Gforce Oberheim OB-X

[Aloysius]

I've also been noodling around with the OB-X to see if it makes sense for my music and how I get on with the programming (which was no problem). I can test it better when I hear it in the context of a short test song.... For some things I like Serum, Diva or Repro better.... but most of it is from the OB-X.

Click me

Oberheim 320kbs

Very nice music.

[Frantz]

Thank god that even though this looks a bit interesting, I’ve got more than enough synths so don’t need to brave the cruel demo.

You have no idea what we went through. We have a Plugin Demo Survivors Support Group that meets once a month. We bring our emotional support cat popups and listen to each other's experiences. We will get through it together.

[Echoes in the Attic]

You know what won't need a demo at all? impOscar3. And now that the OB-X is out, I'm guessing it's imp3 next.

Does anyone remember the namm show where Dave Spiers talked about how they were going to do an OB-X way back then but the OB and imposcar had a fight and the imposcar stole all it's features? So it's like they sort of merged the synths and added OB type stuff to imp2. hopefully now imp3 gets the x-mods.

I hope the imp3 demo period is 1 year or 30 seconds, whichever comes first.

[Frantz]

As for Reaper, it has literally no limitations at all except a tiny nag screen at startup. That is not a realistic protection scheme for most. I know a lot of people who consider Reaper "freeware" due to this.

I think Reaper's nag screen is a very clever idea. The countdown before you can click OK is initially a few seconds but increases over time to minutes. Very gradually it becomes annoying but in a fair way.

StudioOne is my main DAW but once in a rare while it can't read a MIDI file or I need to do some basic video editing. In which case, I use Reaper. And the increasing countdown reminded me in a nice way that I was supposed to buy it so I did. I appreciated having extra time to get to know the product.

[bmanic]

As for Reaper, it has literally no limitations at all except a tiny nag screen at startup. That is not a realistic protection scheme for most. I know a lot of people who consider Reaper "freeware" due to this.

I think Reaper's nag screen is a very clever idea. The countdown before you can click OK is initially a few seconds but increases over time to minutes. Very gradually it becomes annoying but in a fair way.

Ah I didn't know that! I always thought it's just a few seconds (that's how it used to be like 10 years ago). I've always had a properly registered Reaper version so I didn't know they changed it. That's quite clever indeed!

[4damind]

I've also been noodling around with the OB-X to see if it makes sense for my music and how I get on with the programming (which was no problem). I can test it better when I hear it in the context of a short test song.... For some things I like Serum, Diva or Repro better.... but most of it is from the OB-X.

Click me

Oberheim 320kbs

Very nice music.

Thanks! Oberheim in C-Minor

[EnGee]

Thank god that even though this looks a bit interesting, I’ve got more than enough synths so don’t need to brave the cruel demo.

You have no idea what we went through. We have a Plugin Demo Survivors Support Group that meets once a month. We bring our emotional support cat popups and listen to each other's experiences. We will get through it together.

Demoholics!

[BONES]

Wonderful, what is the price of gazoline ?

I spent about Au$600 on it, which is probably around 400 Euros. 98RON is anything from Au$2.15 to Au$2.40 a litre (1.40-1.60 Euros). I'm sure it is way more expensive in Europe and cheaper in the US. Three years ago it cost me around Au$60 to fill my 45 litre tank, now it costs around Au$95. But the ferry between the mainland and Tasmania cost me over Au$800 return, so it's all relative.

... Mac only plugin [OB-E] for a long while becuase their developer didn't know how to code for PC or something. "The clowncar here" definitely let them kow that going Mac only was a bad idea and they eventually sorted that and got a PC version out quite a bit later.

But they always said they were going to do a PC version and the time they took with it suggests they weren't in a hurry, so I doubt anything anyone said had much influence on the outcome or timeline. I think they did it that way because, at the time, they needed the revenue and couldn't wait until both versions were ready.

I don't know where you keep coming up with this fantasy that the Minimoog was "engineered to be affordable".

I got it from the mouth of Dr Bob Moog, in a documentary I saw 15-20 years ago, where he explained the necessary compromises in the filter required to keep it cheap enough that people could afford it. It was when I first understood exactly what it was I had never liked about the MM. I'd played with a second-hand unit in a shop in the early 80s and I loved the big, fat oscillator sound but something about it put me off and I ended up buying something completely different instead (Korg Delta, still a favourite of mine). I can't remember if I watched it on line or if it was on TV but the word Dr Moog used was "compromise". If you watch a lot of Sonic State videos, you'll see that Nick Batt, who I think most of us respect, doesn't like ladder filters either and is often critical of them in reviews.

But maybe you can explain to us all how the fact that the bottom end drops out as you increase resonance is a good thing, in which case I am more than happy to change my mind.

It was like $1500 in 1970.

Sure it was but a Moog Modular system was $10,000, which was a fraction of the price of anything else on the market at the time. The year after it came out, ARP 2600 was released for $2600. Later still, CS-80 was $6900 in 1977 and a Prophet V was $3995 in 1978. The Model D was an absolute steal at the time.

That was not affordable.

I could have afforded one but I couldn't afford an Odyssey. I think it's about what I paid for my Korg Mono/Poly in 1982, which was the first brand new synth I ever bought.

And you seem to think some world would be opened up by updating the ladder filter circuit while ignoring the fact that it was a f**king monosynth in a tiny case in 1970.

Luckily The Legend is polyphonic, a shortcoming of the original no-one has to put up with. That's the thing, the emulations get lots of extra features but no-one dares put a better filter into it. Well no-one until GForce did MiniMonsta 2.

A lot of people LIKE the sounds of the Minimoog.

Yeah and a lot of people buy Justin Bieber records, too. It proves nothing other than people are idiots.

The only things I would not like about it are the incomplete envelopes and the fact that it is not polyphonic.

So you don't care that the bottom end drops out as you increase the resonance? Really? Because that shouldn't happen with a Low Pass filter.

I remember trying Dune a long time ago, and I did not like it much. The operation did not match my taste and I don't like synths with knob-based envelopes.

Then I must conclude that you have no taste because most people would agree that it is one of the best sounding synths money can buy. You obviously didn't spend enough time with DUNE to discover it's MSEGs so, again, your opinion on the subject doesn't seem to be worth much.

Option 1: Time Limtited, No Saving
The Softube/PSP approach. Give users 7 or 14 days from the start of the demo to try the demo out. All patches are available. Restrict patch save and recall.

So all the work you do on the demo version is lost - FAIL!

Option 2A: No Time Limit with Increasingly More Frequently Noise Bursts, No Saving

Another hard FAIL!

Option 2B: No Time Limit with Silence, No Saving
The Audio Thing/Audiority approach. Same as above except silence for 3 seconds every 45 seconds. Saving is disabled.

FAIL!

Option 3 - No Time Limit, One Instance, No Saving

FAIL!

If I can't save my work, nothing else will make any difference because I won't want to use it for more than 5 minutes, for fear of coming up with something I won't be able to recreate later. You can disable patch recall but you have to allow saving.

[MrJubbly]

Most people like U-he's demo system. It's quite universally praised. Also FabFilter demo is very often praised (it is completely 100% fully functional for 14 days I believe).

The whole point of a demo is to not stress out the potential customer and showcase your product in a complete way. While GForce OB-X sort of does that (it skips a lot of the presets but as it's quite a simple synth at it's core, it's not a huge issue) but it does create a silly limitation that can stress people out (the 6 hour thing is completely unnecessary) and caused some users to lose the demo without any real fault of their own, other than not reading the demo restrictions very carefully.

So what people have been complaining in short is: The demo has one single unnecessary restriction (two if you count the missing presets as a big issue). Easily fixable and absolutely no loss to their protection. Heck they could just do the U-He system and add very gentle sounding noise after 6 hours of use.

Other than that, I think the synth is really good. It would be 100% perfect and I'd be raving about it everywhere if it had keyboard tracking as a modulation source.

You're absolutely right. In my experience, u-he has the best and fairest demo policy. And as proof, I have probably bought more plugins from them than from most other developers.

There are several u-he plugins which, I was able to install on to my device, but wasn't fully able to dive into at the time, having been preoccupied with other prioritised life matters. However, due to the generous nature of their plugins being 'time unlimited' demos. I was still able to revisit and fully explore, at a later date and when I had more available leisure time to dedicate to learning and enjoying them.

And, as many of their customers will already attest to the fact, the more time users spend with u-he's products, the more they often come to fully appreciate and love them. Which is usually the point when I personally decide to pull the trigger upon a given purchase.

u-he have gained so much custom from me that way, due yes, to the overall quality and value of their products, but also in no short part, due to their generous demo trial policies, which allow potential customers, to revisit and fully explore their plugins in our own time, with no stress or ticking time expiry to worry about.

u-he seemingly, are fully aware how every potential customer, doesn't share an exactly identical work and leisure schedule to one another ~ a simple and obvious fact, which seems to have eluded many KVR forum members from the responses, (whether they are oblivious to this truth, or inconsiderate thereof).

Of course, they'll likely suggest it's neither, but rather that, potential customers shouldn't install demos in the first place, unless they already know in advance, that they will have enough time to fully dedicate to demoing said product, before it expires (if/when said demo is extremely restricted).

And to all those, I would simply answer by referring them to u-he's 'trial policy' (which is a solution in and of itself). i.e. Other software developers deciding to limiting/restrict plugin demos, is a self-inflicted problem by those other software developers. A problem, which doesn't even need to exist. And may often, harm their chances of increasing their customer base and product sales.

Perhaps, the real reason is, that some developers just don't have the same level of confidence, that u-he has in their own products to effectively "sell themselves" in their time unlimited demos? Allowing users to fully explore products in their own time. With u-he being confident in the knowledge that, the more that people get to spend time with and know their products, the more likely they are to purchase?

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Option 1: Time Limtited, No Saving
The Softube/PSP approach. Give users 7 or 14 days from the start of the demo to try the demo out. All patches are available. Restrict patch save and recall.

So all the work you do on the demo version is lost - FAIL!

Option 2A: No Time Limit with Increasingly More Frequently Noise Bursts, No Saving

Another hard FAIL!

Option 2B: No Time Limit with Silence, No Saving
The Audio Thing/Audiority approach. Same as above except silence for 3 seconds every 45 seconds. Saving is disabled.

FAIL!

Option 3 - No Time Limit, One Instance, No Saving

FAIL!

If I can't save my work, nothing else will make any difference because I won't want to use it for more than 5 minutes, for fear of coming up with something I won't be able to recreate later. You can disable patch recall but you have to allow saving.

No! You FAIL!

FAIL! FAIL! FAIL!

But actually...yeah, I have no problem with that. The fewer restrictions the better.

Let's add patch saving to all of those.

[Uncle E]

BONES preparing for a road trip with the fam

[MrJubbly]

To me the vinyl-like static sound is annoying. I gave up on Satin and more recently Filterscape specifically because of this "tiny amount of non-invasive noise."

You're lucky you weren't born before portable cassette tapes and CDs were invented.

Personally, I love a bit of vinyl-esque crackle and pop ... Often deliberately adding my own, to many lo-fi tracks I make. But, for sure, of all the demo limitation policies, it's a rather unobtrusive, yet gentle reminder to actually purchase the product, if you like using it enough to where that issue could become 'bothersome', right?

As such, surely can be tolerated while demoing the product, safe in the knowledge that you can at least continue to demo the plugin without the stress of it suddenly expiring. And as a bonus, fully in the knowledge that, such 'minor annoyance' will no longer be present, should you decide to purchase a licence.

If said 'noise burst' was a loud deafening thing, that might be an issue. But, u-he's is more of a gentle loving whisper in your ear "...if you like me, please buy me."

[MrJubbly]

.. but they are NOT noise bursts, not even close. Are you sure you have _actually_ tried U-He demos?

Yes, I have actually tried many u-he demos and own Diva, Repro, Hive, and Carbon Copy.

Did you mean "Colour Copy?"

[MrJubbly]

Indeed. I always wonder what kind of metric they use for the demo restriction. I always think about FabFilter. They are, as far as I know, doing absolutely great and have no problems selling their plugins. Yet they offer a fully functional 30 day demo.. and get a nice easy to use demo-reset code if you send them an email and want to demo an old product again. They don't seem to have any issues selling their software. So what is the point of really weird and restricted demo policies? Has anybody actually tried to investigate this? I mean, not just with audio software but software in general.

I believe both u-he and Fabfilter are totally confident in their products. They know how good they really are. And so are less obsessed about imposing unnecessarily restrictive policies on their product trials, or inflicting needlessly burdensome DRM on their customers, both companies implementing simple serial number protection, which is just so quick, easy and awesome for customers.

I love both these devs and their customer support is likewise friendly, responsive and helpful. Probably why I own everything from both developers. Well, bar my 1 remaining purchase from u-he (Uhbiq, which I will also be getting very soon).

Great developers. Great products. Great customer support. Great demonstration policies. Just ... Great!

[MrJubbly]

You know what won't need a demo at all? impOscar3. And now that the OB-X is out, I'm guessing it's imp3 next.

I hope the imp3 demo period is 1 year or 30 seconds, whichever comes first.

I tend to agree. For me, instant purchase (upgrade). But, only because I am an existing impOSCar 2 customer and know how great the previous plugin was already. And the fact that impOSCar is my *favourite* GForce plugin.

However GForce, as great as they and their products truly are, are not themselves above dropping the odd faux pas misstep, here and there. Most recently in their v1.6 ("Arturia-wannabe-skeuomorphic") GUI update to the SEM.

Honestly, what where they even thinking? . Thankfully, they "fixed" it and redeemed themselves, in their subsequent v1.6.1 release. So all was forgiven ... if not yet, fully forgotten.

But let that be a lesson to us all. As nobody wants a repeat thereof, or to be reminded of this potential atrocity ... ever again!