Behringer UB-Xa vs Oberheim OB-Xa factory presets no FX

As a member of the beta testing team I reprogrammed all the 104 legendary factory presets on the UB-Xa. I shot this video in May 2022. This UB-Xa is one of the last revisions. There were some improvements. In this video we were not finished with the firmware. Based on our experience with the sound design, we have incorporated a few improvements that will now appear in the final version. Nevertheless, this video shows the UB-Xa in an almost finished state. We have gone into every detail to capture the character of the original as much as possible. The numerous parameters in the 8 mods made this possible. I made this video primarily to check my results. Due to the high demand for comparisons, I have decided to post this video and it is possible that a comparison of the latest version would be slightly different, just as even every OB-Xa is not exactly the same as another OB-Xa.

I switched off the velocity and aftertouch plus switched off voices 9-16 for this video to get the same circumstances like on the Original. I also put the voices randomly for panning.

Thanks for watching.

[Rfx]

It’s amazing how close they sound, keep in mind that these presets on the behringer are “hand made recreations” of the original rom patches from the obxa, not digital transfer of the parameters but only “by ear” aproximation of them, there’s no screen on the original to see the exact value of params… congrats to the programmer, fantastic job!!

[AlexBallMusic]

The differences are very minimal and probably what you'd get from comparing two originals.

Congratulations, sounds like everyone did a fine job.

[edit] Having listened to some sounds again on proper speakers (which I initially didn't), there's some sounds that are admittedly pretty different, even though many are very close. It's when the filter resonance is brought into play that the Oberheim strides ahead. But anyway, still sounds good overall.

[SoundmanCH]

Better an Underheim in my studio, than an Oberheim in my dreams 👍

[vintagesynths]

I have to note: I switched off the velocity and aftertouch plus switched off voices 9-16 for this video to get the same circumstances like on the Original. I also put the voices randomly for panning.

[UniQueWerkx]

That's impressive!! Thank you very much for taking the time to post this!! Sounds like a winner for sure!! Wow!!

[realqwave]

The very best video, and I think the first video, showing these synths side by side. And with a recent Behringer Version and not an early prototype. Well done! Thanks!

[checkitout]

Awesome! There are subtle differences (mainly in brightness / presence). Looking forward to getting my UB-Xa for sure.

[Eyepatchfilms]

Good enough for me. Getting one of these along with keeping my 6 voice OBSX

[Kung_Fu_Jesus]

Very convincing as a clone, bravo all the team who worked on this, you’ve built a formidable synth here.

[MKJDAY]

Purists?? Smh.. lol! I own an OB-8 and the coolest thing about it, is to say I have one. It’s heavy, doesn’t always stay in tune, and fickle as all get out! You can’t tell me you’d know which was which on a record. Someone here said the Behringer sounds cheap…. Do you think you can’t get an OB-Xa to sound cheap?! You can, and it ain’t that hard. People don’t go to concerts to hear oscillators….. they go to hear music. To that end the Behringer sounds pretty fantastic to me. But what do I know… not enough I’m sure.

[lfomelody]

To produce, I'll continue with the plugins, but I like having a real synthesizer to play, the experience, the speed to improvise, test ideas, create... in short, the fun part. behringer is making fun accessible for everyone!

[brobocop]

As soon as I saw this I grabbed some popcorn to watch all of the people who think they have ultra human hearing come on here and moan about how much better the original sounds lol. I wasn't disappointed.

[johnchiappone]

That’s spot on! They both sound like the brown noise to me.

[Sturzi]

Rüdiger, you won the Internet today! That's a fine and accurate comparison of the two blue-striped. And I'm really stunned how similar they sound despite of all the negative comments in the forums. Seems like it was worth waiting the 6 years since it was announced (at least for those who don't want to spend the $$ for the Obie).

[GlitchWolf]

Not a big fan of the company, but still very impressive to see that it comes that close to the OB sound. There are however places where the OB sounds warmer and more alive due to some drifting and slight detuning of the voices. It's very evident at the 1:30 mark where the OB sounds so alive and lush whereas the UB sounds sterile in comparision.
Thanks so much for making this vid, highly educational!!

[Rareos]

the OB is recorded a touch louder, so that's already going to influence. The OB is also doing a voice channel swap on all notes in a more pronounced way. The UB not as frequent swapping and in some patches not at all, so that's also contributing to a more more wideness and depth on the OB. Absolutely not hard to accommodate for though, and in a mix pretty much inconsequential.

[raymond_lazer]

Thanx for the video . Nice shot indeed mostly when you know that OB-Xa is more than 40 years old, meaning that circuitry & components had time to drift a bit :) . I guess that 2 OB-Xa may not sound now really the same ! Cheers

[brendanmurphy]

Nice job on the presets. You can definitely hear the difference in the filter but the oscillators sound spot on. Well done and thanks for the demo.

[KingstonMusician]

Behringer thanks for making this. As a former OB-Xa owner; thank you for letting me get this back without having to spend $10, 000 🙏

[TheGuitaristChannel]

Thank you for this video! Pre-ordered mine! 😁