The Yamaha AN1x Synthesizer mailing list

polharris said:
>
> As someone who really understands the capabilities of the great
> Oberheims, I'd be interested to hear your take on the OB12, the "the
> reissued digital copy". I recently purchased one. It seems to me that
> Viscount really took some time and thought into modelling the
> behaviors of analog filters in this board. Whether they behave like
> filters in an old Oberheim, I haven't a clue. They also did a nice
> job with creating a slight "drift" in the Oscs. It really seems to
> breath in some patches. It doesn't seem to have the bright, shrill
> sounds or precision of the Access' or Novos' but it certainly has
> warmth and subtlty.
>
> By the way, Viscount was shamed early on with buggy software in the
> OB12. As deep as I have gone, haven't had any problems in
> programming.
>
> Pablo

Pablo,

The OB12 is a modeling analog synth, not a chips-and-wires analog synth. This
may make a difference to some people and not to others, but it does mean that
one should be careful in drawing parallels between it and the Xpander.

My take is that the OB12 isn't really an Oberheim synth at all, in the sense
that the Xpander was...and even the Xpander wasn't "Really" an Oberheim synth,
as it was designed by Marcel Doidic and Marcus Ryle (now of Line 6) under the
loose supervision of Tom Oberheim, not by Tom himself, and in fact Tom didn't
like it all that much. But nowadays the Oberheim name (the next one we need to
hope will get back to its owner someday) is owned by Viscount, a name that
doesn't exactly rattle the windows here in the USA, and applied to a very
un-polished-looking modeling synth...

But none of this addresses how it works or how it sounds. My experience with
it has been limited but impressive to date; it is a powerful part of the synth
arsenal of Denverite emusician Jesse Sola, best known to MP3.com station
listeners and people who follow Hearts of Space or Echoes as Numina. I have
liked what Jesse does with it; it has a very smooth and mellow tone, which I
personally tend to prefer to the bright, attacking buss that so many people
seem to think is needful to show a synth's "analogness." Would I own one? No,
because ergonomically it's not designed the way I work (being an old phart is
very handy for saving money on new gear ;) and the sounds that it seems good
at are already things that I have tools for in my arsenal, for example my AN1x
and my Darkstar XP. But for someone looking at an analog-style workstation and
who likes the sounds, it's not a bad alternative...certainly not as bad as
many people feared when the first un-debugged prototypes showed up at trade
shows!

mike

-- 
As a generalisation, the technology has NOTHING to do with the music.
For each specific artist, it has EVERYTHING to do with the music. (cassiel)
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metlay / atomic city / metlay@... / http://www.atomiccity.com