New GForce Oberheim TVS Pro is here

[Cuauhtli]

can you describe your set up?
Mac or PC?
One Screen or two Screens?
What screen and resolution is it blurry on?
thanks
rsp

I'm using Win 11 with 1080p 27 inch screen. It's not my setup, it's just the way the synth is designed. It's like the font has a bloom effect on it or something. Some of the Arturia stuff has a similar effect. Look below at the contrast between the website text and the text on the UI. The website text is sharp and clear. The UI text is fuzzy/bloomy in comparison, it's like they've added a blur filter over the UI. It actually makes my eyes feel weird when I look at it. It's probably just a me thing.

I thought it was just my eyes. LOL

[MrJubbly]

I've always maintained that GForce's policy of only including a small subset of so-called "Alpha" presets for their already very-limited trials is ultimately counterproductive to showcasing their plugins in the best possible light.

And I say this as a customer who owns all of their product-line. Newcomers or prospective customers are not really given the best opportunity to trial and audition GForce's software at leisure and to the maximum potential. I believe they would convince more people to purchase if they were more generous in both regards.

It's a point made even more silly, imho, by the fact that even once users have purchased their synths, the presets still display that pointless everpresent "alpha" label. Even though users have access to all the available presets from that point onwards.

Gforce have made a great many improvements over recent years, from their updated User Interfaces, Preset menus, improved rate of software releases, product pricing and their overall value for money and customer service. So I'm not just ragging. But their demo periods and preset libraries for customers auditioning their products could still be improved, imho.

[IvyBirds]

I've always maintained that GForce's policy of only including a small subset of so-called "Alpha" presets for their already very-limited trials is ultimately counterproductive to showcasing their plugins in the best possible light.

Totally agree why not give everyone at least a week with the full unrestricted product

Steinberg gives you 30 days with the full unrestricted product I don't think a week is asking to much

[felis]

I bought TVS Pro yesterday, and downloaded the SEM V3 demo today, and had a chance to compare them a bit.
V3 has far more options available and can use up to 8 voices in unison, or with many variations.
In that respect it's closer to OB-E. A big plus for me is that it can use release velocity as a mod source.

TVS is far more capable than it appears at first glance. I thought the keyboard modes might be gimmicky, but they're a lot of fun and can be inspiring quickly.
Both of them can modulate the fx which is always a nice feature.

Subjective yes, and I might also be a bit biased as a GForce fanboy, but for pure sound quality I vastly
prefer the TVS. The TVS is fuller, thicker, and richer (for lack of a more objective description).

The V3 sounds very good until compared side-by-side, and can probably get further out there for weirdness, but that's not really what the OB stuff is all about.

Just quick first impressions, but if I could only get one, I'm glad I got the TVS.
In the long run though, I'll probably get the V3 too.

[D-Fusion]

I bought TVS Pro yesterday, and downloaded the SEM V3 demo today, and had a chance to compare them a bit.
V3 has far more options available and can use up to 8 voices in unison, or with many variations.
In that respect it's closer to OB-E. A big plus for me is that it can use release velocity as a mod source.

TVS is far more capable than it appears at first glance. I thought the keyboard modes might be gimmicky, but they're a lot of fun and can be inspiring quickly.
Both of them can modulate the fx which is always a nice feature.

Subjective yes, and I might also be a bit biased as a GForce fanboy, but for pure sound quality I vastly
prefer the TVS. The TVS is fuller, thicker, and richer (for lack of a more objective description).

The V3 sounds very good until compared side-by-side, and can probably get further out there for weirdness, but that's not really what the OB stuff is all about.

Just quick first impressions, but if I could only get one, I'm glad I got the TVS.
In the long run though, I'll probably get the V3 too.

I think both of them are great
What i like about the new Arturia Sem V3 is that the Resonance has more Bite and Growl to it compared to the G-Sem and TVS Pro + It is Polyphonic when i want to use it as a poly Synth.

[audiouser720]

Gforce synths have the best sound but worst GUI to the level I don’t enjoy using them. Absolute headache and 2002. Arturia has respectively the worst sound (compared to these 2), but the best features and GUI imaginable. The way they designed and built in their function generators, extra EG / LFO and the way the modulation works (aka Pigments style) just make programming their stuff pure bliss. U-he to me sits somewhere in between. Nice sound, fairly enjoyable and pleasant interface. All subjective, good day

[art&sound]

can you describe your set up?
Mac or PC?
One Screen or two Screens?
What screen and resolution is it blurry on?
thanks
rsp

I'm using Win 11 with 1080p 27 inch screen. It's not my setup, it's just the way the synth is designed. It's like the font has a bloom effect on it or something. Some of the Arturia stuff has a similar effect. Look below at the contrast between the website text and the text on the UI. The website text is sharp and clear. The UI text is fuzzy/bloomy in comparison, it's like they've added a blur filter over the UI. It actually makes my eyes feel weird when I look at it. It's probably just a me thing.

Yeah, the UI causes me to strain instantly. I don't know what's up with these guys. They make amazing sounding stuff, and the presets are always great...

But the UIs are amateur. The fonts are the most egregious aspect. Look at Serum 2: It may not be the perfect example of great UI, but look how crisp the fonts look despite the small size! GForce fonts and UI elements all tend to blur and glow, and it just looks bad—it's in no way a pleasing skewmorphic, it's just blurry. The UI elements also don't follow a precise grid, so they tend to look haphazardly placed. Knob values turn are whatever random increment... try adjusting the attack knob on Env 1. 3ms increments. Hold down shift and turn slow, and it will then slowly turn by.... 3ms increments. The parameter value adjustments across the board seem sloppy. If Gforce would follow U-He's lead and invest some more thought into UI and UX, they would be so, so unbelievably good.

[vitocorleone123]

can you describe your set up?
Mac or PC?
One Screen or two Screens?
What screen and resolution is it blurry on?
thanks
rsp

I'm using Win 11 with 1080p 27 inch screen. It's not my setup, it's just the way the synth is designed. It's like the font has a bloom effect on it or something. Some of the Arturia stuff has a similar effect. Look below at the contrast between the website text and the text on the UI. The website text is sharp and clear. The UI text is fuzzy/bloomy in comparison, it's like they've added a blur filter over the UI. It actually makes my eyes feel weird when I look at it. It's probably just a me thing.

Yeah, the UI causes me to strain instantly. I don't know what's up with these guys. They make amazing sounding stuff, and the presets are always great...

But the UIs are amateur. The fonts are the most egregious aspect. Look at Serum 2: It may not be the perfect example of great UI, but look how crisp the fonts look despite the small size! GForce fonts and UI elements all tend to blur and glow, and it just looks bad—it's in no way a pleasing skewmorphic, it's just blurry. The UI elements also don't follow a precise grid, so they tend to look haphazardly placed. Knob values turn are whatever random increment... try adjusting the attack knob on Env 1. 3ms increments. Hold down shift and turn slow, and it will then slowly turn by.... 3ms increments. The parameter value adjustments across the board seem sloppy. If Gforce would follow U-He's lead and invest some more thought into UI and UX, they would be so, so unbelievably good.

Given the small company, I wonder if they outsource the design of the UI like so many other small companies.

[BONES]

the fonts are the most egregious aspect. Look at Serum 2: It may not be the perfect example of great UI, but look how crisp the fonts look despite the small size! GForce fonts and UI elements all tend to blur and glow, and it just looks bad

WTF!?! Is this a Mac thing? I find GForce's GUIs to be too crisp, almost vector-like, rather than bitmaps. I think they could do with some different, softer anti-aliasing. The text on this one, in particular though, is too cramped. It could stand to be a few point sizes smaller and tracked out a bit to make it a bit more legible.

[art&sound]

the fonts are the most egregious aspect. Look at Serum 2: It may not be the perfect example of great UI, but look how crisp the fonts look despite the small size! GForce fonts and UI elements all tend to blur and glow, and it just looks bad

WTF!?! Is this a Mac thing? I find GForce's GUIs to be too crisp, almost vector-like, rather than bitmaps. I think they could do with some different, softer anti-aliasing. The text on this one, in particular though, is too cramped. It could stand to be a few point sizes smaller and tracked out a bit to make it a bit more legible.

I agree that the tracking is part of the problem I don’t know if it’s using a different font renderer on macOS but it is BAD. Barely usable bad and I’m not exaggerating.

Kinda looks like the labels are just low-res bitmaps and not rendered on the fly in retina with a font renderer. Maybe they’re just baked into the background bitmap

[BONES]

Interesting, given that GForce seem to be Mac-centric - OB-E was available on Mac months before they had a Windows version.

[MrJubbly]

There's been quite a bit of discussion regarding the text and UIs of GForce Software's plugins recently.

So I thought it might be interesting to see a quick side-by-side comparison of all their current plugins.

GForce UI Text Comparison - Oberheim.jpg

GForce UI Text Comparison - Others.jpg

In terms of the relative sizes of each screen shot, these were all captured by using each respective plugin at pretty much their maximum "usable" zoom settings within my DAW, on a native 4K display. YMMV.

Make of it, what you will.

(for a clearer view, right-click and open in another tab, or download them to view the comparisons at full size)

[osofaux]

Make of it, what you will.

The difference between OB-E and SEM is striking.

[felis]

White type on the light grey background of the OB-X almost disappears.

[Echoes in the Attic]

Depends if you’re using UI scaling. For example in bitwig I need to because of some plugins that are old and don’t scale so it makes them bigger and visible. Unfortunately this makes GForce plugins look really blurry. Many plugins look fine either with UI scaling set on or off, you just set it to a different scale in the plugin. But GForce look blurry. In Ableton the UI scaling can be set per plugin so GForce looks fine. Not Mac or pc.