OB-Xf by Surge Synth Team

[mi-os]

Its performance capabilities are its claim to fame. That's why Vangelis liked it. The poly aftertouch.

Did he ever say that himself? I'm pretty sure it's at least a combination of its performance capabilities and the sound. I don't think he would have liked it as much only for the former. There is a certain organic quality to the sound that can be inspiring. It's kind of natural sounding. There are endless micro modulations happening. It has to do with complex interactions between the components, which are also affected by heat, tolerances and failing or improperly working components.

Look at simple preamp plugins and how long it took to get anywhere near the real deal. The new new Relab, for example, is very CPU intense and is just one single preamp. Now imagine tons of components/modules (like amplifiers and filters) in a real analog synth.

[Teksonik]

I am surprised that some of you claim that one can't analyze the characteristics of a synth using youtube.

Im surprised that you think you can make comparisons based on Youtube videos.

Some seem to get too defensive on these matters.

It's because we've heard the same nonsense over and over for decades. It's the same old "hardware is king" drivel.

It's not scientific, but good enough.

No, it's not. It may be good enough for you but it does nothing to prove your opinion is fact.

It also helps to have experience with other analog synths.

I have owned and played many analog synths since 1980 including during my time working in the keyboard department of a music store.

That's why I can say with confidence that we are in the golden age of synthesis now and any slavish devotion to the rusty synths of the past is rather pointless in my opinion.

But I'm someone who has the opinion that "it doesn't sound like the hardware" is a compliment not an insult because 99% of the old synths sound like crap compared to what we have at our fingertips these days.

Never confuse "it doesn't sound like" with "it sounds better". Two completely different things.

Think as you will but if you wish to convince others to think as you do then you have to do better than "trust me bro, I heard it on Youtube".......

[whassup]

What matters is that it has a sound that you like.
...

I agree with everything you said.
But this is the essence in this context.

[baconpaul]

Well good thing we aren’t making a cs-80 emulation. There would be a lot to absorb

But can we keep the thread focused on on-xf inspired by the oberheims but not emulating.

Thanks!

[mi-os]

Sure, maybe someone can move the off-topic stuff into the CS80 thread or just delete it.

[EvilDragon]

Hmmm I seem to recall that worked just fine but we can check again. Which host?

FL Studio and I just tried in Wavefrom Pro, same result. Select 150%, close the GUI, reopen, and it goes back to the default size. Two different systems.

I don't see a way to save the size. Maybe I'm running an outdated version. It could be that I probably just downloaded the .vst3 file rather than the .exe version. Perhaps that's the reason.
[/quote]

Hmmm there definitely is some weirdity in FL Studio. It gives us a smaller frame than we ask for.

BTW you do get an option to save a new default zoom level, after you change it either via menu selection or by dragging the bottom right corner, in Menu->Zoom you will see an option to set the current zoom level as new default.

But this isn't being respected fully, as I said above when you reopen the window, we don't get the same zoom level we had set. Strange.

Reaper works fine.


EDIT: Looks like DPI Aware option in FL plugin wrapper is the culprit. Having it disabled will restore the proper window size.

[phreaque]

Sorry about that, I meant setting the GUI default zoom in the settings.xml
This line:

Code: Select all

<VALUE name="default_zoom" val="2.5"/>

As for the DPI aware option in FL Studio, yet it is not working properly for some plugins.

[Teksonik]

BTW you do get an option to save a new default zoom level, after you change it either via menu selection or by dragging the bottom right corner, in Menu->Zoom you will see an option to set the current zoom level as new default.

Yes I see it now. I just downloaded and installed the latest build .exe I could find (0.8.314.55f4.50f) so maybe that was the issue. I was using an older version installed without using the .exe option. I was also using the Default not Default Vector before.

I might have missed it before since the "set default" option doesn't show unless you make a change:

OBXf 110925-1.png

I might have made the change to 150%, not seen the set default option, closed the GUI, then opened it back up and of course it went back to the old size. So perhaps user error on my part.

EDIT: Looks like DPI Aware option in FL plugin wrapper is the culprit. Having it disabled will restore the proper window size.

I have DPI set to On now as it was before and OB-Xf seems to be remembering its size in multiple attempts after set default.

[TS-12]

By the way, folks, the current nightly has some 172 patches in the factory bank. Still looking to completely fill it up to 256, and then we can basically call it 1.0 as far as I'm concerned (well, there's a few other bugfixes that need fixing and one final feature that needs to be wrapped up, still)

Nice, hope it will be filled with lots of classic rock brass / 70s-80s brass presets.

Like some of the brass presets here:

[EvilDragon]

There's quite some experimental patches in there too, but a lot of it is eminently usable even if it's not necessarily a famous patch.

[EvilDragon]

Folks, we're nearing the end of the road for v1.0 development of OB-Xf - if all goes, well we may even have an official release before 2026!

For that to become reality, it would be absolutely beneficial to have some more hands on deck to test what we have, contribute patches, and so on. Feel free to join us on Surge Synth Team Discord server if you want to help out!

We have recently reworked the internals of the synth to move away from bank-based patch management system which had some issues in certain hosts, so now it should be a lot easier to get along with and just browse your patches directly as it is on the hard drive. The 16 programmer buttons can directly navigate files within the last selected folder (up to 256 of them), or you can simply click the patch number (bottom left corner of the GUI) to reveal the patch browser menu. Patches can be categorized to one of available categories, and also grouped into "Projects" (Omnisphere users will be familiar with this concept). We also have undo/redo now!

With all that said, I hope we'll see you soon!

[Vortifex]

Updated to the obxf-2025-12-05-07f50bb VST3 version for Windows. When I open the presets I saved using FL Studio's native preset system in the old version it fails to load the plugin and I get a "There was a problem opening the plugin OB-Xf for an unknown reason. Please make sure it was installed correctly." error message.

But also a weird thing happened. The first preset I'd made in the old version (imaginatively called First) which I saved as an FL Studio preset appears in the plugin's native browser under the User category as First. I didn't save it there, it's just there. Not sure how that happened but I'm grateful one of my presets survived somehow.

[baconpaul]

Yeah to fix the bank problem we gave a new plugin id and so on. You can still get the old version and install side by side. The new version basically gets rid of the idea of bank and just has patches so if you saved as fxp in the old synth it will work.

Reason for this was plugins just don’t really work thinking each plugin state is actually 256 patches very well. So make the plugin be 1:1 with patch and use directory structure or daw state for bank management

[albertodream]

I've notice that the LFO2 doesn't synchronize with the DAW.

[Examigan]

I've notice that the LFO2 doesn't synchronize with the DAW.

It seems to be working here when I tried it. Latest version of Cakewalk.