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Average rating:
4.6 out of 5
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I am surprised that the OB8 gets high ratings,
I owned about every analog on the planet and as far as analog polysynths go, this shure wasn't one of the greatest.
Whats wrong with it, first ,parameters have quite coarse values ( a prophet five or rhodes chroma have 256 steps pro parameter and can be adjusted far more finely than ob8)
Second, sound is not as lush as stated here, my obx sounded warmer and fuller, the sound of ob8 is VERY close to a sequential pro 600, from the innards chipwise its a lot of curtiss too.
Gone is the fantastic sounding ringmodulator of the OBX, the envellopes of the OB8 are NOT very attacky , Basssounds are stale on OB8, man you should hear an MKS 80 for bass.
The filter now oscillates compared to older Oberheims, but not in a fizzy nice kind of way.
You can lift an OB8 with one hand , that says enough how the hardware got scaled down compared to older analogs.
Trust me , for strings buy Prophet5, OBX, oberheim expander, rhodes chroma , you will find them more rewarding instruments.
Wonder why Prince , Gary Numan, thompson Twins, stayed loyal to their OBx's and obxa 's. enough said
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I've always found Oberheim gear to be well made and reliable by American synth standards. Soundwise it's often possible to confuse an OB series sound with that of a Prophet, especially re: leads and pads, as they share some of the same ICs. Oberheims have a fatter, more organic sound than a Prophet, which is most noticable on bass sounds ie "What Have You Done for Me Lately", a typical Jam and Lewis bass workout for Janet Jackson. The Prophet has an edgier, sharper envelope and is somewhat more electronic; both are superb.
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A good sounding, big and effective poly. Service wise, it is a no-no. This synth is based on a lot of obsolete, software based logic which you can't replace. I've searched the globe for bits for a client's unit. Oberheim were miles ahead of other manufacturers at the time in this respect, which was good. Now, it's real bad. Horrible in fact. Eproms, for example, are going down and it's really difficult to get a copied replacement. Like the rev2 prophet. You can, but it means calling in favours. A lot of technicians won't touch them any more. If your's packs up, it could be the end of your synth. Think about that before you buy. These OBs were specialised units at the cutting edge. Bits were used up ages ago. Oberheim were never good at customer service. They just never ordered enough of the specialised spares.
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Love the phased stringy sounds you can get from this - pg.2 really makes a leap ahead from the OB-xa in terms of programmability. Oh - BTW, Berlin used the Prophet-5 for 1982's "Pleasure Victim", as the OB-8 didn't get released until 1983.
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I'm always exploring gear, I must have owned 20 or more synths in my time since the early eighties. Alot of terrible eighties bands have been credited with using this synthesizer on their recordings (Rush, Van Halen, Styx, etc) well - I listened to some of their recordings (VH's Jump for example) and found that these groups used oberheim's pre programmed patches alot of the time and never dared to even visit the deeper pg 2 editing at all! That's rock for ya! This synth is capable of creating sounds for any genre/type of sound.. I consider my own sounds to be Experimental and this synth performs! If you really want to hear this synth in action on a pop record, check out Berlin's "Pleasure Victim" It's magnificently warm, mysterious, and very sexy!
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