OB-Xf by Surge Synth Team

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OB-Xf

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has anyone made any classic 80's brass presets with this one yet ? or even non-brass famous synsth presets from classic rock songs.
Like: Spandau Brass, Van Halen Jump, All of My Life synth solo, Journey Separate ways synth, Final Countdown (even though no Oberheim but I'm sure Oberheim can do it very well ) and similar ones that Oberheim is famous for. I think Brass patches sound best on Oberheim.
Main Computer Specs: MacBook M1 Max, 32GB, 4TB, Cubase 13.

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TS-12 wrote: Sun Aug 24, 2025 8:22 pm has anyone made any classic 80's brass presets with this one yet ? or even non-brass famous synsth presets from classic rock songs.
Like: Spandau Brass, Van Halen Jump, All of My Life synth solo, Journey Separate ways synth, Final Countdown (even though no Oberheim but I'm sure Oberheim can do it very well ) and similar ones that Oberheim is famous for. I think Brass patches sound best on Oberheim.
I found these patch sheets for the OB-Xa which is very similar:
https://www.electrongate.com/obfiles/OB ... hbook.html

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OB-Xf is ready to start beta testing!

To download the latest please visit this page.

OB-Xf is a continuation of the free and open source OB-Xd project. Surge Synth Team, expanded with a new group of team members, centralized several disparate efforts around the Web interested in improving this synth. We've undertaken a few months of work to continue, update, and improve the free and open source version of this classic virtual instrument with a variety of fixes, enhancements, and new features.

OB-Xf is and always will be free in all contexts and for all uses, with the source code available and modifiable, and the software usable in any context, free or commercial. The software is released under the GNU General Public License 3.0 or later.

It's not a small project though, and as we head towards the 1.0 release we are interested in having folks from the whole wide world to help us with beta testing and factory patch design.

Features we've added include (in no particular order of importance):

- Improved voice handling, updated the old VAM button to a menu that offers last/low/high note priority
- Unison Voices parameter specifies how many voices will be used when Unison button is enabled, which makes polyphonic unison possible!
- Separately adjustable pitch bend up/down ranges, Vibrato LFO can now switch between sine and unipolar square wave
- Ring modulator and noise colors (white/pink/red) added to the Mixer
- 4-pole filter now gained an additional Xpander mode, which contains the 15 filter types found on Oberheim Xpander!
- LFO gains waveform crossfaders instead of on-off waveform buttons, adjustable pulsewidth for square/saw waveforms, invertable targets (the target buttons have 3 states now) and Volume as additional target
- Second LFO is added which is functionally identical to the first LFO, except it is per voice instead of global for all voices
- Some parameters have extended or modified ranges, LFO Rate now goes to 250 Hz, Vibrato Rate range is now 2-12 Hz, scaling of Noise volume now matches scaling of oscillator volume parameters, the range of Crossmod parameter was doubled, etc.
- New Levels parameter in Voice Variation section, which mildly adjusts the output volumes of 8 voice blocks
- Programmer section at the bottom, containing patch number (click to list all patches in the bank) and name (click to rename), previous/next patch buttons, initialize and randomize patch buttons, and 16 direct access buttons that allow selecting 16 patches across 16 groups
- Awesome new GUI by satYatunes and arturrembe, and a simplified vectorized version of it by EvilDragon which is embedded into the binaries
- Fully accessible implementation with keyboard navigation and screen reader support on Windows and MacOS
- Loads of fixes and code quality improvements, infrastructure moved from Projucer to CMake, etc.
- Available on Windows, MacOS and Linux, through CLAP, VST3, Standalone, AU and LV2 formats

There's still a few things we are working on in the beta period:

- The MIDI Learn UI/UX is pending further improvements
- The default install has no patches, no banks (other than the initialized one :)), no MIDI mappings. If you are interested in contributing patches, please join our Discord server!

We hope to get to a 1.0 release well before Halloween. Giving the synth a test and sharing bug reports on GitHub or our Discord server is the crucial last step to get there. When reporting bugs, please use the Copy Info to Clipboard function on About page, which you can get to by clicking the OB-Xf logo in top left corner!


Thank you!
Last edited by EvilDragon on Fri Oct 03, 2025 9:28 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Grats on the beta release! A very minor nitpick but I would have liked a tooltip for the icons on the top right that appear when you click the synth logo, as I had no idea what most of them were or where they would take me when clicked.

Also the Host info calls my DAW FruityLoops instead of FL Studio. It hasn't been called that since 2003 :p

The 125% zoom is blurry compared to the 100% and also the 150% sizes. On a 1080p monitor. Edit: That was with the Default theme. With Default (Embedded) it's nice and sharp.

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Good idea on about screen tooltips. i'll open an issue. we should do same in surge.

The middle issue I'll raise with the juce team (we just use their code - https://github.com/juce-framework/JUCE/ ... e.cpp#L124)

Are you in windows 10 or 11? And your monitor is set at 100%?

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125% zoom is expected to be a bit blurry with default skin because it's upscaling 1x raster assets. 2x assets start being used at 149% or so. Embedded skin is vectorized so it will work out better for arbitrary zoom levels (but obviously doesn't have detailed shadows and stuff).

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Yeah the embedded skin is fine.

I wasn't expecting all those filters, this is so cool.

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Had to keep at least one mega cool thing as a surprise.

Except it kinda wasn't a surprise since all development is done out in the open :D

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How do I:

1) Save a patch
2) Save a bank
3) Make my own bank

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It sounds very good! :tu:
Vortifex wrote: Wed Sep 24, 2025 5:18 pm How do I:

1) Save a patch
2) Save a bank
3) Make my own bank
From the red button in the lower left corner
FL Studio 25 | AudioThing JULY - Deimos - U-he Filterscape - NI Kontour - Softube Model 80 - LUSH-2 - UAD Opal - WaveOSC

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I can see the red button... I just don't see how to do the things I asked

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Here you go
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I'm sorry, I'm honestly not trying to be obtuse but I don't see how those menu options let me save a patch, save a bank, or make my own bank? Obviously I've already seen them.

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i think export = save here ;)
:ud:

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vurt wrote: Wed Sep 24, 2025 5:59 pm i think export = save here ;)
That creates an fxp file but it doesn't save anything in the synth itself.

I'll just save presets in the DAW instead, it's easier. I find this too confusing.

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