GForce OB-1

[AdvancedFollower]

Wish gforce would innovate and create something original.

They are: They are creating a catalogue of officially endorsed Oberheim emulations.

Or milking that Oberheim license for all its worth, if you're cynical

Personally I don't mind, it's not like you have to buy every plugin that comes out. I've never been interested in the OB-1 so I'm just going to skip it. Already got several emulations of the OB-X (including Gforce), OB-Xa and SEM/Eight Voice, so I feel like I already have the most desirable ones for me.

I would be interested in an Expander/Matrix 12 emulation though, unless Arturia decide to update theirs. Maybe even a Matrix 6/1000 for that late 80's DCO cheese...

[felis]

Although I said I'm overloaded with GForce stuff, if they came out with a Matrix 12/Xpander,
it'd be an instant no-brainer purchase for me.

[osofaux]

Although I said I'm overloaded with GForce stuff, if they came out with a Matrix 12/Xpander,
it'd be an instant no-brainer purchase for me.

Same.

[zerocrossing]

…it's not like you have to buy every plugin that comes out. I've never been interested in the OB-1 so I'm just going to skip it.

Same. This sounds good, and definitely seems to be worth $50, but how many variants of that Oberheim sound do you need? I skipped the AXXESS plugin too, as having Oddity 3 seemed enough of that ARP sound for my needs.

[Mr Arkadin]

I was always interested in the OB-1 back in the day. Saw adverts for it in the music mags of the day, but never saw one on any TV pop chart shows, always Minimoogs and Odysseys.

So even though I have the other Oberheims this one is intriguing enough to warrant a purchase, especially as I have an Obi-loyalty discount.

Honestly, I also find Axxess different enough from Oddity3 to justify it in my library. Fun, simple and with that sequencer, it's a good 'un.

[aMUSEd]

Don't know much about the OB-1 but according to Vintage Synth explorer it has the same architecture as the SEM so presumably was a SEM with a keyboard? So not sure if I need this.

[drsyncenstein]

The ob-1 is not the same architecture as the SEM. It's more like a single voice ob-x. In the same way that they first build a SEM and then combined them into poly's.
Main differences compared to SEM;
filter like the early Roland SH series. only 12 and 24 db lowpass. So no hpf\bpf.
subosc per vco
full adsr instead of shared decay\release on the sem
continiously variable waveshapes per vco
The result is a synth with a character somewhere between the 70's sound of Oberheim and the early 80's sound of Roland mono synths and modulars. Sonically it has a wider range of sounds than SEM thanks to crossmod and sync.

[drsyncenstein]

and to be honest... they really all sound pretty much the same. people like to assert otherwise, but I've yet to actually hear it.

I'm afraid that this is because the modeling does make a great sounding synth, but still looses a bit of the character of the real thing. Then these are older synths which do not differ much in (modulation) possibilities, so less variation in sound. Then that sound gets blended out by lots of fx. That is shared between their emulations. So it all gets a bit vanilla.
The matrix\expander range is technically pretty different, they will milk out their current models to recoup costs before coming up with stuff where they need to create new osc and filter models.
Chance is it will sound as much as a gforce synth as an oberheim.

edit: i wrote this before i demoed it. But this is actually very well done. It's close to the hardware, but it really shines as the poly synth it never was. To me this is a better poly than their ob-x. Good sound design too.

[vitocorleone123]

Wish gforce would innovate and create something original.

They are: They are creating a catalogue of officially endorsed Oberheim emulations.

I meant original in the sense of not another emulation of some synth from yesteryear.

They make high quality software instruments. I’d love to seem one that’s original from them.

[Uncle E]

Every GForce synth is innovative if it has the X-Modifiers.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Very few products in audio are truly bringing something completely new to the table at this point. Will the 10,000th VA VST synth be the one that helps you make a hit song? Nah! I've finally hit the point where I don't feel the urge to rush out and buy every new audio product that comes out. Most I don't even demo, when I do, most of those I've been passing on. But every now and then something comes out that I truly enjoy playing with and find inspirational for whatever reason (The LegendHZ comes to mind as a recent example of that). For someone else, it may be OB-1. But yeah, audio's a saturated market at this point, particularly with VA's, compressors, EQ's, delays. It's great for consumers and choice, but it's actually managed to quell a lot of my GAS due to the burn out. I'm sure quite a few others will be feeling the same way.

[DashOfLime]

While the price (introductory) is great, and the sound is great, this is all feeding into the collecting mentality. Do you really need to collect software synths? Do you really need six different Oberheim synths? I am just as guilty, I have several GForce (not Geforce) Oberheim synths, they're all superior IMO to both Arturia and Cherry Audio but... enough is enough, at least for me anyway.

The "collecting mentality" isn't their problem. And frankly....what the f**k is the problem with collecting softsynths? People collect all sorts of stuff. Do I really need 6 different hardware synths? Does anyone? Not likely but I could be doing a lot worse things with my money than buying and having fun with softsynths.

I get your point but honestly why worry about it? GForce are selling products and doing a nice job of creating very good emulations of uncommon hardware that is expensive. If you think you've got enough Oberheim emulations don't buy it.

[Uncle E]

There are companies out there that specialize in creating FOMO moments. Everything's limited edition or a once-in-a-lifetime price. They're playing on our base instincts and I consider it a bit evil.

GForce doesn't do that. Don't feel like buying OB-1 now? No problem, it'll be this exact same price again in a few months if you change your mind.

[El°HYM]

They're playing on our base instincts and I consider it a bit evil.

Listen very closely to what this Man is trying to tell you.

[art&sound]

The demo is great. I wish these guys would add MTS-ESP across the whole line, similar to how Arturia and U-He did. I also noticed that they added oversampling options here, but the other products don't have it; I think impOSCar might benefit from those.