Korg Forums

[chris]

[psionic311]

Chris, you might get a better response on the Gear Slutz forum. It's more likely that you will find owners who have/had an OB6 and a Kronos to compare.

But I understand if you'd rather steer clear as well. That place gets pretty opinionated...

[chris]

Thanks for the tip psionic311.

Cheers,
Chris
_________________
Chris (Belgium)

[Liviou2004]

[psionic311]

Polyphonic unison is an ongoing request for the Rev2. Being bi-timbral, it's a shame that when you want a unison bass on the left side, it eats up all 8 of the available voices for layer A. Sometimes all you need is 2 or 3 voices for unison bass.

Polyphonic unison is also great for thickening things up by just layering 2 voices. This frees up the unused voices so that you don't cut into available polyphony. Those Curtis DCO's on the Rev2 aren't exactly meaty, and there have been plenty of times I wish it had polyphonic unison.

At least with both the OB6 and the Rev2, you can just dial in the number of voices you want to have in unison.

Since the Kronos has both polyphonic and monophonic unison, the flexibility is unmatched. I like to layer my instruments a lot. I kid you not, but there have been times where I was thought "wow, that Rev2 voice is sounding pretty thick now" when it was actually the Kronos! Unfortunately the reverse is also true. It's a compliment when you mistake a digital synth for an analog in sound quality, but no so much the other way around.

[psionic311]

FWIW, Chris, I had an OB6 module to compliment the Kronos.

I'm not ashamed to admit I got it mostly for just 2 songs -- Jump and Subdivisions. I've always been a fan of that big lush wide open sawtooth sound. To me, it's the synth version of that wall of electric guitar.

Maybe my expectations were too high, but I was a bit underwhelmed how static sounding the OSCs were. Mind you, they were more alive than the Kronos, but like I said, with a lot of careful programming, you can get the Kronos a lot closer to that analog fullness. Also, I probably didn't spend enough time programming the OB6, and I fell on hard times and needed some cash, so the OB6 had to go.

I still wanted an analog board, and my X-station was on the fritz, so I needed a replacement 2nd tier controller that could split over 2 channels and had aftertouch. So I got and still have the Rev2 to cover what the OB6 was supposed to do.

There were at least 3 times when I just about had enough and was ready to return the Rev2 as well. Its DCOs are pretty thin imo, and they kind of phase out when used together, so I tend to use one OSC and just put an LFO on it to waveshape for more movement. And it being bi-timbral is exactly what I needed as well. And for the lack of bass end, I got a Minitaur, but later learned how to beef up the Rev2 bottom by using either the Distortion or HPF effects.

I also have a Matrix 1000, which uses some of the same chips as the Rev2. The two are remarkably similar in character, with the M1000 just edging out the Rev2 for beefiness. I'd say the OB6 is thicker and lusher than the M1000, but it still is not quite as thick as an OB-Xa.

Still, the OB6 gets a lot of praise from most owners. If you like the sound, I believe you will be happy with it, and it will complement the Kronos well. If I had one again, I'd keep it and just program it better. It's very alive, just not as magical as the legends. I'm hoping the UB-Xa lives up to its legacy. HTH

[Poseidon]

"It sounds like an Oberheim. No... it is an Oberheim.
...
People say that ‘they don’t make ‘em like they used to’, but the OB6 proves them wrong. It’s a mono-timbral polysynth with a sound that screams 1979 at you, albeit with numerous modern functions added to keep things interesting."

SOS Magazine (https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/dave-smith-instruments-ob6)

Awesome demo of OB-6 by Mr.Fairchild (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0HuFhhZpbM)

[CharlesFerraro]

A friend let me borrow his OB-6 for a few weeks. Got to plumb it’s depths and do direct comparisons with the Kronos.

Mimicking the OB-6’s unison stacked cross modulation was very difficult but doable on the K. AL-1’s cross mod is too clean and tuned to compare so I had to do some ridiculous routing between two instances of MS-20’s. Not sure if some tricks could’ve been applied to AL-1 but my results with the 20 were directly comparable. The Kronos equivalent was less noisy while the analog version had a kind of edge. In the end I would’ve stuck with the Kronos just because I really dislike unintended noise in my mixes. Would’ve recorded some direct comparisons for this thread if I still had the unit.

The 6 deserves major praise for that filter. At first I didn’t like it. Where was the squelch? How come it couldn’t self oscillate? But after a bit I learned to really appreciate how incredibly smooth it sounded. The Kronos stock filters are much more Prophetesque and don’t allow for super buttery sweeps via a knob (I may have remedied that with Tone Adjust, I just remember the software indents being an issue while using RT Controls). In the end though, timbral versatility wins out for me. The Kronos is clean and the MS-20EX has more analog attitude than most real analogs on the market imo.

While a Kronos can sound like most other synths, not many other synths carry all the options found in a Kronos. The effects alone put it into untouchable territory for pretty much any analog (you’ll be hard pressed to find an analog synth with a grain shifter for instance). There’s literally no feature on the OB-6 that the Kronos can’t directly mimic. Just don’t expect the Kronos to sound as good when applying frequency modulation to filter type. But that specific signal routing sounds ugly even on the OB-6 anyway.

[psionic311]

The OB-6 is thick, but the legend is thicker yet.

[magname]

[CharlesFerraro]

[CharlesFerraro]

[Liviou2004]

[CharlesFerraro]

Ah thanks for clarifying, Liviou!