Zvork releases Oberon 2.0

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Loque
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18 Sep 2018

antic604 wrote:
18 Sep 2018
Ok, so I've tried it yesterday and it sounds good, doesn't take to much DSP, but I REALLY dislike the GUI, so not being convinced it adds something that I can't do in Parsec, Spektre and Grain I'm gonna pass.

Considering how hyped I was yesterday, I'm quite proud of myself to resits ;)
Completely agree to the GUI.

The sound morphing can be done today with Europa or eXpanse too, but Oberon has the biggest working displays :-D. Sample loading and modifiers are also not the standalone feature for Oberon anymore. A workflow optimization and a few new unique features would be really good for Oberon. It is a good synth, a good addition, but not a must have today anymore.
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Auryn
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18 Sep 2018

Loque wrote:
18 Sep 2018
antic604 wrote:
18 Sep 2018
Ok, so I've tried it yesterday and it sounds good, doesn't take to much DSP, but I REALLY dislike the GUI, so not being convinced it adds something that I can't do in Parsec, Spektre and Grain I'm gonna pass.

Considering how hyped I was yesterday, I'm quite proud of myself to resits ;)
Completely agree to the GUI.

The sound morphing can be done today with Europa or eXpanse too, but Oberon has the biggest working displays :-D. Sample loading and modifiers are also not the standalone feature for Oberon anymore. A workflow optimization and a few new unique features would be really good for Oberon. It is a good synth, a good addition, but not a must have today anymore.
Wow you guys really dislike the GUI that much? I'm surprised. Anyway, it isn't true that the sort of morphing that Oberon does can easily be done with either Europa or Expanse. Neither of those synths can actually morph between oscillators, whereas with Oberon you can dynamically morph between oscillators that have different note/octave settings as well as different harmonic content (or non-harmonic as the case may be). The sounds that Oberon produces using the morph function are certainly not available in any other synth. The "bend" and "partial clip" controls are also unique.

Oberon is also the only synth that actually imports samples non-destructively (e.g. it doesn't "rectify" the harmonic content in the way expanse or europa seem to do) but you can control the amount of harmonization manually. It doesn't work that well for beats (but then neither does europa or expanse) but for voices, brass and such Oberon is actually quite convincing.

Anyway, you may not like the gui, or the included presets, but to say that Oberon doesn't bring any unique features is just not true! It's probably one of the only RE synths that is completely one-of-a-kind in it's architecture and sound.
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antic604

18 Sep 2018

Auryn wrote:
18 Sep 2018
Anyway, you may not like the gui, or the included presets, but to say that Oberon doesn't bring any unique features is just not true! It's probably one of the only RE synths that is completely one-of-a-kind in it's architecture and sound.
Well, all true but those seem to be - for me, at least - really minutiae details? I would never abandon a track because I can't properly morph between oscillators or get stuck because my synth "rectifies the harmonic content" of my samples and I can't stand it ;) If it sounds good, then it's good. I'm a simple guy - a preset tweaker, mostly - and I can only tell a difference between subtractive, additive, FM and granular synthesis; but the nuances of any of them largely fly over my head :oops: :D

Also, as evident from this thread, some people - me included - really care about the visual aspects of the device to make them inspired or even interested, while others don't :)

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Auryn
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18 Sep 2018

antic604 wrote:
18 Sep 2018
Also, as evident from this thread, some people - me included - really care about the visual aspects of the device to make them inspired or even interested, while others don't :)
Well you'll get no argument from me that GUI design is important, I also struggle to work with RE's that I find butt-ugly. :D It's just that I find it surprising that Oberon's GUI is so unappealing to many. But yeah, that maybe down to desktop vs laptop, or just personal taste.
antic604 wrote:
18 Sep 2018
Well, all true but those seem to be - for me, at least - really minutiae details? I would never abandon a track because I can't properly morph between oscillators or get stuck because my synth "rectifies the harmonic content" of my samples and I can't stand it ;) If it sounds good, then it's good. I'm a simple guy - a preset tweaker, mostly - and I can only tell a difference between subtractive, additive, FM and granular synthesis; but the nuances of any of them largely fly over my head :oops: :D
Haha, well, as they say: the devil is in the details! You could argue that you don't need The Legend because it has analogue modeled oscillators and filters and Thor also has those, and any differences are just "details" ... but that would kind of be missing the point, right? Anyway, if you're mostly a preset tweaker I can understand that you might want to pass because the factory presets aren't super impressive. But I won't stand for people saying Oberon is just another synth, that's just a pretty gross disservice to all the cool ideas that Zvork implemented.
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Loque
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18 Sep 2018

Auryn wrote:
18 Sep 2018
Loque wrote:
18 Sep 2018

Completely agree to the GUI.

The sound morphing can be done today with Europa or eXpanse too, but Oberon has the biggest working displays :-D. Sample loading and modifiers are also not the standalone feature for Oberon anymore. A workflow optimization and a few new unique features would be really good for Oberon. It is a good synth, a good addition, but not a must have today anymore.
Wow you guys really dislike the GUI that much? I'm surprised. Anyway, it isn't true that the sort of morphing that Oberon does can easily be done with either Europa or Expanse. Neither of those synths can actually morph between oscillators, whereas with Oberon you can dynamically morph between oscillators that have different note/octave settings as well as different harmonic content (or non-harmonic as the case may be). The sounds that Oberon produces using the morph function are certainly not available in any other synth. The "bend" and "partial clip" controls are also unique.

Oberon is also the only synth that actually imports samples non-destructively (e.g. it doesn't "rectify" the harmonic content in the way expanse or europa seem to do) but you can control the amount of harmonization manually. It doesn't work that well for beats (but then neither does europa or expanse) but for voices, brass and such Oberon is actually quite convincing.

Anyway, you may not like the gui, or the included presets, but to say that Oberon doesn't bring any unique features is just not true! It's probably one of the only RE synths that is completely one-of-a-kind in it's architecture and sound.
The GUI is not that ugly, its just bad to work with imo, its unlogical to me.

Well, you may be right here with the morphing- i remember that Oberon had something with the tone and notes... Europa and eXpanse can morph between waveforms. Spectra is one of the newer synths, which allows morphing between two spectra with some additional parameters (dunno if bend and partials are explicitly there, but there are several ways to combine the harmonic content).

I am actually not sure what Oberon can do with its morphing in every detail, but changing the frequency of waveform to the other should do the trick in Europa or eXpanse too, or am i wrong here? Might not be so comfortable to do this like the one-knob in Oberon anyway.

Guess, i need to look at the sample import in more detail. AFAIR Oberon was quite cool to generate metallic sounds in general. And i should compare a bit in more detail the differences of Grain, Europa and eXpanse with sample loading. Maybe Proton is interesting here too...i will have a look.
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Loque
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18 Sep 2018

Auryn wrote:
18 Sep 2018
... I can understand that you might want to pass because the factory presets aren't super impressive. But I won't stand for people saying Oberon is just another synth, that's just a pretty gross disservice to all the cool ideas that Zvork implemented.
Uhh...yea, the presets. If i had only judged this synth by them, i had passed. Most of them are not of my taste. Luckily i took the time to learn it and i liked it, thats why i bought it.

And yes, i like Zvorks stuff. They sound cool. But somehow they do not invite me to use them as the sound they produce should do. ;)

I hope Zvork is silently working to improve his devices or create something new. It is more of the quiet guys :-)
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Auryn
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18 Sep 2018

Loque wrote:
18 Sep 2018
The GUI is not that ugly, its just bad to work with imo, its unlogical to me.

Well, you may be right here with the morphing- i remember that Oberon had something with the tone and notes... Europa and eXpanse can morph between waveforms. Spectra is one of the newer synths, which allows morphing between two spectra with some additional parameters (dunno if bend and partials are explicitly there, but there are several ways to combine the harmonic content).

I am actually not sure what Oberon can do with its morphing in every detail, but changing the frequency of waveform to the other should do the trick in Europa or eXpanse too, or am i wrong here? Might not be so comfortable to do this like the one-knob in Oberon anyway.

Guess, i need to look at the sample import in more detail. AFAIR Oberon was quite cool to generate metallic sounds in general. And i should compare a bit in more detail the differences of Grain, Europa and eXpanse with sample loading. Maybe Proton is interesting here too...i will have a look.
The shape-shifting Europa does is indeed morphing between 2 waveforms. The Oberon X-morph control is different in that it allows morphing between 2 oscillators - imagine if Europa could morph between engine 1 playing one wavetable and engine 2 playing a different wavetable at a different octave or semitone. I don't know exactly how Zvork built his morphing algorhythm but a lot of sonically interesting stuff happens when you morph between oscillators with very different pitch settings. You can't really reproduce these sounds on other synths, because none of them work like that. It's difficult to explain in more detail. I made a thread a while ago with some tips and ideas about sound design with Oberen but I think you were one of the few participants so if that didn't help I'm not sure how to explain it differently. :oops:
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Loque
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18 Sep 2018

Auryn wrote:
18 Sep 2018
imagine if Europa could morph between engine 1 playing one wavetable and engine 2 playing a different wavetable at a different octave or semitone. I don't know exactly how Zvork built his morphing algorhythm but a lot of sonically interesting stuff happens when you morph between oscillators with very different pitch settings.
As soon as you said that Oberon morphs between 2 Oscillators instead of waves, i just thought why the fogg does the other synths do not have a similar feature? Every synth with a modifier has the underlying stuff to support such a feature and in the end, the "amount" is in simplest case a fade between 2 oscillator values, that means calculate oscillator1 and oscillator2, than calculate the linear (fade)position between them. You can have it more complex with other than linear calculations. Should not be too difficult tbh. Here a simple (maybe dumb) example

(osc1+osc2)/(2*scale*position) where "scale" is the maximum steps between osc1 and osc2 to interpolate and "position" is the amount of the morph representing the interpolation position.

But i think some interpolations are more complex, like eXpanse has a frequency morph and i think Oberon does something similar.
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Auryn
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18 Sep 2018

Loque wrote:
18 Sep 2018
As soon as you said that Oberon morphs between 2 Oscillators instead of waves, i just thought why the fogg does the other synths do not have a similar feature? Every synth with a modifier has the underlying stuff to support such a feature and in the end, the "amount" is in simplest case a fade between 2 oscillator values, that means calculate oscillator1 and oscillator2, than calculate the linear (fade)position between them. You can have it more complex with other than linear calculations. Should not be too difficult tbh. Here a simple (maybe dumb) example

(osc1+osc2)/(2*scale*position) where "scale" is the maximum steps between osc1 and osc2 to interpolate and "position" is the amount of the morph representing the interpolation position.

But i think some interpolations are more complex, like eXpanse has a frequency morph and i think Oberon does something similar.
Yeah you're getting the gist of it, but it is still more complicated. What you are proposing with your calculation is something akin to a fade, which is different from a morph. Imagine 2 portrait photographs - you can fade between them gradually by increasing one image's brightness while decreasing the other, but you can also morph between them using special software that will gradually change the features of one face into those of another, like at the end of michael jackson's black or white video. This is what Oberon does with the oscillators. Not only is it interesting to automate such a morph, but the in-between phase where the osc is neither A nor B may be interesting in and of itself, especially when you are morphing between radically different oscillators. (e.g. you are not morphing between one picture of face and another, but between a picture of face and a picture of a bulldozer)

Most synths probably don't do this because it's complicated and because the results (depending on the algorhythm) may not be especially harmonic or musical. But with Oberon, you can increase the "harmonize" parameter to set things straight when they are way out of tune.
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Loque
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18 Sep 2018

Auryn wrote:
18 Sep 2018
Loque wrote:
18 Sep 2018
As soon as you said that Oberon morphs between 2 Oscillators instead of waves, i just thought why the fogg does the other synths do not have a similar feature? Every synth with a modifier has the underlying stuff to support such a feature and in the end, the "amount" is in simplest case a fade between 2 oscillator values, that means calculate oscillator1 and oscillator2, than calculate the linear (fade)position between them. You can have it more complex with other than linear calculations. Should not be too difficult tbh. Here a simple (maybe dumb) example

(osc1+osc2)/(2*scale*position) where "scale" is the maximum steps between osc1 and osc2 to interpolate and "position" is the amount of the morph representing the interpolation position.

But i think some interpolations are more complex, like eXpanse has a frequency morph and i think Oberon does something similar.
Yeah you're getting the gist of it, but it is still more complicated. What you are proposing with your calculation is something akin to a fade, which is different from a morph. Imagine 2 portrait photographs - you can fade between them gradually by increasing one image's brightness while decreasing the other, but you can also morph between them using special software that will gradually change the features of one face into those of another, like at the end of michael jackson's black or white video. This is what Oberon does with the oscillators. Not only is it interesting to automate such a morph, but the in-between phase where the osc is neither A nor B may be interesting in and of itself, especially when you are morphing between radically different oscillators. (e.g. you are not morphing between one picture of face and another, but between a picture of face and a picture of a bulldozer)

Most synths probably don't do this because it's complicated and because the results (depending on the algorhythm) may not be especially harmonic or musical. But with Oberon, you can increase the "harmonize" parameter to set things straight when they are way out of tune.
Yea, ofc the math was simplified for simple fade (linear). I think there can be done a lot of different stuff here. I tried around with some math capable oscillator and tried some AM and RM. It created some very interesting results which were pretty unique. But the overall handling was bad. I noticed, i think Serum was it, that other synths have math engines - but something kept me from jumping on board of the Serum train. This math feature was really interesting, but there was something i missed...AFAIR.

So...one final question...can i morph 2 samples? I think i tried it without that big success due to the kind of resynthesis stuff. But maybe i did something wrong?
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Auryn
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18 Sep 2018

Loque wrote:
18 Sep 2018
Yea, ofc the math was simplified for simple fade (linear). I think there can be done a lot of different stuff here. I tried around with some math capable oscillator and tried some AM and RM. It created some very interesting results which were pretty unique. But the overall handling was bad. I noticed, i think Serum was it, that other synths have math engines - but something kept me from jumping on board of the Serum train. This math feature was really interesting, but there was something i missed...AFAIR.

So...one final question...can i morph 2 samples? I think i tried it without that big success due to the kind of resynthesis stuff. But maybe i did something wrong?
Yeah I tried some stuff like that with Equation Junior, and I think AMMO1200 also has a couple of options for mingling audio together in non-standard ways, but results haven't been that useful. You can morph 2 samples with Oberon, just load 1 sample into wave 1 and another into wave 2, select wave 1 for osc 1 and wave 2 for osc 2, and don't forget you need to add some motion so you can actually hear the sample play back. Results depend heavily on the source audio though. Harmor by image line is a synth that does additive resynthesis of samples with extreme accuracy, if that's what your after.
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Loque
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19 Sep 2018

I played around with Oberon again, i must admit, that i should use it more often. The Morph is pretty unique in RE world, if you use it with samples. It can create interesting results and if you chose inharmonic content to morph between, it is very interesting for metallic pluck type of sounds because of the inharmonic stuff in it. I think it can also create very interesting stuff as input for Grain.

And now i can more precisely say, what i do not like about GUI and workflow. It is the thing, that i need to switch so often between different "panels" and "displays" to create my sound. In other synths i have the oscillator, envelopes, mod matrix, filter all at once visible. In Oberon i need to switch pretty often. And sometimes i need to search a bit longer to find the right panel or button. Also GUI build up "Oscillator1->Mixer<-Oscillator2" i just dont like. I also dislike this build up in Parsec. eXpanse is a good example of a clean design and workflow IMO.

For a future update i wish the GUI would be a bit cleaned for a better workflow. A few more filter types and better routing/mixing would be nice. At least one more envelope. Shift-Drag (or buttons) to the modulation target in the mod matrix. Realtime modifiers would be awsome, maybe a few more would be great too.

As i saw, a lot of ppl are testing or buying already. If you test it, give it a bit more time to learn it. It sounds good and unique imo, with a actually still unique feature. I defenetly will use it more in the future - especially for experimenting with sound design, even if i find the GUI a bit clunky.
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Loque
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24 Jun 2019

Free update to 2.0.3 released:
https://www.propellerheads.com/shop/rac ... nthesizer/
2.0.3 : performance enhancements when editing wave forms, audio quality improvements and some new patches.
Good to see zvork is improving this beast.

Curious if this means, old patches now sound different?
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zvork
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24 Jun 2019

Creativemind wrote:
07 Apr 2017
This might be a Propellerheads issue, not a Zvork issue but why does when you go to the Propellerhead Shop, does it say in the New Arrivals part, Oberon? it doesn't make clear that this is in fact the 2nd version or it's an update or say Oberon 2. So people who have only recently bought Reason and are not familiar with Re's might think this is a brand new synth, which it isn't. It is an update to an existing Re.
hi yes, in this case in is an update, version 2.0.3 that fixes a performance issue. This has the side effect of rebumping it in the "new arrivals". The old patches will sound "slightly" different but not that much.
You should wait for version 2.0.4 as we've just been notified of a bug when changing sample rates with this new update.
Last edited by zvork on 24 Jun 2019, edited 2 times in total.

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MrFigg
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24 Jun 2019

I’m glad that updates land in new arrivals. Otherwise I’d probably miss them. Not a big fan of Sync All.
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zvork
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27 Jun 2019

Version 2.0.5 of Oberon is now available for download, free for current users which fixes the sampling rate change bug along with the improvements introduced with version 2.0.3.
https://www.propellerheads.com/shop/rac ... nthesizer/

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TritoneAddiction
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27 Jun 2019

zvork wrote:
27 Jun 2019
Version 2.0.5 of Oberon is now available for download, free for current users which fixes the sampling rate change bug along with the improvements introduced with version 2.0.3.
https://www.propellerheads.com/shop/rac ... nthesizer/
Thanks for fixing it so fast. I was wondering what the hell was wrong when I opened some tracks including Oberon. I always run my projects in 96000 Hz.

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Auryn
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27 Jun 2019

zvork wrote:
27 Jun 2019
Version 2.0.5 of Oberon is now available for download, free for current users which fixes the sampling rate change bug along with the improvements introduced with version 2.0.3.
https://www.propellerheads.com/shop/rac ... nthesizer/
Does this update also include the ice dispenser and beverage holder that you promised earlier? Additive synthesis is thirsty work ;)

Just kidding, great to see the one and only king Oberon get an update! Hope to see more Zvorkian audio stuff in the future!
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