OB-Xf by Surge Synth Team

[baconpaul]

Yeah and look I think evil would have been better to just keep our stance of not compare with v3 since it obviously upset one person and indeed we have no idea what’s in that code base

On first principles I think obxf is pretty good and fixes some real annoyances and adds some features. And is a platform to add some more in 26. Mpe and clap polymod for instance could useful.

And all that work is free and available to anyone under a clear open license with convenience binaries and build scripts for all platforms.

I hope if folks choose to use it they enjoy it.

[EvilDragon]

Don't forget the nagscreen discodsp added. That was the final thing that made me delete it from my hd

There is that, too!

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

I agree with Paul. There's this version. There's that other version. There are even a few others. Who cares! Just check 'em out and use the one(s) you decide best suits you for whatever reason in the spirit of open source code.

They're all a little different and becoming less alike as the days go on.

[onerob]

It's disgraceful. Disco DSP has maintained OB-Xd for a decade, kept v2 free for the community, invested in a proper v3 rewrite, and this is what they get? False accusations from someone who forked their work, hasn't seen their code, and doesn't understand the analysis methods he's citing?

The Surge team took the original code from 2Dat (as forked by a couple of others from the repository that dates prior to DiscoDSP obtaining licensing rights) and have not built on DiscoDSP's work.
viewtopic.php?p=9048969#p9048969

OB-Xd v2 was only released as free for the community a few days ago.
https://www.discodsp.net/news/obxd2.html

I think 'disgraceful' is overcooking it a bit.

[EvilDragon]

Yeah v2 legacy version is definitely a very recent thing that is an obvious knee-jerk reaction to our fork. It is not something that was maintained for a decade.

[albertodream]

Surge XT has become one of my main workhorses and OB-Xf has joined it in the first call department

My deepest gratitude and appreciation goes out to all of the guys in the team who have kept these beautiful creations alive and have brought new features and an incredibly positive vibe to the party

+100 000

[Aloysius]

+100 001

[soniccraft]

It's disgraceful. Disco DSP has maintained OB-Xd for a decade, kept v2 free for the community, invested in a proper v3 rewrite, and this is what they get? False accusations from someone who forked their work, hasn't seen their code, and doesn't understand the analysis methods he's citing?

The Surge team took the original code from 2Dat (as forked by a couple of others from the repository that dates prior to DiscoDSP obtaining licensing rights) and have not built on DiscoDSP's work.
viewtopic.php?p=9048969#p9048969
OB-Xd v2 was only released as free for the community a few days ago.
https://www.discodsp.net/news/obxd2.html
I think 'disgraceful' is overcooking it a bit.

discoDSP took over OB-Xd in October 2016. The changelog documents nearly a decade of continuous maintenance: v1.3, v1.4, v1.5, v2.0 through v2.19. Signed binaries, notarized installers, Linux builds, Catalina support, MIDI fixes, GUI improvements, all with documented dates.

https://www.discodsp.net/news/obxd2.html

Surge Team forked the codebase that discoDSP maintained for years. That's the code you're building on, not some untouched 2Dat original frozen in 2013.

"Legacy" branding is recent. Maintenance since 2016 isn't. Rebranding is not lack of maintenance.

EvilDragon's dismissive tone towards Disco DSP while feeding off their prior work is shameful. He made false claims about v3 not being rewritten. He cited spectrum analysis as "proof", technically illiterate. He got called out and shifted to "doesn't matter anyway LOL." And now you're both trying to rewrite history.

His behavior in this thread reflects poorly on the entire Surge Team. baconpaul deserves better than this.

[surreal]

It's disgraceful. Disco DSP has maintained OB-Xd for a decade, kept v2 free for the community, invested in a proper v3 rewrite, and this is what they get? False accusations from someone who forked their work, hasn't seen their code, and doesn't understand the analysis methods he's citing?

The Surge team took the original code from 2Dat (as forked by a couple of others from the repository that dates prior to DiscoDSP obtaining licensing rights) and have not built on DiscoDSP's work.
viewtopic.php?p=9048969#p9048969
OB-Xd v2 was only released as free for the community a few days ago.
https://www.discodsp.net/news/obxd2.html
I think 'disgraceful' is overcooking it a bit.

discoDSP took over OB-Xd in October 2016. The changelog documents nearly a decade of continuous maintenance: v1.3, v1.4, v1.5, v2.0 through v2.19. Signed binaries, notarized installers, Linux builds, Catalina support, MIDI fixes, GUI improvements, all with documented dates.

https://www.discodsp.net/news/obxd2.html

Surge Team forked the codebase that discoDSP maintained for years. That's the code you're building on, not some untouched 2Dat original frozen in 2013.

"Legacy" branding is recent. Maintenance since 2016 isn't. Rebranding is not lack of maintenance.

EvilDragon's dismissive tone towards Disco DSP while feeding off their prior work is shameful. He made false claims about v3 not being rewritten. He cited spectrum analysis as "proof", technically illiterate. He got called out and shifted to "doesn't matter anyway LOL." And now you're both trying to rewrite history.

His behavior in this thread reflects poorly on the entire Surge Team. baconpaul deserves better than this.

Just let it rest George...

[baconpaul]

To avoid any confusion

Our codebase starts here https://github.com/reales/OB-Xd at commit f1fcdd5. That's a commit by George Reales on Dec 19, 2022 with the topic "2.10 release" and, to the best of my knowledge, the latest GPL code released version of the synth on GitHub. If that's wrong and theres a newer official code release I'd love to know.

The branch which became OB-Xf was started by team member joeloftusdev in march 2025 (commit 32dc2d in the surge synth obxf repo) and at the same time the OB-Xd-Grec effort started which you can find here on kvr.

Over the summer the folks working on those two efforts converged on our discord and we combined them and moved them to the surge-synth repo, which led to the someone-finding-it-and-posting-it-on-KVR moment which started *this* thread.

If I look at where main is right now and look at the log (git cherry -v f1fcdd5 | wc -l on main) I find 519 commits on the codebase since that march moment, spread between a bunch of authors. But since the tricks we have in surge (nightlies, build automation, etc...) facilitate multi dev work thats not a huge number. We do plenty of small commits. Including the two for me breaking and unbreaking menus a few days ago.

The entire git log and all our changes are on the web. If you run the synth the about screen links to the code. And all the code and changes we made are free to be included in any other source-available project, whether it is free or not. Because of the nature of the license, our changes can't be included in projects which don't distribute their source.

Finally from the outset (like viewtopic.php?t=621434&start=17) I've been clear that its great that DiscoDSP has made this and other great tools, and appreciate the work they did on the open source side! Its what we built on in the spirit of open source fun!

Hope that helps people understand the provenance and process.

[BBFG#]

-1 less point for DiscoDSP.

[onerob]

My comment about starting with the 2Dat codebase was wrong, so it's good to get that corrected.

(To clarify: I'm not a a Surge coder, just a user who reported a few bugs on the way).

[surreal]

Thank you very much for all your hard work on this synth and Surge Xt with no strings attached to a commercial outcome!! Many of us here at Kvr appreciate it very much!!

[digitalboytn]

1. "discoDSP didn't recode v3 from scratch." That's false. They paid the original developer for a multi-month rewrite. New architecture. You were wrong.

I wonder why George didn't code it himself ?

[uOpt]

Yup that's exactly what happened.

If an alleged rewrite produces identical sounding results it is not sonically superior in any way, it is producing identical sounding results. It doesn't matter if the code is 10 years old if it sounds identical. LOL.

Also we have polyphonic unison, too.

Fascinating. You've responded to precisely none of the technical points.

Let me simplify what you claimed:

1. "discoDSP didn't recode v3 from scratch." That's false. They paid the original developer for a multi-month rewrite. New architecture. You were wrong.

2. "Spectrum analysis proves the oscillators are identical". That's technically illiterate. BLEP oscillators produce clean output regardless of implementation. Your test proves nothing about the underlying code.

3. "It sounds identical": It doesn't. BLEP+BLAMP+64x internal oversampling with kernel interpolation achieves higher sound quality.

4. "We have polyphonic unison too": So does OB-Xd v3. Difference is, theirs runs on SIMD processing up to 8 voices in parallel.

You've now shifted from "they didn't rewrite it" to "it doesn't matter if they did." You made false public claims. You got called out. And now you're deflecting with "LOL sounds the same."

It's disgraceful. Disco DSP has maintained OB-Xd for a decade, kept v2 free for the community, invested in a proper v3 rewrite, and this is what they get? False accusations from someone who forked their work, hasn't seen their code, and doesn't understand the analysis methods he's citing?

Truly inspirational stuff. Keep up the good work, mate.

Why are you so hostile?

Am I missing a backstory here?