Synapse Audio OBSESSION is now available!

[chk071]

So I guess the Model D and OB-Xa are also “tame” and “soft”, who knows..

Compare The Legend to NI Monark or u-he Diva. They all sound different. Monark and Diva are pretty close though.

Again, all good. Emulating synths is a very tedious and difficult thing. And, I think the level on which emulations are now is very high. The differences are small, but, they are there. Synapse Audio's synths have a certain sound, just like the synths from most other developers have a certain sound.

[wagtunes]

Additionally, from the comments I've read, while this is a nice sounding plugin, as far as Oberheim emulations go, it appears PA's is the better option,

How did you conclude that?

by not trying either of them, obviously

Don't need to try either. Only reason for buying anything at this point would be for business. As that is obviously a train wreck right now, sound is irrelevant. I have all the synths I need to make music. For that matter, I probably had all the synths I needed to make music 6 years ago when I bought Synthmaster 2, Zebra 2 and Dune 2.

At least I recognize how spoiled we've all become with all these great toys.

[Yorrrrrr]

From the developer side, I guess it's useful to have a hater of your own products in the team. But yeah, being a tester doesn't mean you have to fanboy the products, I get you perfectly.

[AnX]

Synapse Audio's synths have a certain sound, just like the synths from most other developers have a certain sound.

absolute utter bollocks

i bet if put up some audio files you could not tell me what synth or company they were, you're talking out of your arse... again

[Richard_Synapse]

For that matter, I probably had all the synths I needed to make music 6 years ago when I bought Synthmaster 2, Zebra 2 and Dune 2.

At least I recognize how spoiled we've all become with all these great toys.

There is for sure some important additions though you're missing out on, like the Shimmer hall in both DUNE 3 and Obsession

Richard

[Yorrrrrr]

Synapse Audio's synths have a certain sound, just like the synths from most other developers have a certain sound.

absolute utter bollocks

i bet if put up some audio files you could not tell me what synth or company they were, you're talking out of your arse... again

Indeed. It would be hilarious to see how a blind test is failed consistently.

[chk071]

Synapse Audio's synths have a certain sound, just like the synths from most other developers have a certain sound.

absolute utter bollocks

i bet if put up some audio files you could not tell me what synth or company they were, you're talking out of your arse... again

If you're bored and feel like you wanna try me, record some plucky sounds.

Anyway, saying that synths have a certain base sound they share doesn't mean you can pick them out in any A/B test. I never said that, and it would be silly to claim so (for example, I hardly would be able to make them out when you just A/B the pure oscillator sound, that's absolutely impossible, because they all sound similar). I stick with what I said though. Many synths from the same developers share a certain sound and character. One of the very few developers where that is not the case seem to be u-he and NI. Even though I also hear a lot of similarity between Tyrell N6 and ACE, for example.

[Examigan]

I have both Arturia's synth and Synapse Audio's, and one patch I tried to make (Tom Sawyer rezzy type of bass sound) on both OB-Xa V and Obsession was definitely better with Obsession. The filter and resonance worked out great for that type of sound.

I believe the original was an OB-X not an OB-Xa, but I think Obsession still sounds better for that kind of sound.

[WasteLand]

mmmmh my beatiful constructive comment is gone, submit button oblivion.

i am in aleph testing (beat that vurt!).

seems that people like sitting (add a h somewhere, i don't care) on another one's head.

and now it reaches the point to pissing contest between OBsession and bx_oberhausen.

the last post, from Examigan is a relieve. 47 pages, looking for the comments on the synth "as is".

seriously; it depends on what style of music you make, what you expect of a sound. the synth must work for you, and how to achieve the sound you want.

i look forward to a challenge that some people get a bx_oberhausen with the OBsession GUI and vice versa, and OBsession with a OB-Xa GUI.... and of course .dll, .vst3 are named also as the GUI...

Expanding Your Mind Hurts (more to come).

[wagtunes]

For that matter, I probably had all the synths I needed to make music 6 years ago when I bought Synthmaster 2, Zebra 2 and Dune 2.

At least I recognize how spoiled we've all become with all these great toys.

There is for sure some important additions though you're missing out on, like the Shimmer hall in both DUNE 3 and Obsession

Richard

Oh I did upgrade to Dune 3. Also have Legend as well. Synapse Audio was one of my early entries into making music on the PC. This coming from the kid who had a Teac A3440 as his first recorder.

But seriously, with all the stuff I have, if I can't make music with it that people might actually enjoy, the problem is not with the stuff, it's with me.

[AnX]

Synapse Audio's synths have a certain sound, just like the synths from most other developers have a certain sound.

absolute utter bollocks

i bet if put up some audio files you could not tell me what synth or company they were, you're talking out of your arse... again

If you're bored and feel like you wanna try me, record some plucky sounds.

ah, the mythical snappy envelopes

ok, gimme a mo and ill up something in a new thread

[wagtunes]

I'm about to post something in Music Cafe. I guarantee that nobody will be able to tell me what synths I used.

But yes, some synths (Tone 2 is the daddy of them all) have an unmistakable character. I call Tone 2 synths my plastic noise makers. Don't get me wrong, I love their raw sound but nothing sounds like them.

Now, start throwing EQ and other stuff on them and bury them in a mix and forget it. I could make it so that nobody could tell.

My favorite example of that is one particular string patch of a well known synth. After I take my EQ to it and high pass it at around 600 hz, it sounds like crap. But in the mix, it's perfect. I use that one patch above all others for when I need a synth string patch.

FX processing is a wonderful thing. It can really mess things up to the point of it being unrecognizable.

[chk071]

I'm about to post something in Music Cafe. I guarantee that nobody will be able to tell me what synths I used.

But yes, some synths (Tone 2 is the daddy of them all) have an unmistakable character. I call Tone 2 synths my plastic noise makers. Don't get me wrong, I love their raw sound but nothing sounds like them.

Now, start throwing EQ and other stuff on them and bury them in a mix and forget it. I could make it so that nobody could tell.

I have absolutely no doubt about that. Even though, as I mentioned, it really depends on the sounds. Some of that character you just can't shake off. Does that mean that you can identify a single synth in a track, even when it's only a single sound, and nothing else is making a sound? No. I guess that's the misunderstanding. Noticing a certain character doesn't mean that you can pick that synth out of a thousand others.

I don't understand why we discuss about that anyway. AnX chose his synth by personal prefernce, and not by features. So, of course he picked the ones which sound best to him. Typical black-white thinking. "You say you can hear character, oh! Then you must be able to pick that synths from a thousand others!". Well, no, I can't promise that. I hear a lot of same-ish character when I play with Dune, Legend or OBsession though. Obviously. It's not as if Richard starts at zero over and over again when developing a new synth. That's not how software development works.

[Ingonator]

Additionally, from the comments I've read, while this is a nice sounding plugin, as far as Oberheim emulations go, it appears PA's is the better option,

How did you conclude that?

I hope not based on my comments about both plugins because then he misunderstood them...
Looks like wagtunes has not even checked the demo version of OBsession yet and i don't know if he checked the trial of bx_oberhausen (which will still work for more than 10 days here).

The essence of my posts is that OBsession and bx_oberausen like the original hardware synths they model are really different synths with a differnt basic sound and features and that personally i prefer OBsession while this does not mean bx_oberhausen is actually bad.
Certain things i do not really like in bx_oberhausen are found in all dedicated SEM module emulations including SEM V2 while some other people seem to love exactly those things (in a scomparable way that i love OBsession "as is").

I also mentioned that due to the differences it might make sense to get both synths if you like the basic sound and features set of both of them. But to see and/or hear that you actually have to test the synths yourself and not wait for others to tell you if they are good or not!!!
Testing bx_oberhausn is a bit more tricky as you have to create an account at PA and register the Trial version to your account (within the plugin when it opens the first time).


Talking about basses you can get great bass sounds from both plugins. From the post of BONES about bx_oberhausen and OBsession you might get the impression that OBsession has no low end which is of course wrong.
As was discussed multiple times the 2-pole LPF in OBsession like the SEM filter keeps all the low end even at full resonance and at no or low resonance the 4-pole LPF might even have more low end than the 2-pole LPF.
Like mentioned earlier concerning expanding the Resonance range with the voice trimmers and/or the mod matrix (which also works with e.g. the Cutoff and pulse width) the 4-pole filter indeed has a bigger and/or clearly audible enhancement of the resonance than the 2-pole LPF.

[wagtunes]

Additionally, from the comments I've read, while this is a nice sounding plugin, as far as Oberheim emulations go, it appears PA's is the better option,

How did you conclude that?

I hope not based on my comments about both plugins because then he misunderstood them...
Looks like wagtunes has not even checked the demo version of OBsession yet and i don't know if he checked the trial of bx_oberhausen (which will still work for more than 10 days here).

The essence of my posts is that OBsession and bx_oberausen like the original hardware synths they model are really different synths with a differnt basic sound and features and that personally i prefer OBsession while this does not mean bx_oberhausen is actually bad.
Certain things i do not really like in bx_oberhausen are found in all dedicated SEM module emulations including SEM V2 while some other people seem to love exactly those things (in a scomparable way that i love OBsession "as is").

I also mentioned that due to the differences it might make sense to get both synths if you like the basic sound and features set of both of them. But to see and/or hear that you actually have to test the synths yourself and not wait for others to tell you if they are good or not!!!
Testing bx_oberhausn is a bit more tricky as you have to create an account at PA and register the Trial version to your account (within the plugin when it opens the first time).


Talking about basses you can get great bass sounds from both plugins. From the post of BONES about bx_oberhausen and OBsession you might get the impression that OBsession has no low end which is of course wrong.
As was discussed multiple times the 2-pole LPF in OBsession like the SEM filter keeps all the low end even at full resonance and at no or low resonance the 4-pole LPF might even have more low end than the 2-pole LPF.
Like mentioned earlier concerning expanding the Resonance range with the voice trimmers and/or the mod matrix (which also works with e.g. the Cutoff and pulse width) the 4-pole filter indeed has a bigger and/or clearly audible enhancement of the resonance than the 2-pole LPF.

Ingo, my decision is based on finances, period.

Let's, however, bring this down to the bare bones, at least for me.

These two synths, talking hardware

Oberheim 8 Voice (SEM modules)
OBerheim OB-X, Xa, whatever

sound nothing alike. I wanted each for different reasons. I would have given blood to afford an 8 voice. That was the fattest synth I'd ever heard in my life. The OB-X, Xa, had a richness to it that is hard to put into words. It was, IMO, the more beautiful of the two synths, with the SEM being a more brute force rip your guts out. Starcastle made great use of it as did others. The OB-X was more of a rock band thing.

Love both synths but, ultimately, don't need either of them. For one thing, the SEM emulation can never sound like the 8 voice because it isn't 8 modules. You can't simulate that. I don't care what you do.

As for Obsession, like I said, from the demos I've heard, it sounds nice but it's not something I need. Even for business it's no longer something I'd consider because business right now is crap, plain and simple.

I own over 100 VSTs. What more do I need to make music?