OBX/Reaktor from Sonic Projects

by **kgdrum** » Sat May 12, 2012 9:02 am

Hi,
Any users here of the OBX/Reaktor version?Sound Quality?stability?
Are there any issues with this in Reaktor?
For $49 it seems like a pretty good deal.
I love the sound of Oberheims,OBX etc.... but I'd like to avoid the cost of Arturias emu as well as the Syncrosoft key.

http://www.sonicprojects.ch/obx/opxdemo.html
Anyone use this Reaktor add on?
I can try the demo but I'd like actual user feedback if possible.
Thanks,
KG

by **David Polich** » Sat May 12, 2012 10:31 am

The sound of Sonic Projects' OPX is pretty good. The filters are nice. The oscillators
lack bottom end, so the overall sound is on the thin side, unless you boost
low and low mids with additional equalization.

That said, Arturia's SEM V certainly blows OPX away, no question. SEM V
really sounds like Oberheim hardware. Sonic Projects' OPX is not quite
"there" with regards to sounding like hardware.

by **mhschmieder** » Sat May 12, 2012 10:53 am

Dave and I reached the same conclusion on this. I got a steep discount on the Arturia product so I'm not sure what your current price comparison is as there are frequent sales. I am no longer having trouble with the eLicenser since about a year or so now, so I would no longer let that be a concern other than cost and the ergonomics of having a dongle dangling from the Mac (mine is on the back side of my NEC monitor so isn't vulnerable to damage.

The one thing I haven't found time to do yet is to figure out how to re-load OP-X in the latest version of Reaktor (the file and directory format changed for all NI products in the most recent Komplete release), so I have not even loaded it yet since my upgrade to the latest Komplete. That's my final upkeep task for Komplete as I have by now library-converted and re-imported all my FM8, Absynth, and Kontakt libraries and add-ons.

Presumably it is still compatible and would load fine. But I can't tell you that with certainty. Maybe it's worth checking their site to see if they mention current compatibility? I think their main emphasis now is on the Windows-only (not quite the case, but the Mac workarounds are a bit cumbersome) PRO edition, which is not Reaktor-hosted.

by **kgdrum** » Sat May 12, 2012 11:20 am

Thanks both for the informative replies ;-)

Yes it's compatible w/ Reaktor 5 (full version)
But I think I'm hearing that you both prefer the sound of the SEM V by Arturia.
I don't want to spend $49 if it's just another 2nd rate VI, I have enough of those already.
I'm also trying to avoid the dongle as well as the $199 cost. Do they include a key?or is that additional?
Maybe I'll wait a bit to see if they put it on sale.
Though I'd like to avoid adding another key , I already have enough headaches depending on an ilok2 for a few plugs.
I hate dealing with dongles

Thanks,

by **mhschmieder** » Sat May 12, 2012 11:30 am

Not sure if it includes the key; Arturia has gone back and forth on that and I think they now use "soft e-License" so it's possible a physical dongle isn't even required.

When I look at my own eLicenser key, only Arturia Jupiter-V shows up as a physical license; the others all show up as soft e-Licenses.

I'm pretty sure that the "soft e-License" concept is specifically meant to avoid the need for a physical dongle, but uses similar protection via hidden files on your computer that are as hard to hack as the physical dongle itself (which of course uses similar techniques but simply is harder to directly address for hacking purposes).

Although I'm a software engineer by trade, I am NOT a geek per se, so rarely investigate these things in depth as I prefer to focus on music outside of work. :-)

At any rate, it is my recollection that current Arturia products do NOT require a dongle. The details are hopefully on their website and have not suffered any loss in translation from French.

by **mhschmieder** » Sat May 12, 2012 11:32 am

BTW I paid somewhere between $79 to $139 for my copy. Either price is well below $199.

Arturia just recently ended a sale where I think every product was $99 each. They also occasionally have 2-for-1 or other such sales.

by **kgdrum** » Sat May 12, 2012 11:37 am

Great!
I'll wait for their next good sale.
I'm sorry I missed it for $99.
Thanks

by **jloeb** » Sat May 12, 2012 3:32 pm

mhschmieder wrote:Arturia just recently ended a sale where I think every product was $99 each. They also occasionally have 2-for-1 or other such sales.

Shoot, how did I miss that??

Jonesing after the SEM V as well - super sound. Amusingly, I was taking a look at the Sonic Projects OBX last night as well to see whether that sound could be had for cheap, and likewise concluded that it wasn't at the same level as far as realism (although, to be fair, it's modeling a different synth).

Actually seriously considering buying a stupid 25-key controller I don't need (Arturia Hybrid Analogia Transcendental Mega Experience Player or whatever the hell their current strange offer is called) just so I can get the SEM "free" for $138. Anyone need an aluminum & wood 25 key controller? :roll:

by **mhschmieder** » Sat May 12, 2012 5:00 pm

Yes, the SEM is a different synth from the OB-series that came later. Tom talks at great length about this at his website, and explains why the SEM is actually in most senses a superior sound architecture. But of course he got pushed into providing the functionality that showed up in the OB-series. A great series for sure, but now that I've experienced SEM, there's no turning back.

by **burp182** » Sat May 12, 2012 5:14 pm

I must say that I prefer the sound of the standalone VST version of the OBX over the Reaktor version. Just a little closer to the original.
The Arturia SEM is an excellent version of a completely different instrument.

by **Armageddon** » Sun May 13, 2012 1:48 am

The OBXpander is an altogether different beast from the SEM (which is actually also available for Reaktor from a company called Musicrow http://www.mcrow.net/Oberline.htm) -- the OBXpander was the keyboard used on Van Halen's "Jump" and stuff like Rush's "Subdivisions", so it has a very distinct, fat-sounding poly-pad sound (though, if you're trying to recreate the "Jump" sound one hundred percent, you'll then want to run the synth sound through a cabinet sim, since they ran the original through a Marshall cabinet). I'm not sure how either OP-X Blue or Musicrow's "Oberline" series stack up against Arturia's SEM, since I haven't snagged SEM, yet, but the OP-X Blue seems to sound fairly close to the Xpander. DEFINITELY worth the $49.

by **mhschmieder** » Sun May 13, 2012 11:55 am

That's a good point, for the pads vs. the leads and basses.

I'm personally using my DSI Prophet '08 for OB-like synth pads, but as far as plug-ins go, OP-X Blue is still the closest match for that sort of purpose, to cover the full range of OB sounds.

I should have been clearer on picking SEM over OB for leads and basses. It's a nice contrast to the more common minimoog sounds that everyone is familiar with.

by **Armageddon** » Mon May 14, 2012 12:48 am

mhschmieder wrote:I should have been clearer on picking SEM over OB for leads and basses. It's a nice contrast to the more common minimoog sounds that everyone is familiar with.

See, that's where I got confused; I thought you were all stating that the comparison between the OPX-Blue and Arturia's SEM was in terms of them being the same instrument, which they are definitely not. An actual comparison between the OBXpander and the SEM for which Oberheim instrument is the better one is a different argument altogether, and one where personal taste comes into play. Basically owning virtual versions of both -- and for Reaktor -- I think they both have their place, but they're very different places. I mainly picked up the OPX-Blue for that early Eighties' "Jump"/prog rock pad sound (it also has a spot-on preset for Floyd's "One Of My Turns"'s synth and some Faltermeyer sounds), while the "Oberline" SEM VIs came as part of a pack of Reaktor instruments I picked up from Musicrow. I love having a variety of "vintage synth" VIs to pick from, especially since they almost always sound better than samples, and the SEM instruments sound pretty good. How they stack up against Arturia's SEM (I have every other Arturia VI, just haven't had the urge to pick that one up) or the real things, I can't say, but they have a few decent sounds.

What I can STRONGLY advise against is picking up Sonic Reality's OBXpander Xpansion Tank for SampleTank. I almost went with that one first and was horrified at how badly it sounded when I messed around with it on a friend's rig. If you're specifically looking for the Xpander sound, OPX-Blue (or the VSTi version for Windoze, which is actually a standalone/plug-in VI and not beholden to Reaktor) is the only way to go -- until Arturia gets around to making a full-on VI version of it for Macs.

by **jloeb** » Mon May 14, 2012 10:12 am

Took a listen to the Musicrow Oberline SEM demos. It doesn't manage to avoid that 'Reaktory' sound, which doesn't compare well to the Arturia version.

If anything, there's a free Reaktor ensemble called "Percheron" which, while not modeled specifically on an SEM, at least gets a good thick analoguish tone going, better than that of many other ensembles.

After playing around a bit more, I found that going back to AAS UltraAnalog plus some appropriate saturation gets me 90% of the way to where I want to be with the SEM-like sounds. So with that to tide me over, I can wait until AAS offers another deal on the SEM V, one that doesn't obligate me to buy a controller.

by **Armageddon** » Tue May 15, 2012 11:12 am

I'm a huge fan of Arturia's, although NI's Pro-53 and G-Force's Minimonsta blow their Prophet-5 and Minimoog emulations out of the water. As for Musicrow's SEM emulation, like I said, it has a few cool sounds, lots of controls, couldn't tell you how it actually stacks up against Arturia's version or the real thing.