encounter situations like this, I take my business elsewhere (even though I am already a customer having bought M-Tron Pro).