The OB-X8 was live in action at Berlin’s Superbooth – one big highlight was getting to see Dave Smith, Marcus Ryle, and team. But more sounds are coming out, as well.
Now, making sound samples of a massive polysynth like this is hard to do. It’d be hard to ask for sound samples of any instrument, period – and then a synth, with its fundamental mutability, doubly so.
But here that is anyway. From Oberheim themselves, INHALT aka Matia Simovich has done the ‘official’ sound demo, recorded straight into Pro Tools with no post processing or effects. So you could change the sound programming or, you know, change what you’re playing but at least what you’re hearing here is the actual synth output.
Via Synthtopia, Paul Schilling has also been jamming away. Maybe what’s best about these demos is not only the demos themselves but the obvious enthusiasm. I know that’s especially great for the synth makers to see.
Of course, to really understand the architecture here, I’ll again plug our walkthrough – and detailed specific sounds – by our friend Francis Preve, in case you missed this during the Superbooth rush:
I’m sure keen to play one for a while. Part of what makes everything old new again to me is that we’re changing in what sounds we imagine and desire. So just as a violin quartet can go in an entirely new direction in 2022 versus 1822, we can absolutely create new sounds with classic synth architectures.
As for Oberheim, after 40 years, you can now go to the new website with this new synth. And that’s a great feeling on its own:
The OB-X8 is available from Sweetwater:
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Oberheim OB-X8 8-voice Polyphonic Analog Desktop Synthesizer Module
Oberheim OB-X8 8-voice Polyphonic Analog Synthesizer