OB-Xf by Surge Synth Team

[baconpaul]

Perhaps, rather than thinking of a bank of available FX and all that implies, just do chorus. (Of course, it's easy for me to say 'just do'). I'm one of those people who like to supress reverb and delay when auditioning a patch, as I want to hear what the synth is doing underneath it all. But chorus is like milk in your coffee, butter on your bread etc..

Yeah I think 'add a chorus and a nice saturation post 1.0' is a reasonable thing to suggest. The time effects are more troublesome. But none of these for 1.0 where the goal is just restore the code.

(Also chorus is one of the effects we haven't factored from surge into our shared library yet, but when we do that and get it into short circuit the "just" for at least the pretty good surge chorus is not *that* high a bar for someone from a dsp side. The UI side is another story.)

[brok landers]

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3. Basic Chorus, Delay, Reverb (from SurgeFX) would be a really nice addition.
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As OB-Xf is not a pure emulator the use of "standard" effects (Chorus, Delay, Flanger, Reverb,...) would be an important step forward more than welcome.
I would also add arpeggiator.

Serious question. Are you making electronic music in an environment where these features aren’t in your rig already? Every daw I have plus surge and airwindows let’s me arpeggiste, flange, and reverb to my hearts content already.

We’re not going to add these things to obxf in our fork but I’m curious where the demand comes from. Workflow? Patch management? Etc…

And again not being rude just trying to understand why “here’s a good sounding synth let’s add vintageverb on a send” (or airwindows reverbs if you want foss) isn’t the answer.

Thanks!

Very often effects and an arp/step seq are an absolute integral part of the sound and the preset.
Because often these give the freedom to be automated within a preset and Put the Sound in the realm it is supposed to - with useful ranges being set up according to the sounds needs. In other words: had it be possible in. analog synths without extensive cost for the company, it would've been done (hence even in analog synths there's often a Chorus, etc - as it was done as soon as it became possible in a cost effective way. There's a reason why, as soon as digital techniques took over a big part of the synth manufactoring, it was actually done.

[EvilDragon]

My vote as one of developers here goes to "no effects on this one". I want to keep it simple and, for the lack of better term, pure. Juno chorus was a necessity because that thing had just one oscillator. This one doesn't.

[brok landers]

Mixer goes from unity gain all the way down to -inf, as it stands. Same as in Surge, in fact (minus the difference in the scaling of the parameter).

So in other words in OB-XF the maximum level of one osc is equivalent to the maximum level of one osc in Surge? Or even differently spoken - the filter gets the same osc level as in Surge, when the osc level is set to maximum?
If so, that is great - because then one is able to really dose the input of the filter in a meaningful way, effectively being able to balance out the drive/resonance behavior at maximum resonance in relation to the osc. Sadly this is what is often lacking in quite some synths, which makes a hughe difference and is often a make or break in a synth.

[EvilDragon]

Yeah I think it's roughly like that. You can try the current state of the plugin and hear for yourself! (Just don't use it in projects quite yet, we still consider it late alpha, not beta yet.)

This behavior really depends on filter topology. Some analog filters are really not that much input sensitive, while others are.

[baconpaul]

My vote as one of developers here goes to "no effects on this one". I want to keep it simple and, for the lack of better term, pure. Juno chorus was a necessity because that thing had just one oscillator. This one doesn't.

I agree both for the tech and ui and project scope reasons, but also because the external effects are way more varied than our base library. If you want that Juno chorus, grab one of the several implementations etc and you will get a better result than the fine, but not amazing, surge chorus

[Korg Supporter]

My vote as one of developers here goes to "no effects on this one". I want to keep it simple and, for the lack of better term, pure. Juno chorus was a necessity because that thing had just one oscillator. This one doesn't.

And if you want a classic-sounding chorus, I recommend Tritik Echorus. Yes, there's the free TAL one too

[kvotchin]

I generally don’t use synth fx, so anyway fwiw, agreed on that one.

[mabian]

Question... can an arpeggiator / sequencer be considered as an FX? An external arpeggiator cannot do legato and most important slide per step, unless the arpeggiator and the synth are both MPE compatible, and sometimes, as mentioned earlier, the arp pattern and properties can be considered part of a sound, much more than the reverb/chorus/delay and whatever... just my two cents...

- Mario

[benedettodue]

-----
3. Basic Chorus, Delay, Reverb (from SurgeFX) would be a really nice addition.
----

As OB-Xf is not a pure emulator the use of "standard" effects (Chorus, Delay, Flanger, Reverb,...) would be an important step forward more than welcome.
I would also add arpeggiator.

Serious question. Are you making electronic music in an environment where these features aren’t in your rig already? Every daw I have plus surge and airwindows let’s me arpeggiste, flange, and reverb to my hearts content already.

We’re not going to add these things to obxf in our fork but I’m curious where the demand comes from. Workflow? Patch management? Etc…

And again not being rude just trying to understand why “here’s a good sounding synth let’s add vintageverb on a send” (or airwindows reverbs if you want foss) isn’t the answer.

Thanks!

I'm a sound designer and I believe that many sounds need a specific reverberation, chorus, delay that can be created, and stored in the patch. Then of course there are many situations in which this effect should be deactivated to use those of the mix or the song where it is used.

[Nug Wrangler]

Question... can an arpeggiator / sequencer be considered as an FX? An external arpeggiator cannot do legato and most important slide per step, unless the arpeggiator and the synth are both MPE compatible, and sometimes, as mentioned earlier, the arp pattern and properties can be considered part of a sound, much more than the reverb/chorus/delay and whatever... just my two cents...

- Mario

Every DAW has an arp. If not there is Blue Arp etc.

[mabian]

Question... can an arpeggiator / sequencer be considered as an FX? An external arpeggiator cannot do legato and most important slide per step, unless the arpeggiator and the synth are both MPE compatible, and sometimes, as mentioned earlier, the arp pattern and properties can be considered part of a sound, much more than the reverb/chorus/delay and whatever... just my two cents...

- Mario

Every DAW has an arp. If not there is Blue Arp etc.

Sorry, but this is a bit silly. I'm not entirely sure you got my post - or maybe I didn't explain well enough my point...
Arpeggiators outside a synth cannot handle slides, legatos, and other specific things properly, because those must be performed within the synth engine. Unless, of course, you can couple an MPE synth with an MPE-capable arpeggiator. Not an easy pair to find...

[EvilDragon]

You can absolutely do legatos with an external arp, by overlapping notes (this is usually governed by the Gate parameter, or somesuch - then you automate it to enable legatos only on certain notes). Slides would then be handled on the synth by automating the portamento parameter.

At any rate we are not going to include an arpeggiator in OB-Xf as it stands.

[mabian]

You can absolutely do legatos with an external arp, by overlapping notes (this is usually governed by the Gate parameter, or somesuch - then you automate it to enable legatos only on certain notes). Slides would then be handled on the synth by automating the portamento parameter.

At any rate we are not going to include an arpeggiator in OB-Xf as it stands.

Yes, legato can be achieved according to the synth supporting it, but if you want slides with full control (as you correctly pointed out), you have to mess with portamento automation; it's doable, but it's tricky and cumbersome. It's all about workflow and convenience, as always.

[EvilDragon]

Yes, sure. At the other side, it's about project scope, too.