OB-6 - Pretty Please give us "Spread" pan mode

OB-6 - Pretty Please give us "Spread" pan mode
« on: August 24, 2022, 06:55:16 AM »
Maybe this is just wishful thinking, but Sequential has been so kind as to give us updated features in the past (vintage knob) it never hurts to ask.

If we could get the spread pan mode from the OB-X8 that would be incredible: “Spread” (alternates voices L/R
with them gradually increasing the distance of L/R).

In this video the OB-6 and OB-x8 both hold their own in mono, but the OB-X8 pan mode seems to win the day on stereo.


pfrf

Re: OB-6 - Pretty Please give us "Spread" pan mode
« Reply #1 on: August 25, 2022, 12:10:05 PM »
It's difficult to tell what's going on in that video because he doesn't "reset" the voices back to voice 1 while demonstrating the pan effect.  A riff or chord in the video played on the OB-6 might start with voice 3 but might start with voice 6 on the OBX8.  Also, with 8 voices compared to 6 there will have to be a different pan scheme applied.  I would say the above video doesn't reveal much about the pan spread differences between the synths. 

I did some OB-6 tests one day-
I calibrated at 0% pan spread, both L and R inputs measuring -12.0 dBFS.  These are my results after the 1.6.4 update:

pan at 50%=
voice 1 L -12.0, R -13.7
voice 2 L -14.1, R -12.1
voice 3 L -12.4, R -18.2
voice 4 L -18.0, R -12.3
voice 5 L -12.2, R -25.5
voice 6 L -25.6, R -11.8

pan at 100%=
voice 1 L -12.0, R -17.3
voice 2 L -17.8, R -12.1
voice 3 L -12.4, R -37.9
voice 4 L -38.0, R -12.3
voice 5 L -12.2, R - silence
voice 6 L - silence, R -12.3

At 50% the pan progression (one side, alternate voices) starts at -2dB, then -4dB, then -7.5dB
At 100% it starts at -5.5dB, then -20dB, then silence.  In all cases one side of the stereo field is kept near -12dB.

I'd like to see this information for the OBX8.  I suspect it's a similar scheme but with two more voices accounted for.  But I could be wrong, it happens often.  If there is a different thing going on with the OBX8 stereo field I'm interested in understanding.  (I won't be getting the OBX8 so I can't check it out myself.)

Re: OB-6 - Pretty Please give us "Spread" pan mode
« Reply #2 on: August 30, 2022, 02:40:31 PM »
Wow great info!

The more I've thought about it, I wonder if Starsky is wrong about what pan mode he is using. I believe the OB-X8 also has a mode where each voice is doubled with one hard left and one hard right (thereby reducing polyphony to four notes). Might explain why it sounds so beefy in the video. Basically like double tracking a synth and hard panning each one.

Re: OB-6 - Pretty Please give us "Spread" pan mode
« Reply #3 on: October 03, 2022, 01:53:38 PM »
in that video, during that initial preset comparison, he never modified (turned up) the pan mode on the OB-6, which is why it sounds soo centered and sterile compared to the OB-X8.

While the pan mode on the OB-6 does not operate exactly the same as the OB-X8, turning up the pan mode in that demo would definitely bring the two much closer in terms of having the width, depth and stereo dimension when holding a mulit-note chord down with different voices in different panning positions.