Gforce Oberheim OB-X

[fisherKing]

30 day demo restrictions already bug me enough. 7 day? Hell no.

Really? 30 minutes is more than enough. It's either going to work for me or it isn't. I usually know within 5 minutes. If I am still twiddling with it after 30 minutes, it's probably worth keeping.

I'm happy for you. Some of us have unexpected life commitments come up and just don't get the time we hoped to twiddle synths over the course of a few days.

you mean, you can't find enough time in a week to check out the plugin? & how is that the developer's fault?

this whole 'this is what i think and therefore this is how it should be' thing is, and always has been, tiresome.

a developer makes a plugin, opts to set limitations on the demo. you adapt, or don't. at which point, you can buy the plugin, or move on. and if you really feel you missed out somehow... email the developer, and maybe the can give you another shot at the demo.

complaining on a web forum accomplishes nothing.

[Mogular]

I can't wait for this to come out!!

soundforce oberheim.jpg

[bmanic]

30 day demo restrictions already bug me enough. 7 day? Hell no.

Really? 30 minutes is more than enough. It's either going to work for me or it isn't. I usually know within 5 minutes. If I am still twiddling with it after 30 minutes, it's probably worth keeping.

I'm happy for you. Some of us have unexpected life commitments come up and just don't get the time we hoped to twiddle synths over the course of a few days.

you mean, you can't find enough time in a week to check out the plugin? & how is that the developer's fault?

this whole 'this is what i think and therefore this is how it should be' thing is, and always has been, tiresome.

a developer makes a plugin, opts to set limitations on the demo. you adapt, or don't. at which point, you can buy the plugin, or move on. and if you really feel you missed out somehow... email the developer, and maybe the can give you another shot at the demo.

complaining on a web forum accomplishes nothing.

Complaining on a web forum accomplishes a lot. It warns other users of the potential pitfalls and leaves a kind of permanent record for posterity.

Interesting to see so many hell bent on silencing peoples opinions lately. Complaint or praise, it's all relevant and worthy. If something is completely ignored and never discussed, then it wasn't worthy of anybody's time. It really is as simple as that.

[Sound Author]

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.

I honestly just think modern sound designers are a bit too young to remember or have any clue what the factory patches sounded like, and I'm not excluding myself from that criticism. I was born in 1979, the year the OB-X was released. I've never owned a hardware synth in my entire life and didn't get into softsynths until around 2002.

I've actually just recently grown to appreciate basic bread & butter sounds and their usefulness in a mix. I would love to create some vintage sounds that hearken back to the days of yore. But I have a hard time figuring out how many of those sounds were made. Sometimes I feel like a sonic archaeologist trying to track down some basic information about those old sounds.

IT BELONGS IN A MUSEUM!

[zerocrossing]

30 day demo restrictions already bug me enough. 7 day? Hell no.

Really? 30 minutes is more than enough. It's either going to work for me or it isn't. I usually know within 5 minutes. If I am still twiddling with it after 30 minutes, it's probably worth keeping.

I'm happy for you. Some of us have unexpected life commitments come up and just don't get the time we hoped to twiddle synths over the course of a few days.

you mean, you can't find enough time in a week to check out the plugin? & how is that the developer's fault?

this whole 'this is what i think and therefore this is how it should be' thing is, and always has been, tiresome.

a developer makes a plugin, opts to set limitations on the demo. you adapt, or don't. at which point, you can buy the plugin, or move on. and if you really feel you missed out somehow... email the developer, and maybe the can give you another shot at the demo.

complaining on a web forum accomplishes nothing.

Complaining on a web forum accomplishes a lot. It warns other users of the potential pitfalls and leaves a kind of permanent record for posterity.

Interesting to see so many hell bent on silencing peoples opinions lately. Complaint or praise, it's all relevant and worthy. If something is completely ignored and never discussed, then it wasn't worthy of anybody's time. It really is as simple as that.

Agreed. I figured out that I wanted it in about 10 minutes, though I must admit that my experience with other plugins from GForce biased me towards probably buying it without a demo. Still, I don't understand restrictive demo limits and I've also complained about them. I can't remember what it was, but I downloaded a demo and was all set to kick the tires a bit, and something blew up at work and by the time the dust had settled and I had some free time to dig into the demo, it had already expired. Today I demoed a guitar amp sim (Polychrome). It was quite good, but it was annoying that there was zero time when no drop outs occurred. Also, only a tiny amount of presets were available to test, similar to GForces limited presets during the demo. I can't quite figure out why you'd do that. Are they afraid people are going to copy the preset settings over to Obsession or something? (The X-Mod system insures you can't, and even if you could, their sounds are pretty different.) Polychrome isn't even an emulation of a known amp, so it's settings are entirely unique.

GForce can do what they want, but if they do look at the forums, I'd also suggest that they do a longer demo period to hook people in and have one that never completely expires, meaning that after the fully working demo is over, you can still use it with drop-outs or noise bursts. Also, to people complaining about the short demo, just trust me. I'm an internet influencer and I say it's good.

[fisherKing]

30 day demo restrictions already bug me enough. 7 day? Hell no.

Really? 30 minutes is more than enough. It's either going to work for me or it isn't. I usually know within 5 minutes. If I am still twiddling with it after 30 minutes, it's probably worth keeping.

I'm happy for you. Some of us have unexpected life commitments come up and just don't get the time we hoped to twiddle synths over the course of a few days.

you mean, you can't find enough time in a week to check out the plugin? & how is that the developer's fault?

this whole 'this is what i think and therefore this is how it should be' thing is, and always has been, tiresome.

a developer makes a plugin, opts to set limitations on the demo. you adapt, or don't. at which point, you can buy the plugin, or move on. and if you really feel you missed out somehow... email the developer, and maybe the can give you another shot at the demo.

complaining on a web forum accomplishes nothing.

Complaining on a web forum accomplishes a lot. It warns other users of the potential pitfalls and leaves a kind of permanent record for posterity.

Interesting to see so many hell bent on silencing peoples opinions lately. Complaint or praise, it's all relevant and worthy. If something is completely ignored and never discussed, then it wasn't worthy of anybody's time. It really is as simple as that.

opinions are still, just opinions. and perhaps discussion is more useful than complaining.

i don't want to silence anyone, personally. i just think that one person's idea of how things should be is nothing more than that, and, to be fair, nothing less. and that's it.

[zerocrossing]

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.

I honestly just think modern sound designers are a bit too young to remember or have any clue what the factory patches sounded like, and I'm not excluding myself from that criticism. I was born in 1979, the year the OB-X was released. I've never owned a hardware synth in my entire life and didn't get into softsynths until around 2002.

I've actually just recently grown to appreciate basic bread & butter sounds and their usefulness in a mix. I would love to create some vintage sounds that hearken back to the days of yore. But I have a hard time figuring out how many of those sounds were made. Sometimes I feel like a sonic archaeologist trying to track down some basic information about those old sounds.

IT BELONGS IN A MUSEUM!

Sonic Projects OP-X Pro has the most comprehensive collection of classic preset sounds of any synth I've ever come across, including the original factory presets. It actually still sounds pretty good, for as old as it is.

[zerocrossing]

30 day demo restrictions already bug me enough. 7 day? Hell no.

Really? 30 minutes is more than enough. It's either going to work for me or it isn't. I usually know within 5 minutes. If I am still twiddling with it after 30 minutes, it's probably worth keeping.

I'm happy for you. Some of us have unexpected life commitments come up and just don't get the time we hoped to twiddle synths over the course of a few days.

you mean, you can't find enough time in a week to check out the plugin? & how is that the developer's fault?

this whole 'this is what i think and therefore this is how it should be' thing is, and always has been, tiresome.

a developer makes a plugin, opts to set limitations on the demo. you adapt, or don't. at which point, you can buy the plugin, or move on. and if you really feel you missed out somehow... email the developer, and maybe the can give you another shot at the demo.

complaining on a web forum accomplishes nothing.

Complaining on a web forum accomplishes a lot. It warns other users of the potential pitfalls and leaves a kind of permanent record for posterity.

Interesting to see so many hell bent on silencing peoples opinions lately. Complaint or praise, it's all relevant and worthy. If something is completely ignored and never discussed, then it wasn't worthy of anybody's time. It really is as simple as that.

opinions are still, just opinions. and perhaps discussion is more useful than complaining.

i don't want to silence anyone, personally. i just think that one person's idea of how things should be is nothing more than that, and, to be fair, nothing less. and that's it.

Speak for yourself. I'm a famous internet influencer. My opinions are the best!

[fisherKing]

Speak for yourself. I'm a famous internet influencer. My opinions are the best!

hmmm... the best what?

really... people are people. we all think we know something, and mostly all know very little. yet we argue endlessly. i used less than half the demo time, and knew what i thought of the plugin. others may need more time. but real-world limitations are what they are.

[MrJubbly]

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.

Deal with it? ... I didn't mean to upset you so much.

Is it such an important feature, that registered users should still see them as 'showcase patches' post purchase? And so that 'Alpha' patch flag remains persistent even after the 'showcase' period has concluded?'

I thought the 'showcase period' was intended to be only limited to "6 hours of use, or 7 days" ... not the "entire lifetime of the registered product." So, which is it? ... Not so "plain and simple", if that's the "deal" you're referring to?

[JamminFool]

30 day demo restrictions already bug me enough. 7 day? Hell no.

Really? 30 minutes is more than enough. It's either going to work for me or it isn't. I usually know within 5 minutes. If I am still twiddling with it after 30 minutes, it's probably worth keeping.

I'm happy for you. Some of us have unexpected life commitments come up and just don't get the time we hoped to twiddle synths over the course of a few days.

you mean, you can't find enough time in a week to check out the plugin? & how is that the developer's fault?

this whole 'this is what i think and therefore this is how it should be' thing is, and always has been, tiresome.

a developer makes a plugin, opts to set limitations on the demo. you adapt, or don't. at which point, you can buy the plugin, or move on. and if you really feel you missed out somehow... email the developer, and maybe the can give you another shot at the demo.

complaining on a web forum accomplishes nothing.

so you come on the forum and complain about complaining? it's tiresome.

[MrJubbly]

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).

That crucially in a nutshell is the entire crux of my argument against GForce's particular restrictive trial policies as compared to many of their competitors. Since, I likewise was initially put off from becoming a customer, due to their demo limitations, not fully presenting what I'd be getting, if I bought the plugin. From not having enough time to comfortably demo the product practically within projects, without the extra pressure of such a short window of trial time.

In combination with also not being able to hear what other, more advanced users of each product had been able to achieve, without access to the full preset library. I believe that, especially to a new customer (not familiar with a given developer or their products), it can give off a poor first impression. Which unsurprisingly, could potentially be off-putting to many people.

GForce should rightfully be proud of what they have created. But it doesn't make sense why they don't want more people to be able experience their plugins in their full glory ... until AFTER the purchase!

But I also agree with what others have said, in terms of it being entirely GForce's own choice given that it is their own plugins, and so they are free to advertise, market and sell them however they wish to. So, it's all intended as just suggestions, and both positive and negative critique thereof, to hopefully improve both the products and usability and success thereof.

But also, as a customer who happens now to own many of their plugins, it's also in my best interest (and financial investment) to hopefully see this company actually thrive, so that it doesn't end up 'going under' hoisted by their own petard. As there is ofttimes a whiff of an elitist reputation ascribed to this developer, whether deserved or not. Which could also potentially put off some, from wanting to 'buy into' their wares.

At the very least, I hope GForce can stay profitable enough to stay (and want to be) around for many more years to come and not disappear into the abandonware ether, like many other ('niche' or otherwise) software developers have before them. They've managed to stick around for a long time already, so here's hoping they also will for the next chapter also.

GForce should still be more well-known and popular than they currently are though, imho, considering the excellent quality of their products. But then, that's just my opinion. And some possible reasons as to why they perhaps aren't, have already been posited and hypothesised upon.

[MrJubbly]

Speak for yourself. I'm a famous internet influencer. My opinions are the best!

My opinions are better than your opinions. And that is just my opinion.

Of course, you are free to form your own opinions thereof. So long as you are aware, that mine are bettererer than yours!

[zerocrossing]

Speak for yourself. I'm a famous internet influencer. My opinions are the best!

hmmm... the best what?

really... people are people. we all think we know something, and mostly all know very little. yet we argue endlessly. i used less than half the demo time, and knew what i thought of the plugin. others may need more time. but real-world limitations are what they are.

Well… I know quite a lot, about a few things, at least. I know what the competition is doing, that’s for sure, and when your competitors are offering a month of full use before the demo ends, it sets up an expectation. I also know that I’ve seen this kind of thing go down and if enough people express a reasonable opinion, companies who are smart do things like extend the demo time, or sale period, etc. Some have been been seen to abandon their entire shiny new subscription model based on public outcry.

And like you, I know some people don’t really know what they’re doing, and even a relatively simple synth like this might be daunting, especially if it’s the first time they’ve used GForce’s X-Mod system, which isn’t immediately obvious or intuitive. Plus, when you have a fish on the hook, the last thing you want to do is jerk the line. Let it get swallowed first, then start pulling.

[MrJubbly]

Agreed. I figured out that I wanted it in about 10 minutes, though I must admit that my experience with other plugins from GForce biased me towards probably buying it without a demo. Still, I don't understand restrictive demo limits and I've also complained about them.

GForce can do what they want, but if they do look at the forums, I'd also suggest that they do a longer demo period to hook people in and have one that never completely expires, meaning that after the fully working demo is over, you can still use it with drop-outs or noise bursts. Also, to people complaining about the short demo, just trust me. I'm an internet influencer and I say it's good.

And just for the record (since from my previous posts arguing against GForces restrictive demo policies, it's probably not so clear) ... But, I happened to purchase OB-X (almost) completely blind, without even demoing it first.

However, this was only because:

A) I already own many GForce plugins and haven't come across one that I haven't liked yet and so I have that 'sky high' level of trust and confidence in this developer that they would not release a poor product ... But that is 'NOW' (as an existing satisfied customer).

B) From listening to videos of other available OB-X patches demonstrated on YouTube, I could tell the audio quality was of a level worth buying and crucially that the scope of sounds it produces would fit well within my musical tastes.

C) As an existing Oberheim bundle customer, I had the generous discount offered by GForce.

So yeah, I probably don't really need demos from this developer any more, personally. Since, I'll likely make any future purchase decisions from them the same way. But that is entirely from the perspective of being an already existing satisfied customer, now very familiar with this brand/developer and their high quality of work.

However, everything previously stated, regarding GForces demo policies, still stands for NEW or prospective customers, who are unfamiliar with GForce as a developer. At least (imho).