Oddity Quotes

Hi, guys. My name is David Friend and I was a co-founder and president of ARP Instruments and the lead designer of the original Odyssey.

Dave Mash at Berklee College bought me a copy of your software and we had a lot of fun with it in his office today. You guys did a fantastic job of getting every detail right, including incorporating some features that we couldn't have even dreamed of at the time (like memory).

One little known fact about the Odyssey is that there were actually two very different voltage controlled filters used iin different production years. We started out with the same 24db/octave VCF that Al Pearlman had designed for the ARP 2600, but it was a little on the expensive side. Also, Bob Moog claimed that our filter design infringed on one of his patents. About a year into production, we switched to a 12 db/octave VCF that I had designed a few years prior. It changed the sound of the instrument, making it brighter and more nasal-sounding. I came to really dislike that sound, so we came up with a new and less expensive 24db/octave filter the next year. I would guess that 75% of all the Odysseys built used the 24db/oct filter.

Anyway, a few keyboard players recognized the difference and actually had both versions around. Steely Dan, for one, had both. That is, until one of them crapped out during a recording session. They took it out back and ran over it with a truck then drove a spike through it thus permanently affixing it to the wall of the Record Factory Studios in LA. They called me at 2 in the morning so I could hear them banging the spike through the instrument. Not what you want to hear, especially in the middle of the night. Anyway, until I got your box, it was the thinnest Odyssey in the world.

The very first Odysseys were white and had wood sides. There weren't a lot of those made, maybe a few hundred.

The black one you use on the box was the mainstay production unit for two or three years. Toward the late 70s, we replaced the pitch-bending knob with three pressure sensitive pads for bending sharp, flat, and adding vibrato.

Over its lifetime, the Odyssey outsold the Minimoog by more than 2:1. The first synthesizer to be sold in retail music stores was the ARP 2600, back in 1971, I believe. I think I made the first sales call of a synthesizer manufacturer on a retail music store -- Manny's Music on 46th St. in New York. They threw me out, but later became the biggest ARP dealer in the world.

By the way, the stability of the ARP VCOs was the result of simply brilliant analog design by Al Pearlman. He is the best analog engineer I've ever met. Precisely compensating for the temperature sensitive characteristics of a semiconductor junction is not easy, and Al understood it far better than any of the engineers at Moog who had horrible problems with stability.

Anyway, it certainly seemed strange when I first saw an instrument that I once had on my drawing board turning up in museums. But having one completely emulated in software is the really the ultimate! Thanks for this wonderful labor of love.

Dave

Today I installed the Oddity.....it's beautiful. And with the 24dB filters it sounds much better than the original! I really can recommend this synth.

Given that Odysseys are rare, expensive, unreliable, often have damaged faders, always have scratchy faders, often drift out of tune, and are always a nightmare to tune, I don't merely recommend that you try the Oddity. I very strongly recommend you try it.

I'd bought the Oddity and ImpOSCar a few months ago and couldn't believe how great they were.

The Oddity is beautifully realised. All the power, character, precision, intricacy, grunge and sonic extremes of the original - plus memories. (A real gift - I managed to lose so many good sounds- or record some that I then couldn't reproduce again).

It's also capable of doing things the original never could - basic things such as midi sync, right up to the sophisticated and beautiful morph facility.

As for what defined that original - scorching leads, the swoops down to unstable depths, plus an ability to make new sounds - from abstract to uncontrollable - this can do it all. Just as the original, it responds beautifully to echoes, reverbs, flanges and additional spatial effects, all of which open up new dimensions. Everything from precise early analogue to howling organic electrolife is here.

A great tool for any kind of sonic sculpture.

The Oddity is so authentic it takes me back to my Headhunter's days.

We use Oddity and M-Tron almost every day on tracks including LDN / Knock-em Out - Lily Allen & Wannabe - Dizzee Rascal

I love the sick sound designs you can do on the Oddity and the automation is super-tight within Logic. Definitely gets a lot of use from me!

This is an afficionado's plug-in.....a product for synth connoisseurs. It feels more like a labour of love than an attempt to rule the world of soft synths with a Great Big Commercial Hit; somebody put a lot of time into getting the details right.

For a long time, I was not a fan of software synths, finding them less intuitive and less musical than their hardware brethren. However, my view is changing, and much of the credit or blame lies at Gmedia's door.

I like Mtron, and the Oddity was the first software synth I used that combined an accurate representation of its inspiration, a good user interface and watertight operation.

With ImpOSCar, the company has gone still further and, now that everything works correctly, the additional benefits outweigh any reservations I might have had.

Since I last talked to you, I have been using the Oddity again, in greater detail. I.....I can't....stop....using it. It is really great

WOW!!!!! I just installed Oddity, and I feel like Michael J. Fox in "Back To The Future".

I remember the ARP on gigs I did and sessions I played on "back in the day". This softsynth sounds like you went back in time and snatched the original and dragged it back to now. It sounds soooo amazing!

I love the Oddity. With no added delays built in or anything, it's a true emulation.

I used the oddity frequently on my new album and could create virtually any bass and lead line I wanted, the tweakability is amazing - genuine analogue sounds. The omforce ohmboyz is my main on-board delay, easy to automate and create any delay line desired, amazing presets.

The GForce suite of plug-ins (Minimonsta, OSCar & Oddity) are fatter than a ten dollar pork chop! They are very usable in a wide variety of styles of music.

They're great in the studio or on the road in my Neko
64 virtual synth keyboard. They really do offer a real great taste, MORE
filling sensation!

I use the Oddity for effects so it usually comes in at the end of the songwriting process. There's a fantastic preset called Kamikaze which I use for builds etc.

Then I use the impOSCar for some dancey stuff, MIDI sync'd arpeggiation and stuff like that.

The Minimonsta, ImpOSCar and Oddity are my favorite go-to virtual
synths - hands down. In the fast pace world of interactive music scoring
and sound design for video games, you have endless creative
possibilities with this killer suite of plug-ins. They are unequivocally
the FATTEST sounding plug-ins and programmable beasts on the planet!

Incredibly accurate great ARP sound, versatile programming possibilities, wonderful interface and fun to the max! A musically useful trip to retroland

I couldn't live without my Oddity and I could bang on about how brilliant the filters are ( I love the way they close at the end of a note) and other boring shit, but the truth is it sounds fat and mental and i love it.

When I need a plug with real bite I always go for Oddity first!

Oddity, ImpOscar!!!! Absolutely right on! So far we've used the Oddity in particular on every track I've done. Thanks for being original.

Having both an OSCar and Odyssey in our studio we of were very excited to hear their virtual counterparts.

We were blown away!

Both are sonic beasts that truly represent the unique sound qualities of two of our favorite synths. These bad boys are all over the new album. Simply amazing!