GForce OB-E talk

[sacer]

Where to find the plughugger presets in SEM ?

[Mr Arkadin]

Where to find the plughugger presets in SEM ?

Go to your account, click on your SEM purchase, scroll to the bottom of the page you should see them there. The installation instructions explain how to import them into the synth.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Offset mode is more useful than Group mode, if you're editing an existing patch or have already been working on something for a bit. Group will force everything to the same value across all SEMs, which is often the opposite of what you want. Offset moves them all relative to their current position. Vastly more useful.

I wish it had an "ANALOG" control like Obsession has, that allows you to offset each voice card randomly, rather than having to set up all the offsets manually.

2.5 update looks good, too, with lots of new presets for it and SEM.

Yep, as already mentioned, that's basically what three Vintage knob does. It creates per voice offsets to various parameters in a single control. Very easy.

[BONES]

I haven't found those knobs yet. The OB-E GUI is overwhelming.

EDIT: I found the Vintage knob in the tune section and it doesn't appear to do anything. I've got the synth in MONO mode with UNISON on and it sounds the same, whether the Vintage knob is at zero or 100%. I tried turning GROUP mode off but that made no difference. It might be doing subtle things but it's not enough to make UNISON work properly. The DETUNE knob is similarly ineffective.

OTOH, the difference between playing the on-board keys with a mouse and using a controller with velocity and aftertouch is night and day!

I also managed to make the standalone crash, by copying and pasting the settings from one SEM to another. It only did it once, I've not been able to reproduce it.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Bottom of the GUI, just to the left of the keyboard. The Vintage knob is right above the A440, the Detune knob us right above the Bend Range.

From the manual...

DETUNE AMOUNT KNOB
In OB-E v2 the functionality of this knob has been refined to give considerably less raucous results than that of the original OB-E. Now the Detune function detunes each of the SEM’s oscillators slightly, so that each SEM has its own distinct tuning variant.

VINTAGE KNOB
The new Vintage Knob parameter was developed in conjunction with Tom Oberheim and Marcus Ryle and de-calibrates a raft of parameters to create predictable and consistent differences between each SEM. This emulates the behaviour of a hardware 8-voice where calibration differences exist between each SEM.

Why separate Detune and Vintage Knobs? For when you might want to keep the precision of tightly tuned SEMs but have the envelopes slightly de-calibrated. Or vice versa.

I wish everyone made it that simple.

You can get extreme with both and still have usable results. They never go batshit with the variation so the full range of both knobs is usable. It's more subtle than my Prophet Rev. 4 hardware.

[Dencheg]

OB-E UI is still blurry for me. Shame. The GF SEM is amazing (sonically and visually); I hoped for OB-E to look as crisp as SEM

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

I wonder if GForce and Oberheim might work together on another emulation. I think an "officially licensed" [one of these] OB-x, OB-Xa, OB-8 or OB-X8 would be appealing and still have a place in the market (thinking Arturia/Synapse).

I have no idea how accurate OB-E is, but it's one of my favorite VA's despite its UI quirks.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

OB-E UI is still blurry for me. Shame. The GF SEM is amazing (sonically and visually); I hoped for OB-E to look as crisp as SEM

Have you clicked on the Zoom icon for any of the modules? I think it's just a lot of information on the GUI, so the SEM's are tiny and a bit blurry. But click the Zoom icon and they're big and crisp.

[Dencheg]

OB-E UI is still blurry for me. Shame. The GF SEM is amazing (sonically and visually); I hoped for OB-E to look as crisp as SEM

Have you clicked on the Zoom icon for any of the modules? I think it's just a lot of information on the GUI, so the SEM's are tiny and a bit blurry. But click the Zoom icon and they're big and crisp.

The non-zoomable parts of the UI also looks blurry to me.
Something is not right, and I believe it’s fixable by the devs.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

The non-zoomable parts of the UI also looks blurry to me.
Something is not right, and I believe it’s fixable by the devs.

Can you post a screen print? I'm curious if you're seeing what I am. I'm on Windows with 100% scaling. The zoomed out view of the SEM's isn't very crisp, but I think that's due to the size. The rest of the GUI looks fine. Once I hit Zoom on a SEM, the entire GUI is crisp.

Maybe there's a DPI scaling issue or something else going on causing yours to look different than mine. Or maybe we just have different ideas about what blurry is.

[BONES]

You can get extreme with both and still have usable results. They never go batshit with the variation so the full range of both knobs is usable. It's more subtle than my Prophet Rev. 4 hardware.

Yes, unusably subtle, I'd say. I'll need to manually create an INIT preset with all the SEMs panned and slightly detuned, then work in OFFSET mode to get the kind of big, fat unison bx_oberhausen does so effortlessly (but at high CPU cost).

OB-E UI is still blurry for me. Shame. The GF SEM is amazing (sonically and visually); I hoped for OB-E to look as crisp as SEM

They look the same on my system. I actually think they are both a little too sharp, like vector drawings instead of bitmaps. I'd prefer a softer anti-aliasing scheme to take the edge off (literally).

OB-EvsSEM.png

[Vortifex]

..

[aaron aardvark]

GForce told me themselves: no pdf instruction manual for OB-E 2.5. Use the latest one available if you already have one, the best you can.

[mholloway]

It won't happen but I wish there was a lite version of this that was just one SEM but still polyphonic, with pan spread and detune controls implemented in the same way as the Arturia and DiscoDSP Oberheims. Even with the focus and group controls on this I find it too clunky and unwieldy to use.

To each their own, but this 'wish' is pretty baffling considering that a single click on Osc 1 zoom and leaving 'group' On (which is already on by default) gets you -- checks notes -- exactly what you're asking for.

Per voice panning on the left -- pretty much identical to how you'd do it on DiscoDSP's oberheim, no extra page required like Arturia's...
You have a 'vintage' knob that offsets all voices with a single turn of the knob..

Scratching my head how this is 'too clunky and unwieldy' for you. One click, one knob voice offset, panning identical to one of the synths you mentioned.... you're covered here, in my estimation.

[Vortifex]

..