After a few quiet years, GForce Software has unveiled what could turn out to be its magnum opus: the OB-E. A plugin recreation of Oberheim’s legendary 8-Voice synthesizer, this packs eight of Oberheim’s classic SEMs (Synthesizer Expander Modules) into a single unit, giving you a monstrous polyphonic instrument that GForce describes as a labour of love.

Each monophonic SEM offers two VCOs with pulse and sawtooth waveforms, two ADS envelope generators, one LFO, and a multimode filter. Bring these together and you have a massive 8-voice polysynth.

OB-E offers complete per-voice control - though you can edit all SEMS at once if you wish - and programming is said to be much easier than on the original hardware, which could be difficult to tame. GForce has also added an 8-step sequencer and a routable stereo delay. The UI, meanwhile, is fully scalable.

Used in Mono mode, OB-E gives you just one SEM to work with - a good place to start if you want to learn the programming ropes. Switch to Poly mode, though, and all eight SEMs become visible. There’s also a Unison mode, where each SEM can be set to different tunings.

OB-E ships with 600 factory patches, the majority of which have been designed to fit in your mix (though there are, of course, a few showstoppers to demonstrate the instrument’s standalone capabilities as well). These have been categorised and tagged to make finding the sound you’re looking for easier.

OB-E supports polyphonic aftertouch and is MPE ready. You can also split the upper and lower SEMs across the keyboard.

Offered as a Mac VST/AU/AAX plugin - GForce says that it will gauge interest in a PC version - OB-E is available now for the introductory price of £130 plus tax, rising to £150 plus tax on 8 March. More info.

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Thanks for info. Nice to see GForce back in the game. Imposcar, Minimonsta and Oddity2 are great sounding vsts.

 

It sounds pretty awesome... I dare say probably the best sounding OB emulation I've heard yet:

 

Just found out it's MAC only

 

Mac only? welcome again OBX-PRO II But "Offered as a Mac VST/AU/AAX plugin - GForce says that it will gauge interest in a PC version"

 

Last edited: Feb 23, 2021

good things usually start as mac only. but many of them dont hold that out for long.

 

Nobody using Windows will have any interest in this synth. They were right to not port it over.

 

Considering the OP-X PRO-II, yeah!
Maybe the dev is just doing the opposite tactic to what SonicProjects did! lol

 

Well, yeah, all windows users value value for money and thus bought bx_oberhausen when it was $30 last month, they're not going to rush to spend 5 times that on a preconfigured 8 instance track of them.

 

@Quantised Noise I would hope that this plugin and the SonicProjects one involved some type of internal interaction between the 8 SEMs. At least something like at the output stage.
If not, then 8 instances of your plugin would do it!

 

"Exclusively for Mac"
OMG Nooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Hoping there's a a PC release by my birthday in June
A scene release by then would be even nicer

 

Buddy, it's 2021, not 2011.

 

Oh man, too bad! GForce instruments sound wonderful. I recently re-discovered Imposcar2 (and found out it has neatly resizable interface!) and it sounds better than almost anything that I have in my aresenal (and I have a lot - don't we all?). I think that I will soon purchase Oddity2 and was hoping for this beast to be compatible with my Windows system. From demos it sounds so lush, dreamy and analogue, lovely.

 

For once, there would be no "Mac please" bitches, and you PC guys dont freak out about this transgression by GForce. Even if you commit the cardinal sin of acquiring an Apple Computer in order to be able to use this synth, the total expense of it all still will be less than buying the hardware Oberheims. On the other hand, you can wait for r2r to crack the shit out of it, port it to Windows, and release it.

 

Last edited: Feb 23, 2021

Great

 

whoa. this sound:

that's a great emulation of the real thing. for me anyway.

edit: hmmm. . . the sound i'm talking about starts at about 2:18, but the link didn't work for me

 

when you think how old imposcar is, its filters are truly amazing.

it totally stood out back in the days.