American synth designer Tom Oberheim has revealed his favorite synthesizers of all time – past those with the Oberheim branding on, in fact.
In a current interview with MusicTech, he talks about his first encounter with the ARP 2600 after being employed by Alan Robert Pearlman as an ARP Devices supplier in Los Angeles.
“I acquired my ARP 2600, and I used to be up enjoying it for 36 hours straight,” Oberheim says. “And I believed, ‘That is wonderful! The place have these items been? Why has it taken so lengthy?’ I nonetheless bear in mind the sounds I made. I don’t actually play an instrument however I discovered a number of issues to do with that 2600, and it stayed with me.”
Apparently, regardless of making a number of the most coveted synths ever, Oberheim says he’s “by no means had a studio.” However that by no means fairly stopped him from maintaining a tally of different synthesizers and having a secret lust for them.
“It’s exhausting to disregard the Roland Jupiter-8,” he says. “On the time it got here out, we have been making both the OB-Xa or the OB-8. I noticed the machine and simply didn’t assume I had the assets to go so far as [Roland did with the Jupiter-8. That’s a great machine.”
Oberheim also discusses the one synth that he never really fell in love with – one that was so complex to use that he couldn’t get on board. Any guesses?
“I was never enamoured with the Yamaha DX7,” Oberheim says. “It was just too mysterious. You know, maybe five people on planet Earth could programme it – and they’re getting old now, like me!”
Oberheim has made some stellar instruments, from the OB-X to the DMX and now the TEO-5. But, when asked if there’s a synth he wishes he made but didn’t he instead reflects on a decision his late friend and colleague Dave Smith made; one that Oberheim wished he did, too.
“One thing that I wish I had done sooner is what Dave did in the early 2000s. He realised that analogue was coming back. He got back into the business. At first, it was with the Evolver but when he did the Prophet ’08, it just exploded. I wasn’t going to start another company at the time but now things have changed. Now I’m in alliance with Focusrite and I’m back in the business.”
Oberheim is back in the business with the new TEO-5. You can read more about its creation in the MusicTech interview.
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