Gforce Oberheim OB-X

[Uncle E]

But I have not yet got any confirmation email, and on my jrr page my purchase isn't registered under orders

PM sent

[RPH]

Now wait for Gforce to examine my reported issue thru their ticket system.

[Odd Fella]

You are contradicting yourself:
First you say people are idiots because they like Bieber, then you use my argument to promote Dune, by saying that most people agree that it is one of the best-sounding synths. Are those the same idiots?

Even a broken clock is right twice a day and some things are much harder to miss than others.

I was thinking about the exaggerated unison structure and such things.

Nobody forces you to use such features and it's not something that gets in your way while you work. It's a stupid reason to be dismissive of the instrument, especially when there is plenty of more substantial things to be critical of. It's not exactly one of my favourite synths either, but it is impossible to deny the sound quality it offers.

And your view on the Minimoog filter is odd. Ask yourself why you use resonance in the first place. It is used to stress the cutoff frequency. That you can do in two ways either by increasing the signal around the cutoff frequency, or by decreasing the signal below the cutoff frequency (in the case of a LP filter).

You are thinking statically, when one of the key uses for a synth's filter is to modulate it with an envelope. When you do that and your envelope decays to zero, the emphasis should be on the very lowest frequencies but that doesn't happen with a ladder filter, except at low settings.

The bass is certainly there, all you need to do is sweep through the lower frequencies with a lot of resonance and you will pass the bump.

Except it doesn't work with a ladder filter. Try it and you'll see. And the other thing it does is it causes the resonance to feel like a separate sound, rather than the unified whole you'd get from something like an Oberheim filter, where the resonance seems to decay more deeply into the base timbre. So with a ladder filter, you end up with horrible squeaky sounds, where you want something full and rich.

There are no laws saying a filter has to work this or that way.

So you'd be happy with an EQ that attenuated the bass frequencies when you were trying to boost the highs, would you? Or would you see that as the shittiest EQ ever made?

The Minimoog is monophonic. Ironically, one of its main uses is synth basses, including bubbly ones with resonance used on lots of albums.

It is effective over a far narrower range than a lot of much better filters. Its fat oscillators make it great for certain types of bass sounds but that is not the advantage in this day and age that it might have been in 1970. e.g. bx_oberhausen is a SEM that allows you to stack 32 voices in Unison. and you can have a proper Oberheim 8 voice for the same price as the most popular MiniMoog emulations.

If you want a lead, i.e. the stress on mid and higher frequencies, why would you want a lot of bass in it, which would only interfere with the bass of the song?!

Why would you want something that sounds thin and weak? Minimoog was popular because it was the first properly portable synth, with a big sound, that people could afford. But I started going to see bands in 1979 and I have never in my life seen anyone use a MiniMoog on stage, because by 1979 there were better options. To be fair, I've never seen a SEM in my life, either, but I think that might be because nobody ever sold them in Australia. OB-Xa was probably the first Oberheim synth I ever saw in a shop and they were about three times more expensive than my car. And today I am complaining that 60 quid is too much! We are so lucky!

You are not in a position to tell who is right and who isn't. Your opinion is just that, and no more valid any anyone else's.

Dune is all about the unison thingy. I think it is even in the name Dune. And without it, it is just a normal, and in my opinion strikingly sterile, unappealing softsynth.

Regarding the Minimoog filter, that is what the amp envelope is there for, to compensate for such changes.

And if you needed really low bass, why would you use a lot of resonance?! That's like deliberately removing the bottom so that you can complain about the lack of bottom.

And that whole "fat" talk with 32 stacked voices and what not. Really, if someone needs such exaggerated sounds to make music, their music is probably not worth much to begin with.

So, you ask why would I want something that sounds thin and weak and in the next sentence you confirm that the Minimoog had a big sound. Which is it?

I have yet to hear high-resonance sounds that are actually musical. I never go beyond 50% or so, usually just 0-20%.

[vitocorleone123]

You are contradicting yourself:
First you say people are idiots because they like Bieber, then you use my argument to promote Dune, by saying that most people agree that it is one of the best-sounding synths. Are those the same idiots?

Even a broken clock is right twice a day and some things are much harder to miss than others.

I was thinking about the exaggerated unison structure and such things.

Nobody forces you to use such features and it's not something that gets in your way while you work. It's a stupid reason to be dismissive of the instrument, especially when there is plenty of more substantial things to be critical of. It's not exactly one of my favourite synths either, but it is impossible to deny the sound quality it offers.

And your view on the Minimoog filter is odd. Ask yourself why you use resonance in the first place. It is used to stress the cutoff frequency. That you can do in two ways either by increasing the signal around the cutoff frequency, or by decreasing the signal below the cutoff frequency (in the case of a LP filter).

You are thinking statically, when one of the key uses for a synth's filter is to modulate it with an envelope. When you do that and your envelope decays to zero, the emphasis should be on the very lowest frequencies but that doesn't happen with a ladder filter, except at low settings.

The bass is certainly there, all you need to do is sweep through the lower frequencies with a lot of resonance and you will pass the bump.

Except it doesn't work with a ladder filter. Try it and you'll see. And the other thing it does is it causes the resonance to feel like a separate sound, rather than the unified whole you'd get from something like an Oberheim filter, where the resonance seems to decay more deeply into the base timbre. So with a ladder filter, you end up with horrible squeaky sounds, where you want something full and rich.

There are no laws saying a filter has to work this or that way.

So you'd be happy with an EQ that attenuated the bass frequencies when you were trying to boost the highs, would you? Or would you see that as the shittiest EQ ever made?

The Minimoog is monophonic. Ironically, one of its main uses is synth basses, including bubbly ones with resonance used on lots of albums.

It is effective over a far narrower range than a lot of much better filters. Its fat oscillators make it great for certain types of bass sounds but that is not the advantage in this day and age that it might have been in 1970. e.g. bx_oberhausen is a SEM that allows you to stack 32 voices in Unison. and you can have a proper Oberheim 8 voice for the same price as the most popular MiniMoog emulations.

If you want a lead, i.e. the stress on mid and higher frequencies, why would you want a lot of bass in it, which would only interfere with the bass of the song?!

Why would you want something that sounds thin and weak? Minimoog was popular because it was the first properly portable synth, with a big sound, that people could afford. But I started going to see bands in 1979 and I have never in my life seen anyone use a MiniMoog on stage, because by 1979 there were better options. To be fair, I've never seen a SEM in my life, either, but I think that might be because nobody ever sold them in Australia. OB-Xa was probably the first Oberheim synth I ever saw in a shop and they were about three times more expensive than my car. And today I am complaining that 60 quid is too much! We are so lucky!

You are not in a position to tell who is right and who isn't. Your opinion is just that, and no more valid any anyone else's.

Dune is all about the unison thingy. I think it is even in the name Dune. And without it, it is just a normal, and in my opinion strikingly sterile, unappealing softsynth.

Regarding the Minimoog filter, that is what the amp envelope is there for, to compensate for such changes.

And if you needed really low bass, why would you use a lot of resonance?! That's like deliberately removing the bottom so that you can complain about the lack of bottom.

And that whole "fat" talk with 32 stacked voices and what not. Really, if someone needs such exaggerated sounds to make music, their music is probably not worth much to begin with.

So, you ask why would I want something that sounds thin and weak and in the next sentence you confirm that the Minimoog had a big sound. Which is it?

I have yet to hear high-resonance sounds that are actually musical. I never go beyond 50% or so, usually just 0-20%.

Leaving the ladder filter aside for a moment, I can say that high resonance on my OB-6 can sound amazing and musical (to me), but, then, I've never heard another synth where I can love high resonance like on that one. And definitely no soft synth can do resonance like that (yet).

I wouldn't want a studio full of ladder filters, but I do like having the one on my SE-02 available. A bass compensation option would be nice, but certainly isn't needed because I can always just use a different synth. I make use of it on the SE-02 to trim some bass on some sounds, but I also have a HP filter available on the ExtBox - just depends on the sound.

[Odd Fella]

Leaving the ladder filter aside for a moment, I can say that high resonance on my OB-6 can sound amazing and musical (to me), but, then, I've never heard another synth where I can love high resonance like on that one. And definitely no soft synth can do resonance like that (yet).

I wouldn't want a studio full of ladder filters, but I do like having the one on my SE-02 available. A bass compensation option would be nice, but certainly isn't needed because I can always just use a different synth.

Can you post an audio of that OB-6 high-resonance sound?
I don't have access to such a synth, so I never know what people are actually talking about.


Regarding the ladder filter, I was just trying it on a synth and there is a lot of bottom at full resonance, but it is so low that my speakers don't produce it. But I can see that it is there because of the meter in Reaper, which is almost as high as with an open filter.

[vitocorleone123]

Leaving the ladder filter aside for a moment, I can say that high resonance on my OB-6 can sound amazing and musical (to me), but, then, I've never heard another synth where I can love high resonance like on that one. And definitely no soft synth can do resonance like that (yet).

I wouldn't want a studio full of ladder filters, but I do like having the one on my SE-02 available. A bass compensation option would be nice, but certainly isn't needed because I can always just use a different synth.

Can you post an audio of that OB-6 high-resonance sound?
I don't have access to such a synth, so I never know what people are actually talking about.


Regarding the ladder filter, I was just trying it on a synth and there is a lot of bottom at full resonance, but it is so low that my speakers don't produce it. But I can see that it is there because of the meter in Reaper, which is almost as high as with an open filter.

What does "musical" resonance sound like to you? I could find/make something I think is musical and you'd think was crap.

[Odd Fella]

Leaving the ladder filter aside for a moment, I can say that high resonance on my OB-6 can sound amazing and musical (to me), but, then, I've never heard another synth where I can love high resonance like on that one. And definitely no soft synth can do resonance like that (yet).

I wouldn't want a studio full of ladder filters, but I do like having the one on my SE-02 available. A bass compensation option would be nice, but certainly isn't needed because I can always just use a different synth.

Can you post an audio of that OB-6 high-resonance sound?
I don't have access to such a synth, so I never know what people are actually talking about.


Regarding the ladder filter, I was just trying it on a synth and there is a lot of bottom at full resonance, but it is so low that my speakers don't produce it. But I can see that it is there because of the meter in Reaper, which is almost as high as with an open filter.

What does "musical" resonance sound like to you? I could find/make something I think is musical and you'd think was crap.

I don't know. Forget it...

[felis]

I'm surprised more synths don't use a 'peaking' filter similar to Rolands.
It doesn't lower any frequencies, just boosts frequencies around a point.
Of course, you also need to be able to move that point around with modulation.



https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques ... ips-part-4

[Uncle E]

Dune is all about the unison thingy. I think it is even in the name Dune. And without it, it is just a normal, and in my opinion strikingly sterile, unappealing softsynth.

Dune is short for “Dunison”, Synapse’s trademark duophonic unison mode.

[Aloysius]

DUNE is an anagram of Nude. The developer is a nudist.

[Uncle E]

I'm surprised more synths don't use a 'peaking' filter similar to Rolands.
It doesn't lower any frequencies, just boosts frequencies around a point.
Of course, you also need to be able to move that point around with modulation.



https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques ... ips-part-4

Andy from Cytomic recently wrote the post to end all posts about Roland filters. But the article you linked to is referring to the JV and XV digital filters, which seem to be little more than parametric EQ’s. I love those synths but their resonance is something I avoid.

[Odd Fella]

What kind of filter is that? Doesn't look like a LP or HP, so kind of BP?

[perpetual3]

I'm surprised more synths don't use a 'peaking' filter similar to Rolands.
It doesn't lower any frequencies, just boosts frequencies around a point.
Of course, you also need to be able to move that point around with modulation.



https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques ... ips-part-4

Andy from Cytomic recently wrote the post to end all posts about Roland filters. But the article you linked to is referring to the JV and XV digital filters, which seem to be little more than parametric EQ’s. I love those synths but their resonance is something I avoid.

Where did write this?

[Uncle E]

I think it was this one:

viewtopic.php?p=8747433#p8747433

[Odd Fella]

@Bones

I was just playing around with the resonance on the OB-X and noticed that the resonance also is kind of separate from the main sound, which stays the same. No different from a ladder filter.
And as I sweep the cutoff frequency towards min, at a certain point the two become one, and at that time it no longer sounds like resonance at all because there is so little high-frequency content left.