OP-X PRO-3 vs. Oberheim OB-X | Jupiter-8 | Prophet-5

video upload by SonicProjects

"SonicProjects OP-X PRO-3 comparison to Oberheim OB-X as well as Jupiter-8 and Prophet-5. Includes A:B tweaking as well as comparing cloned presets.

Setup:
Upper keyboard: Oberheim OB-X Rev.2 vintage built in 1980 equipped with 6 voices. The stereo output goes directly to input 1 and 2 of an RME Fireface UC which has very clean and neutral sounding converters. Signal directly recorded to disk.

Lower keyboard: E-MU Xboard 61 MIDI keyboard attached via USB to a MacBook Pro M1 2020 with macOS Ventura 13.4. The MIDI signal is driving OP-X PRO-3 which is hosted in Logic Pro. The stereo output of OP-X PRO-3 is directly recorded to disk.

Blue skin installed.

Parts:
00:00 A:B tweaking
10:51 Comparing presets
23:35 Jupiter-8
29:05 Prophet-5

Since no Jupiter-8 and and Prophet-5 were available this part of the comparison uses the excellent original factory presets recordings of Synthmania:



Jupiter-8 factory presets:
https://www.synthmania.com/jupiter-8.htm

Prophet-5 factory presets:
https://www.synthmania.com/Prophet-5%...

OP-X PRO-3 includes a dedicated bank for the Jupiter-8 factory presets and a dedicated Prophet bank which also includes some cloned original factory presets.

OP-X PRO-3 exactly emulated the inner structure of voltage controlled polyphonic analog synths of the late 70s and 80s which basically all worked the same, so:
- Separate circuits for each voice each sounding slightly different because of device tolerances
- Trimpots on the voice boards to tune the boards and wipe out the differences
- A voice allocation unit distributing the notes coming from the keyboard to the voice boards
- An autotune unit sending an offset-voltage to the boards to wipe out differences

Since all the voltage controlled polyphonic analog synths (OB-X, Jupiter-8, Prophet-5, Matrix-12, etc.) basically worked the same and mainly differed by features, the sound of the filters, the amount of detunings and stereo behaviour (Oberheim stereo, Jupiter-8 and Prophet-5 only mono) a synth having some flexibility regarding these potentially is capable to clone the typical sounds of all of these, which is the case for OP-X PRO-3, which offers:

- 10 Filter types
- Dual filter design
- Seamless filter modes and mix morphing
- 5 Envelopes (4 poly, 1 global)
- 4 LFOs (3 global, 1 per-voice, so x 12)
- FM, Sync, X-Mod, Ring Modulation
- VCO and DCO behaviour emulation
- A Modulation Matrix offering 5 slots
- Amp Envelope: linear or logarithmic attack
- 12 voices on 12 separate tunable boards
- Voice-boards individually (de)activatable for any custom polyphony
- Activating just 1 voice allows to emulate mono-synths
- Polyphonic portamento with portamento detuning
- Voice panning and panning modulation

The (de)tuning and stereo field settings can be saved with the patch, so each patch can have a completely different character even before setting the "normal" parameters.

The free demo version of the synth offers ALL features and sounds.
The only limitations are: Repeated soft audio fade-out-ins and need to load the plugin anew after 20 minutes."