Synapse Audio Software has introduced Obsession, a new software synth that’s inspired by the classic Oberheim OB-Xa.
Features:
- Emulation of a classic analog polyphonic synth
- Two part engine with 8 or 16 voice boards
- Precise control of many sound parameters per voice board
- Single, Dual and Split modes
- Stepped LFO modes with freehand drawing
- High-quality effect block with Delay, Reverb and Chorus
- 420 patches included
- Available as VST, AAX, Audio Unit
Pricing and Availability
Obsession is available now for 89 EUR / $99 USD. A demo version is also available.
420 is a reasonably high number of patches, though also low enough that they must have weeded out the less useful or interesting ones. These things are usually a joint effort, in any case.
Talk about sample-and-hold.
Your puns are so bad, I ran from the room holding my nose. Good job! 😀
It looks like everyone who CAN create a clone is going down the list of everything you can name. Its just funny that so many OB-s are appearing at once. I’m impressed that this version adds enough of what the original(s) was missing to make this demo a lot more beefy than expected. Nice sound range on it. The price is good too, although I can do without iLoks. The on-site description also points out how you can do individual voice scaling on each “card,” so if you’re a bit old-school/purist about it, that’s a major plus. This version holds up well against the others.
I can’t see any mention on the website or in the manual about Synapse requiring an iLok. Where did you see that Dave?
I just went back to the Obsession page and nope, no iLok. My only excuse would be reading a LOT of synth material yesterday. I clearly had some bad cross-mod going on in my brain. I’ve been comparing VAs & I glitched. Thanks for pointing it out so people have the right information. The instrument sounds good & deserves its chance.
No worries. It wouldn’t have been a deal breaker for me as I do have an iLok (somewhere), but it’s good to know it’s not needed. Thanks for clarifying.
Nice sounds, but seems a bit bright for an analogue emulation. Any OB owners who could make a comparison? For 89. I would like it to be more than just close these days.
Stephen, its extremely close. I once got to briefly demo an OB-1 monosynth and an original Four-Voice. I also had a friend who owned an OB-SX, the preset model that included some offset knobs. I got to hear them all through proper speakers, which was impressive.
You know that we lose or gain various things, depending on the listening system & what gets converted between here and there. With that respected, in my experience, the emulations are at 98% and you have to look hard for that missing 2%. Build a proper channel strip of EQ/FX and you can often recover even that. I’ve gone all-software because its that good. You can take up pretty much anything you see now and it’ll deliver.
Migod, Arturia hired one of the original Synclavier designers for its emu. You can’t get any closer than that without a time machine.
First Arturia, then IK Multimedia, then this. What’s all the “Obsession” (ha ha) about the OB-X(a) all of a sudden?
A nice mix of gorgeous sounding pads + Virus type aggression !
There’s also:
DiscoDSP – OB-XD (FREE)
SonicProject – OP-X
Sounds fantasic – loving the pad sounds 🙂
No linux version 🙁
Butchers Cine Pad……very nice!
Take the preset “Butchers Cine Pad”
For LFO 2 modulation, select the last shape “steps” with a slow rate and low/medium depth.
In the Mod Matrix, assign LFO 2 to the filter cutoff.
In the “LFO steps” window, select 128 steps, no one shot, no FER and draw a smooth random curve.
Now it’s a lovely motion pad…..special thanks to Synapse for an excellent LFO programming section!