GForce Software OB-E vs. Oberheim SEM Pro - Nachtblau

video upload by Marius Leicht

"The sound is alternating between the OB-E and the SEM-Pro. In the bottom left corner of the video the letters A and B are displaying the audio of which corresponding synth you hear, regardless of which one may be pictured in the video at a given moment. Can you guess it right?

The Oberheim Four Voice Synthesizer always fascinated me - both for its heart-melting sound and for its unusual (for todays standards) concept of having a completely distinct monophonic synthesizer module for each voice.

From time to time I take the effort to build some Four Voice type pad sounds by multitracking my Tom Oberheim SEM Pro, which is a reissue of one of those monophonic synthesizer modules the Four Voice is built of.

Of course, I was excited when I heard about the GForce Software OB-E and as soon as I got my hands on it, I was inspired to compose some music with it, resulting in this piece called "Nachtblau". To make this comparison video, I took the MIDI track of the piece, split all the notes into 8 Channels (Yes, the OB-E is not only emulating the already unobtainable Four Voice, but the even more rare and expensive 8 Voice, consisting of 8 individual SEMs) and run them through my SEM Pro one after another. Due to the nature of the unconventional architecture and my multitrack trickery, it was impossible to be reasonably precise about the matching of the sounds and realtime adjustments. So don't take this as a scientific test on the question if the OB-E can match the sound of the 8-Voice I don't even have at hand..."