OBBO introduction

What is OBBO?

The monophonic Soundbytes OBBO Synthesizer offers a new way to creating a realistic emulation of the sound of the classical oboe.

Our novel approch to acoustic instrument synthesis combines the naturalism that the sampling technology offers with the spontaneity and playability that until now could only be realized through physical modelling synthesis.

OBBO is capable of delivering the natural timbre and a flexible tone throughout the entire pitch range and dynamic scope of the original instrument.

Playability

The most appropriate midi controller to play OBBO would surely be a midi wind instrument like the Yamaha WX5 or WX11 or an Akai EWI electronic wind instrument. These controllers are however very seldom found and this is why we have put a great emphasis on making the wind instrument tone accessible also to keyboard players.

OBBO
has a number of well designed features that  make it possible to emulate those typical wind instrument techniques like swells, fades, different articulations and not least a truly musical vibrato using any standard midi keyboard. 

The OBBO Synthesizer engine is able to play all these phrasings in real time. No more searching though myriads of samples to find the appropriate expression for your musical ideas.

How does it work?

OBBO uses custom crafted phase aligned samples to explore the tonal capacities of the modelled instrument. This approach makes it possible to naturally blend through the timbre changes that identify the instrument and characterize a well performed musical phrase.

An authentic solo instrument swell for example is a very easy task for OBBO but can be a very difficult and time consuming affair when played using a conventional sampler. There we probably have a sample library including a great number of notes that were originally recorded with different phrasings, intensities and articulations. This wealth of tonal capacity however can not be amalgamated into a truly versatile musical medium. Any attempt to blend two or more conventional samples will inevitably lead to chorus and comb filter effects that are bound to seriously deteriorate the sound quality.

For this reason the sampler is by definition restricted to playing back a given sample until the end of the note is reached. Unfortunately it is very often not known how the musician is going to further develop the tone once the note has started. This makes an impromptu choice of the appropriate sample an impossible task. Using a sampler we always need to know the whole story before we can even start to equip our melody  line with static samples.

OBBOs phase aligned samples on the other hand can be blended and mixed without any audible artefacts.  This enables us to perform any  timbre change convincingly and in real time very much like the original instrument.  The OBBO samples are stretching out in two dimensions: dynamic intensity and pitch. The resulting tonal space is there to be explored by the musician when OBBO is played.
© Andreas Sumerauer 2005  contact: info@soundbytes.de