Synapse Audio OBSESSION is now available!

[hurricaneaudiolab]

If Richard didn't insist on forcing his UI design to fit reason's rack extension UI requirements, and he created something less restrictive and open, and got rid of the back panel and moved everything to the front, I know that I would definitely be using Obsession more. As it stands the current UI is uninspiring - I mean you have this monstrous sounding synth trapped in this tiny, plain, boring, square which looks something like a Legend color swap but with different knobs. It's a shame that the sound has character but the interface does NOT.

[Lbdunequest]

If Richard didn't insist on forcing his UI design to fit reason's rack extension UI requirements, and he created something less restrictive and open, and got rid of the back panel and moved everything to the front, I know that I would definitely be using Obsession more. As it stands the current UI is uninspiring - I mean you have this monstrous sounding synth trapped in this tiny, plain, boring, square which looks something like a Legend color swap but with different knobs. It's a shame that the sound has character but the interface does NOT.

Im personaly ok with this, just not ok that this synth is being crippled by not including controls like pan, detune spread on stacked voices

[zerocrossing]

The resonance in obsession sounds a heck of a lot better than the arturia one, which falls apart at high resonance.

If you look at OB-Xa V on a scope, you’ll see that the parameter ranges are wider than Obsession’s. If you take a moment to match them, they both do well. I personally appreciate the extra range, though I imagine it’s not accurate in terms of emulation.

It's not the authenticity of the range, it's simply that the Arturia version does not sound nearly as squelchy (even though obsession apparently has a lesser range). There were some great examples online but I've lost them. This one sort of shows a decent comparison to the real thing where Arturia just doesn't have the same resonance (on the rush res preset):
https://youtu.be/64x8W8uq0pk?t=363
Obsession nails this nail of thing IMHO.

Well, I'll say a few things about that demo. First off... Obsession wasn't shown at all. Second, the level matching was poor, and one thing I keep hearing in ob-x8 demos is that they seem to lean a lot on variance in voice panning, which didn't seem to be matched in this face off.

I'd say that I'd love to see the sound without modulation on a scope to make sure the amount of resonance was matched. Loading up Obsession and OP-Xa together quickly shows me that Obsession can not reach the level of resonance that OP-Xa can. So, if you're cranking up both, you're going to hear breakup in the Arturia, as you would with any analog filter that's distorting from high resonance. So, I turn down OP-Xa's resonance to match what I'm seeing in Obsession and what do you know? They sound super close. In fact, I'll go as far as to say that with the voice variance thing going on (even with Obsession turned all the way down) they're maybe identical. So hard to tell because every time I play a voice I get something somewhat different, as they should, of course.

So, here's what I'll say about all this. I'm coming on the side of OP-Xa over Obsession for a few reasons. Increased parameter range (use your ears, kids!) the ability to control each oscillator's volume, polyphonic aftertouch ability (WTF, Synapse?) the added modulations abilities and the ability to see everything at once, even when in the advanced menu. Well, you have to choose modulations or effects, but I can accept that. OP-Xa really is a lot more synth, especially when you start working with the mod matrix.

[Echoes in the Attic]

The resonance in obsession sounds a heck of a lot better than the arturia one, which falls apart at high resonance.

If you look at OB-Xa V on a scope, you’ll see that the parameter ranges are wider than Obsession’s. If you take a moment to match them, they both do well. I personally appreciate the extra range, though I imagine it’s not accurate in terms of emulation.

It's not the authenticity of the range, it's simply that the Arturia version does not sound nearly as squelchy (even though obsession apparently has a lesser range). There were some great examples online but I've lost them. This one sort of shows a decent comparison to the real thing where Arturia just doesn't have the same resonance (on the rush res preset):
https://youtu.be/64x8W8uq0pk?t=363
Obsession nails this nail of thing IMHO.

Well, I'll say a few things about that demo. First off... Obsession wasn't shown at all. Second, the level matching was poor, and one thing I keep hearing in ob-x8 demos is that they seem to lean a lot on variance in voice panning, which didn't seem to be matched in this face off.

I'd say that I'd love to see the sound without modulation on a scope to make sure the amount of resonance was matched. Loading up Obsession and OP-Xa together quickly shows me that Obsession can not reach the level of resonance that OP-Xa can. So, if you're cranking up both, you're going to hear breakup in the Arturia, as you would with any analog filter that's distorting from high resonance. So, I turn down OP-Xa's resonance to match what I'm seeing in Obsession and what do you know? They sound super close. In fact, I'll go as far as to say that with the voice variance thing going on (even with Obsession turned all the way down) they're maybe identical. So hard to tell because every time I play a voice I get something somewhat different, as they should, of course.

So, here's what I'll say about all this. I'm coming on the side of OP-Xa over Obsession for a few reasons. Increased parameter range (use your ears, kids!) the ability to control each oscillator's volume, polyphonic aftertouch ability (WTF, Synapse?) the added modulations abilities and the ability to see everything at once, even when in the advanced menu. Well, you have to choose modulations or effects, but I can accept that. OP-Xa really is a lot more synth, especially when you start working with the mod matrix.

Obsession isn’t in the video but st the time where The video starts it’s an example of where the arturia resonance doesn’t sound right and it’s not level matching. Obsession I think gets it right. I’d love to be wrong, I have arturia collection with the op-xa, and I actually prefer the design/workflow of the arturia one, however it’s the only arturia analog emulation I don’t have installed usually, since I have Obsession, OB-XTRM and OP-X Pro, all of which I prefer to the Arturia one. Every time I try it again I’m disappointed relative to the other three OBs I have.

[zerocrossing]

The resonance in obsession sounds a heck of a lot better than the arturia one, which falls apart at high resonance.

If you look at OB-Xa V on a scope, you’ll see that the parameter ranges are wider than Obsession’s. If you take a moment to match them, they both do well. I personally appreciate the extra range, though I imagine it’s not accurate in terms of emulation.

It's not the authenticity of the range, it's simply that the Arturia version does not sound nearly as squelchy (even though obsession apparently has a lesser range). There were some great examples online but I've lost them. This one sort of shows a decent comparison to the real thing where Arturia just doesn't have the same resonance (on the rush res preset):
https://youtu.be/64x8W8uq0pk?t=363
Obsession nails this nail of thing IMHO.

Well, I'll say a few things about that demo. First off... Obsession wasn't shown at all. Second, the level matching was poor, and one thing I keep hearing in ob-x8 demos is that they seem to lean a lot on variance in voice panning, which didn't seem to be matched in this face off.

I'd say that I'd love to see the sound without modulation on a scope to make sure the amount of resonance was matched. Loading up Obsession and OP-Xa together quickly shows me that Obsession can not reach the level of resonance that OP-Xa can. So, if you're cranking up both, you're going to hear breakup in the Arturia, as you would with any analog filter that's distorting from high resonance. So, I turn down OP-Xa's resonance to match what I'm seeing in Obsession and what do you know? They sound super close. In fact, I'll go as far as to say that with the voice variance thing going on (even with Obsession turned all the way down) they're maybe identical. So hard to tell because every time I play a voice I get something somewhat different, as they should, of course.

So, here's what I'll say about all this. I'm coming on the side of OP-Xa over Obsession for a few reasons. Increased parameter range (use your ears, kids!) the ability to control each oscillator's volume, polyphonic aftertouch ability (WTF, Synapse?) the added modulations abilities and the ability to see everything at once, even when in the advanced menu. Well, you have to choose modulations or effects, but I can accept that. OP-Xa really is a lot more synth, especially when you start working with the mod matrix.

Obsession isn’t in the video but st the time where The video starts it’s an example of where the arturia resonance doesn’t sound right and it’s not level matching. Obsession I think gets it right. I’d love to be wrong, I have arturia collection with the op-xa, and I actually prefer the design/workflow of the arturia one, however it’s the only arturia analog emulation I don’t have installed usually, since I have Obsession, OB-XTRM and OP-X Pro, all of which I prefer to the Arturia one. Every time I try it again I’m disappointed relative to the other three OBs I have.

Well, give it another go, and back off on the resonance to about 9 and you’ll see how it gets nice and round and full sounding. Use a spectrum analyzer to match the levels and frequency in Obsession and you’ll be amazed at how close they can sound. Be careful, as their init patches are set up differently.

[EnGee]

A no brainer especially in the current discount (40% till June 30). I did make a mistake to sell it when I bought a hardware synth and was thinking to buy it (even without a discount!).
Really a great synth with low CPU and a big sound!

[MogwaiBoy]

Anyone else having trouble with the V1.2 Windows installer?

It just prompts this without installing - doesn't matter if I give it a custom path (pasted or browsed to) or default path, VST2 or 3.

obsession.png

Literally can't use this thing.

EDIT: Posted on the Synapse support forum.

[seafire]

Is it your first installation, or are you updating?

[BONES]

I installed it about 6 months ago on my new Win 11 laptop without any problems at all.

[BONES]

Obsession has been a synth that I just struggle to gel with. I don't know if it's the on-board effects (which I don't care much for), or just all the flipping back and forth (front panel, per-voice tweaks panel, back panel).

I never find that, really. It's probably a workflow thing but I tend to do 90% of the work on the front panel and I only need to go to the back panel once or twice in a session. So I appreciate putting all the irrelevant stuff out of the way so I can concentrate on what I want to do.

the weak resonance (in that it never gets near self-oscillating)

Is that important for every sound you use in every piece you work on? I can't say it's something I ever used in a song but to describe the OB's resonance as "weak" is absolutely absurd. It shits all over anything with a ladder filter by virtue of the way it works through the whole frequency range, giving massive bottom end balls to basslines in a way most other filter designs simply cannot manage. OBviously (see what I did there?) it's not as good as the SEM filter but it's still a pretty damned good thing and Synapse have at least added a band-pass mode, which is some minor consolation.

Same here.
A big part is the bogus workflow that you mention -- let's say, as one example, that I want to simply Pan each Voice to slightly different positions--
On Repro-5, all voice pan knobs are side by side on the tweaks page.

Are they? I can't see where anything is on those tweaks pages. For some reason they make no sense and do my f**king head in. It's probably the best example of style over substance, in GUI design, I can think of. I have the RePros but I pretty much never use them, not sure why.

On OB-E, all voice pan knobs are stacked in the top left of the main interface.

That would be the one and only thing that's easy about OB-E. Again, it just does my head in , I find it completely unusable. OB-EZ has been a Dogsend for me. So if it does anything more easily than Obsession, that's a huge issue for Synapse.

Now let's do it in OBSESSION:
• Click the voice 1 button in the bottom of the interface
• Move the mouse up to the top right of the interface and change the Pan
• Move back to the bottom of the interface, click Voice 1 again to exit it, click button for Voice 2
• Move back up to the top right of the interface and change the Pan
• Move back to the bottom of the interface, click Voice 2 again to exit it, click button for Voice 3
• Move back up to to the top right of the interface and change the Pan
• Move back......

WE'VE ONLY DONE THREE VOICES AND HAVE FIVE LEFT....so repeat all of the above steps just FIVE more times and whew, we did it, each voice has an adjusted Pan value.

You left out a step -
• Save as preset so you never, ever have to go through that again.

Or you could just use the "Vintage" and "Spread" knobs and be done with it. That's my solution.

OBSESSION's workflow is horrible. There, I said it. What further evidence is needed than above? It's practically a joke how bad it is.

The thing is, you don't need to deal with any of that. Until just now, when I went and had a look, I'd completely forgotten about all those per-voice tweaks. It's something that's only in there at all because the beta-testers kept pestering Rich to do it and I imagine that was the only way he could think of to fit it into the limited GUI space he had stuck himself with. The good news is that Synapse have finally abandoned that tiny Reason GUI size. Both Prestige and Legend-HZ have much more space for more things on the front panel. Hopefully, once they are out in the wild, Rich might look to freeing up the GUIs for Obsession and Legend, too.

Also, the basic layout makes no sense, based on general Synthesis layouts that are time tested.

Well, you can say that but the Obsession GUI simply mimics the "time-tested" layout of the original OB synths. The top row are the controls from the left side of the synth, the bottom row from the right side.

I'm not actually disagreeing with you, I'm not a fan of the front/back page thing either, but at least I think Rich has done a pretty good job of it and I do appreciate how clean and uncluttered the front panel is, where I do the vast majority of the work. It suits my workflow well enough that, overall, I feel it's a worthwhile compromise. Do you realise you can click pretty much anywhere on that top bar to switch? You don't have to aim for that tiny button every time. It would be great if there was a simple hotkey to do it, like the tilde key or something you could set up for a custom button on your mouse. I think that would make it bearable for pretty much anyone.

Most importantly, of course, is that I love the way it sounds. It's absolutely f**king huge in a way few other synths can match. Use it to its strengths and it will always deliver.