Is GForce OB-X a better emulation than Repro?

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

I was disappointed by the Gforce OB-X immediately, and still don't like it after numerous sessions trying to convince myself otherwise. It sounds absurdly clean and sterile. The envelope knobs are strange and hard to dial in sounds that fit my usual expectation of envelope shapes. It always sound super plucky and fast, until it suddenly doesn't. Everything happens in cold, sharp edges. It has no 'sweet spots' anywhere, afaic.

I have a far easier time programming the Arturia OP-Xa V and getting sounds that match my expectations of a 'classic polyphonic Oberheim emulation' with it, which I'm sure is not a popular or common opinion, but I'm just going by my own personal expectations and tastes here, not a scientific assessment of "accuracy" or anything like that. The stereo width control and the per-voice offsets add instant 'analog mojo' that I'm not getting from the 'vintage' knob on the OB-X. But my main issues are the ones noted above; it's thin and cold and the knobs don't respond the way I expect them to.

As for Prophets... I think Repro-5 and Model-80 are both really excellent sounding. Repro-5 can sound a bit brittle and needs some detuning and tweaks to get it properly 'old and analog' but it's pretty easy to do. It has a much better feature set than Model-80 overall, but Model 80 does sound good right outta the box...

The crazy narrow sweet spots and knob ranges are indeed a real thing on the G-Force OB-X. I think I posted about that after my first time demoing it. It sounds great, but those knobs are sure something. I only ask: is the hardware like that? I wouldn't be surprised but boy does it make programming OB-X tedious. It can sound great IMO, but it's operation is so bizarre due to those knob ranges.

[pdxindy]

I have never touched a real Oberheim and YouTube is meh.

I bought an original new back in the day... Turns out I am not a huge fan of the Oberheim sound, though some specific presets are lovely. Give me the Prophet any day!

I have not tried most of the OB software emulations cause if the original wasn't that exciting for me, why bother. So I cannot comment on the Force OB-X.

I will say I am very confident of audio demos on YouTube. I have bought plenty of hardware based on videos and in every single case, how I liked the sound on YouTube translated to whether I liked it after purchase. Taught me both to trust it and to stop buying anything on specs and assuming I would like it even though I was not thrilled with online audio demos.

[Gam456]

edit

[Gam456]

Here a little exemple of OB-X (Geforce) vs OB-Xa (Synapse Audio Obession)

I didn't try to match the sound but more to show the difference with a similar pad
Mono sound vs 2 layer 8 voices 2 vcf.

Obviously, no effect, no compressor, no eq. Only a limiter.

https://soundcloud.com/user-311040946/o ... al_sharing

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

I have never touched a real Oberheim and YouTube is meh.

I bought an original new back in the day... Turns out I am not a huge fan of the Oberheim sound, though some specific presets are lovely. Give me the Prophet any day!

I have not tried most of the OB software emulations cause if the original wasn't that exciting for me, why bother. So I cannot comment on the Force OB-X.

I will say I am very confident of audio demos on YouTube. I have bought plenty of hardware based on videos and in every single case, how I liked the sound on YouTube translated to whether I liked it after purchase. Taught me both to trust it and to stop buying anything on specs and assuming I would like it even though I was not thrilled with online audio demos.

I love my Rev 4. That is exactly what I want a synth to sound like. I haven't felt the same way about any OB-series emulation I've heard (the OB-E 8-voice that G-Force did is probably my favorite, but that's not quite the same thing in my mind). That said, they do sound very different than Prophets and I'd seriously think about getting the Behringer UB-Xa once those become less scarce.

[D-Fusion]

I was disappointed by the Gforce OB-X immediately, and still don't like it after numerous sessions trying to convince myself otherwise. It sounds absurdly clean and sterile. The envelope knobs are strange and hard to dial in sounds that fit my usual expectation of envelope shapes. It always sound super plucky and fast, until it suddenly doesn't. Everything happens in cold, sharp edges. It has no 'sweet spots' anywhere, afaic.

I have a far easier time programming the Arturia OP-Xa V and getting sounds that match my expectations of a 'classic polyphonic Oberheim emulation' with it, which I'm sure is not a popular or common opinion, but I'm just going by my own personal expectations and tastes here, not a scientific assessment of "accuracy" or anything like that. The stereo width control and the per-voice offsets add instant 'analog mojo' that I'm not getting from the 'vintage' knob on the OB-X. But my main issues are the ones noted above; it's thin and cold and the knobs don't respond the way I expect them to.

As for Prophets... I think Repro-5 and Model-80 are both really excellent sounding. Repro-5 can sound a bit brittle and needs some detuning and tweaks to get it properly 'old and analog' but it's pretty easy to do. It has a much better feature set than Model-80 overall, but Model 80 does sound good right outta the box...

The crazy narrow sweet spots and knob ranges are indeed a real thing on the G-Force OB-X. I think I posted about that after my first time demoing it. It sounds great, but those knobs are sure something. I only ask: is the hardware like that? I wouldn't be surprised but boy does it make programming OB-X tedious. It can sound great IMO, but it's operation is so bizarre due to those knob ranges.

I find the Oberheims to be a kind of 1 Trick ponnies where the sweet spots are very narrow and it is impossible to get outside of the Oberheim sound on any of them because of it's Strong signature sound.

For me A Oberheim is like a Juno 106 with the Chorus always enabled but you can turn that chorus off on the Juno but you can't turn off or change the Oberheim sound.

[mholloway]

Here a little exemple of OB-X (Geforce) vs OB-Xa (Synapse Audio Obession)

I didn't try to match the sound but more to show the difference with a similar pad
Mono sound vs 2 layer 8 voices 2 vcf.

Obviously, no effect, no compressor, no eq. Only a limiter.

https://soundcloud.com/user-311040946/o ... al_sharing

I don't get it, one has massive vibrato and the other doesn't, making it very hard to meaningfully 'compare' the two sounds... they also aren't level matched, making any real evaluation of the two soft synths pointless.

[Gam456]

Here a little exemple of OB-X (Geforce) vs OB-Xa (Synapse Audio Obession)

I didn't try to match the sound but more to show the difference with a similar pad
Mono sound vs 2 layer 8 voices 2 vcf.

Obviously, no effect, no compressor, no eq. Only a limiter.

https://soundcloud.com/user-311040946/o ... al_sharing

I don't get it, one has massive vibrato and the other doesn't, making it very hard to meaningfully 'compare' the two sounds... they also aren't level matched, making any real evaluation of the two soft synths pointless.

The point is to show how different they are with a pad.

They have a LFO on each OSC/PWM but the second one is a bitimbral

Do you really expect to match the sound when 1 synth is mono timbral with a 12db 1 LFO
and the other one bi timbral with a different vcf per timber and 2 lfo ?

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

I think the point is: they're not very similar pad patches to begin with so of course they're going to sound crazy different.

[Gam456]

I think the point is: they're not very similar pad patches to begin with so of course they're going to sound crazy different.

Yes the OB-Xa can sound way more complex.

[bmanic]

I was disappointed by the Gforce OB-X immediately, and still don't like it after numerous sessions trying to convince myself otherwise. It sounds absurdly clean and sterile. The envelope knobs are strange and hard to dial in sounds that fit my usual expectation of envelope shapes. It always sound super plucky and fast, until it suddenly doesn't. Everything happens in cold, sharp edges. It has no 'sweet spots' anywhere, afaic.

I have a far easier time programming the Arturia OP-Xa V and getting sounds that match my expectations of a 'classic polyphonic Oberheim emulation' with it, which I'm sure is not a popular or common opinion, but I'm just going by my own personal expectations and tastes here, not a scientific assessment of "accuracy" or anything like that. The stereo width control and the per-voice offsets add instant 'analog mojo' that I'm not getting from the 'vintage' knob on the OB-X. But my main issues are the ones noted above; it's thin and cold and the knobs don't respond the way I expect them to.

As for Prophets... I think Repro-5 and Model-80 are both really excellent sounding. Repro-5 can sound a bit brittle and needs some detuning and tweaks to get it properly 'old and analog' but it's pretty easy to do. It has a much better feature set than Model-80 overall, but Model 80 does sound good right outta the box...

The crazy narrow sweet spots and knob ranges are indeed a real thing on the G-Force OB-X. I think I posted about that after my first time demoing it. It sounds great, but those knobs are sure something. I only ask: is the hardware like that? I wouldn't be surprised but boy does it make programming OB-X tedious. It can sound great IMO, but it's operation is so bizarre due to those knob ranges.

100% agree with this. The knob ranges are completely f**ked. I do not enjoy sound design with G-Force OB-X. It's a real pain in the ass to operate. I don't know what it is with the company but in general I really dislike their user interfaces in terms of how they operate. Whatever their aesthetic for usability is, doesn't translate to what I like at all.

I haven't played a real Oberheim in more than a decade so my memory is very fuzzy on the details but I have absolutely no recollection of it having weird knob scaling nor ranges. My memory of tweaking it is the exact opposite, being super fun to use and very immediate and intuitive.

[bmanic]

I find the Oberheims to be a kind of 1 Trick ponnies where the sweet spots are very narrow and it is impossible to get outside of the Oberheim sound on any of them because of it's Strong signature sound.

For me A Oberheim is like a Juno 106 with the Chorus always enabled but you can turn that chorus off on the Juno but you can't turn off or change the Oberheim sound.

This I can not agree with. You can easily get out of the "oberheim" sound.. but it means you need to be willing to go outside of it! The problem is that as soon as you sweep the filter open you hear the signature sound and can be lost in the box tone of the unit.

But it can be used for all kinds of awesome unique sounds that aren't at all the over used oberheim leads and such.

.. having said that, due to the really frustrating knob ranges and overall wonky usability it's not exactly fun tweaking the synth to get to these different sounds.

[Uncle E]

Use X-Modifiers.

[zvenx]

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100% agree with this. The knob ranges are completely f**ked. I do not enjoy sound design with G-Force OB-X. It's a real pain in the ass to operate. I don't know what it is with the company but in general I really dislike their user interfaces in terms of how they operate. Whatever their aesthetic for usability is, doesn't translate to what I like at all.

I haven't played a real Oberheim in more than a decade so my memory is very fuzzy on the details but I have absolutely no recollection of it having weird knob scaling nor ranges. My memory of tweaking it is the exact opposite, being super fun to use and very immediate and intuitive.

The irony is that though I own and test quite a few products..except for the model 72 and the Tal J-8, I have done more of my own patches on the OB-X more than any other software synth I own.

What about the range you don't like?

I never tested it a/b with an oberheim right next to it, but I know someone who did and approved it to have the oberheim logo on it...it had to pass several quality tests and revisions before that happened.
And this is someone who probably knows more about Oberheim second only to Tom himself.
rsp

[mholloway]

I hate the knobs on the OB-X so much that if it turns out they are identical to how the hardware behaves, it just means I'd hate the hardware, too. Which would be surprising, but hey, so often with these emulations we have no idea, because we've never actually touched the synths in question.

So for me it's not "oh, guess it's supposed to be this way!" but rather "no shi*? guess I don't like the original hardware, either!"