Thought I'd flesh out the old (new) blog a bit with some synth info and opinions. Lets start with my dream synth from the 80's, the Oberheim OB-8!
I had never even seen a real Oberheim for most of my high school life but for some reason I thought they were the best synths out there and when the OB-X came out I just went "WOW!!". A friend of mine was able to sell everything else he had and buy one but I only got to play with it for a few minutes a couple of times.
When the Xa came out I thought it looked fantastic and had amazing features (split and dual modes). But then in '83 when the OB-8 came out I thought the analog synth had been perfected!
In 1987 in November 2 different people I had been working for paid me in cash at the same time. Suddenly I had a load of cash burning a hole in my pocket so I opened the Buy and Sell newspaper (kind of like Craigslist, but printed on actual paper) and turned to the Musical Instruments section. Amazingly, there was an OB-8 there and it was within my price range!! I called my friend Clem (who had a car) and he agreed to give me a lift to check it out. As you might expect, I didn't need to spend too much time with it. I bought it on the spot! It was Awesome!!
Then a few weeks later I was unemployed.... about a month or so later I decided I needed money so.... it was sold. :( I regretted that decision for 23 years.
Finally in May of 2011 I won one on eBay and finally had my dream synth back. It was in pretty bad shape though. One voice was dead, all of the buttons were close to non-functional, and several keys didn't work unless you hit them hard. Long story short, I cleaned it up (A LOT) and got a new filter chip for the dead voice and now it is almost perfect again!
But is it really the dream synth I thought it was? Nooooope! It's really nice but it certainly doesn't do everything! The biggest negative is the low end. It's kinda thin and wimpy. It's not bad with some sounds but now that I have other synths like Moog and Arp (also Use Audio and Creamware) I can see it definitely doesn't have the power and percussiveness I'd hoped for. Even in Unison mode it's not as good sounding.
Of course, I'm pretty spoiled now with a lot of other synths so I'm a bit more demanding, but it brings up the most important thing I've learned which is that there is no such thing as "best". They all sound different. Each one has it's strengths and probably some weaknesses too. The OB-8 has a bunch of cool features I really like so it's still very useful.
The full front panel is my favorite thing, having gone through 20 years of synths having only a single increment controller. The OB-8 is exactly what I needed for quickly creating sounds I was hearing in my head and getting ideas recorded before I forget them. I also love the HOLD/CHORD feature. YOU can build up "chords" that you can play on a single note. What I like to do is build the notes up more like harmonics and play a lead line with 12-16 oscillators. You can get some VERY cool and HUGE sounds that way!
I also love that you can set the portamento so that each voice slides at a slightly different rate. There are a bunch of cool Page 2 features for portamento and another favorite is the Equal Time setting.
The modulation routing is pretty extensive too. You can see the direction they were going just before creating the Matrix synths. Lots of wave forms, triggered, envelopes, and so on make for some pretty cool sound effects. The only thing I really miss is my favorite setting I used in a sound in my Matrix 1000. I used Pulse waves for both oscillators, then modulated them in opposite directions with a sine wave LFO. So while one is at 100%, the other is at 0%. They sweep back and forth in opposite directions making the sound much fatter than normal uni-direction sweeping PWM.
I also like the quick reprogramming of the bend range and the programmable arpeggiator, that is definitely my favorite of any synth I own. Detuning the voices is a fantastic feature that can make it sound more like the older not-so-perfectly-in-tune analogs, or just help a unison patch sound bigger.
MIDI is pretty basic but other than the occasional LFO or arpeggiator sync that I do with newer synths I don't need it to do much more than note on and off anyway.
The instrument is capable of creating some very fat sounds, or if you prefer, some very thin sounds. My only real complaint is that the sound is so clean. That might sound strange but it seems to me that Moog, Arp and Prophet (SCI) all overdrive the filter a little bit giving those instruments a bigger, more punchy sound. But like I said, each instrument has it's own sound and you use it for those strengths. Sometimes the very clean sound is awesome. In fact, the Tom Oberheim SEM-Pro is super clean and sounds fantastic for that exact reason. The OB-8 is obviously a very similar sound.
I think that about covers it for this synth. It's an awesome keyboard for sure, but I don't know if it's worth the price it's going for these days. If you're going to pay close to $3000 for one you might want to look at investing in the Son of 4 Voice instead. Remember, older electronics require a fair bit of upkeep and the curtis chips seem to be fairly rare these days. But if you do get one keep in mind that it doesn't sound like Moog and wont replace everything else, it just does what it does.
I had never even seen a real Oberheim for most of my high school life but for some reason I thought they were the best synths out there and when the OB-X came out I just went "WOW!!". A friend of mine was able to sell everything else he had and buy one but I only got to play with it for a few minutes a couple of times.
When the Xa came out I thought it looked fantastic and had amazing features (split and dual modes). But then in '83 when the OB-8 came out I thought the analog synth had been perfected!
In 1987 in November 2 different people I had been working for paid me in cash at the same time. Suddenly I had a load of cash burning a hole in my pocket so I opened the Buy and Sell newspaper (kind of like Craigslist, but printed on actual paper) and turned to the Musical Instruments section. Amazingly, there was an OB-8 there and it was within my price range!! I called my friend Clem (who had a car) and he agreed to give me a lift to check it out. As you might expect, I didn't need to spend too much time with it. I bought it on the spot! It was Awesome!!
Then a few weeks later I was unemployed.... about a month or so later I decided I needed money so.... it was sold. :( I regretted that decision for 23 years.
Finally in May of 2011 I won one on eBay and finally had my dream synth back. It was in pretty bad shape though. One voice was dead, all of the buttons were close to non-functional, and several keys didn't work unless you hit them hard. Long story short, I cleaned it up (A LOT) and got a new filter chip for the dead voice and now it is almost perfect again!
But is it really the dream synth I thought it was? Nooooope! It's really nice but it certainly doesn't do everything! The biggest negative is the low end. It's kinda thin and wimpy. It's not bad with some sounds but now that I have other synths like Moog and Arp (also Use Audio and Creamware) I can see it definitely doesn't have the power and percussiveness I'd hoped for. Even in Unison mode it's not as good sounding.
Of course, I'm pretty spoiled now with a lot of other synths so I'm a bit more demanding, but it brings up the most important thing I've learned which is that there is no such thing as "best". They all sound different. Each one has it's strengths and probably some weaknesses too. The OB-8 has a bunch of cool features I really like so it's still very useful.
The full front panel is my favorite thing, having gone through 20 years of synths having only a single increment controller. The OB-8 is exactly what I needed for quickly creating sounds I was hearing in my head and getting ideas recorded before I forget them. I also love the HOLD/CHORD feature. YOU can build up "chords" that you can play on a single note. What I like to do is build the notes up more like harmonics and play a lead line with 12-16 oscillators. You can get some VERY cool and HUGE sounds that way!
I also love that you can set the portamento so that each voice slides at a slightly different rate. There are a bunch of cool Page 2 features for portamento and another favorite is the Equal Time setting.
The modulation routing is pretty extensive too. You can see the direction they were going just before creating the Matrix synths. Lots of wave forms, triggered, envelopes, and so on make for some pretty cool sound effects. The only thing I really miss is my favorite setting I used in a sound in my Matrix 1000. I used Pulse waves for both oscillators, then modulated them in opposite directions with a sine wave LFO. So while one is at 100%, the other is at 0%. They sweep back and forth in opposite directions making the sound much fatter than normal uni-direction sweeping PWM.
I also like the quick reprogramming of the bend range and the programmable arpeggiator, that is definitely my favorite of any synth I own. Detuning the voices is a fantastic feature that can make it sound more like the older not-so-perfectly-in-tune analogs, or just help a unison patch sound bigger.
MIDI is pretty basic but other than the occasional LFO or arpeggiator sync that I do with newer synths I don't need it to do much more than note on and off anyway.
The instrument is capable of creating some very fat sounds, or if you prefer, some very thin sounds. My only real complaint is that the sound is so clean. That might sound strange but it seems to me that Moog, Arp and Prophet (SCI) all overdrive the filter a little bit giving those instruments a bigger, more punchy sound. But like I said, each instrument has it's own sound and you use it for those strengths. Sometimes the very clean sound is awesome. In fact, the Tom Oberheim SEM-Pro is super clean and sounds fantastic for that exact reason. The OB-8 is obviously a very similar sound.
I think that about covers it for this synth. It's an awesome keyboard for sure, but I don't know if it's worth the price it's going for these days. If you're going to pay close to $3000 for one you might want to look at investing in the Son of 4 Voice instead. Remember, older electronics require a fair bit of upkeep and the curtis chips seem to be fairly rare these days. But if you do get one keep in mind that it doesn't sound like Moog and wont replace everything else, it just does what it does.
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