The Fusion’s VA is useful for the recreation of classic synth sounds like the famous Minimoog, Roland Juno 60, Oberheim OB-Xa and more. For this venture the Fusion provides several Filter types and Modulation options. In case of Oberheim you need to check those features in the first place to take the right tools. The Filter of a OB-Xa is a switchable 12 dB 2-Pole and 24 dB 4-Pole type. As the Fusion Filter type options are as they are it is useful to work with the Low Pass 1-pole and 4-pole. Keep in mind that the 1-pole does not provide Resonance, so if you want it you must select the 2-pole type instead. The OB-Xa Oscillator 2 allows a detune to Oscillator 1, so you should work with this on the Fusion too. Additionally you can add the Random Detune for both Oscillators, but not too much, the Oberheim synths are quite tuning stable compared to Moog. Next stop is the Envelope setting for the Amplitude and Filter. The Oberheim Envelopes are a bit slow, and the Fusion’s are fast. When using the Delay function you can simulate the slowness, but just a tiny little bit Delay. You can add FM to the both Oscillators as the OB-Xa allows that too. The Pulse waveform can be modulated, this is easy to realise with the Fusion’s Mod Matrix. Just add a additional LFO and use a typical Oberheim range between 0.1 and 20 Hz. The Oberheim Filter sounds pretty smooth and silky, but the Fusion’s Filter is strong and, well, digital and if you use Resonance above 60 or 80% even aggressive and snappy, depends on the Filter Envelope setting. So you must be careful with the Filter adjustment to make it right. Leave the Oscillator 3 out, the OB-Xa offers only two of them. And don’t forget to ignore the Velocity Modulation, the OB-Xa is a non-velocity keyboard. It was available as 4, 6 or 8 voice polyphonic synth, so you can even limit the Fusion’s polyphony to this value the recreate the real vintage feeling when playing it and loose a voice when hitting more keys simultaneously. You will find this parameter on the Program menu subpage Pitch (Number of Voices).
