OB-Xtreme VST synth promises "8 voices of legend"

With Prince back in synth mode on new album Art Official Age, now seems like a good time for a developer to release a plugin that's inspired by the Oberheim OB-X, one of the Purple One's favoured machines in the early '80s.

Said developer is Aly James, and his OB-Xtreme is available in 32-bit Windows VST format. Based on the original OB-X architecture, James says of his synth: "I have crafted a controllable diode clipping stage before and after the filter, which really brings some body and harmonics for a beefy result, especially in conjunction with the VCF. .It can be soft and warm or scream in a good way."

Rather than being a precise emulation of the OB-X, the OB-Xtreme takes its core elements and implements them into a stripped-down design that promises to make it easy to create brass, pad, lead, FX and percussion sounds. There are also extended features such as a FAT mode and multiple DAW outputs.

Check out the video preview and audio demos and find out more on the Aly James Lab website. OB-Xtreme is available for a minimum donation of €15. An OS X version is in the works.

Ben Rogerson

I’m the Deputy Editor of MusicRadar, having worked on the site since its launch in 2007. I previously spent eight years working on our sister magazine, Computer Music. I’ve been playing the piano, gigging in bands and failing to finish tracks at home for more than 30 years, 24 of which I’ve also spent writing about music and the ever-changing technology used to make it.