The

Oberheim Oberheim is an American synthesizer manufacturer founded in 1969 by Tom Oberheim. Beginning in 1975, Oberheim developed some of the first commercially available polyphonic synthesizers and was a prominent synthesizer and drum machine manufacture ...

Polyphonic Synthesizer is a series of

analog Analog or analogue may refer to: Computing and electronics * Analog signal, in which information is encoded in a continuous variable ** Analog device, an apparatus that operates on analog signals *** Analog electronics, circuits which use analog ...

music Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all hum ...

synthesizers A synthesizer (also synthesiser or synth) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...

that was produced from 1975 to 1979 by

Oberheim Electronics Oberheim is an American synthesizer manufacturer founded in 1969 by Tom Oberheim. Beginning in 1975, Oberheim developed some of the first commercially available polyphonic synthesizers and was a prominent synthesizer and drum machine manufacture ...

. Developed by

Tom Oberheim Thomas Elroy Oberheim (born July 7, 1936), known as Tom Oberheim, is an American audio engineer and electronics engineer best known for designing effects processors, analog synthesizers, sequencers, and drum machines. He has been the founder ...

, they were the first production synthesizers capable of playing chords.

Background

After Oberheim introduced the DS-2 digital

music sequencer A music sequencer (or audio sequencer or simply sequencer) is a device or application software that can record, edit, or play back music, by handling Musical note, note and performance information in several forms, typically CV/Gate, MIDI, or Open ...

, Tom Oberheim recognized that customers wanted to play one synthesizer while the DS-2 played a sequence on another, or layer the sound of one synthesizer with another. To address this need, he introduced the Synthesizer Expander Module (SEM), a semi-modular analog synthesizer module, in 1974. The SEM featured two VCOs and a two-pole

voltage-controlled filter A voltage-controlled filter (VCF) is an electronic filter whose operating characteristics (primarily cutoff frequency) can be set by an input control voltage. Voltage-controlled filters are widely used in synthesizers. A music synthesizer VCF ...

that could operate as a

low-pass A low-pass filter is a filter that passes signals with a frequency lower than a selected cutoff frequency and attenuates signals with frequencies higher than the cutoff frequency. The exact frequency response of the filter depends on the filt ...

, high-pass,

band-pass A band-pass filter or bandpass filter (BPF) is a device that passes frequencies within a certain range and rejects ( attenuates) frequencies outside that range. It is the inverse of a '' band-stop filter''. Description In electronics and s ...

, or band-reject filter, giving it a different sound than the Moog and ARP four-pole low-pass ladder filters popular at the time.

Specification

In late 1975, after Norlin canceled several large Maestro orders, Oberheim developed a series of

polyphonic synthesizer Polyphony is a property of musical instruments that means that they can play multiple independent melody lines simultaneously. Instruments featuring polyphony are said to be polyphonic. Instruments that are not capable of polyphony are monophon ...

s by combining multiple SEMs with a digitally-scanned keyboard developed by

Dave Rossum David P. Rossum (born 1948) is an American electronics engineer and inventor best known as the co-founder of synthesizer and sampler manufacturer E-mu Systems. Education and early career Rossum grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and attende ...

and a two-channel sequencer. By packaging two or four SEMs, each capable of generating one voice (or note), together under keyboard control, he was able to create synthesizers that could play two or four notes simultaneously. These synthesizer models were logically named the Oberheim

Oberheim Two Voice The Oberheim Two Voice (TVS) is an analogue synthesizer produced by Oberheim Electronics from 1975 to 1979. It can be operated in either polyphonic or monophonic mode, and includes an onboard 8-step sequencer. The Two Voice was the first of Ob ...

(TVS) and Four Voice (FVS). In 1976, Oberheim introduced the Polyphonic Synthesizer Programmer (PSP-1), an optional module which made possible the storage and recall of most of the SEM's parameters, as well as the ability to glide from one note or chord to another using

portamento In music, portamento (: ''portamenti''; from old , meaning 'carriage' or 'carrying'), also known by its French name glissade, is a pitch sliding from one Musical note, note to another. The term originated from the Italian language, Italian exp ...

. In 1977, the Oberheim Eight Voice (EVS), available with either a single or dual manual keyboard, was added to the series.

The SEM, Two Voice, Four Voice, and Eight Voice were eventually replaced by a series of

microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor (computing), processor for which the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit (IC), or a small number of ICs. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, a ...

-controlled synthesizers, beginning with the OB-1 and culminating in the OB-X and OB-Xa, which were fully programmable and significantly more compact than their predecessors, which Oberheim discontinued production of in 1979. Despite their maintenance cost and rarity, Oberheim Polyphonic Synthesizers are still adored by many musicians today for their characteristic sonic 'thickness' and 'depth' caused in part by the random variance between each SEM module.

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Software emulations

GForce Software collaborated with Tom Oberheim and former Oberheim engineer Marcus Ryle to develop the GForce Oberheim OB-E, a

software synthesizer A software synthesizer or softsynth is a computer program that generates digital audio, usually for music. Computer software that can create sounds or music is not new, but advances in processing speed now allow softsynths to accomplish the same t ...

emulation of the Eight Voice, and the GForce Oberheim SEM emulation of the SEM. The GForce Oberheim OB-E is the first software instrument ever to receive Tom Oberheim's personal endorsement.

References

External links

Two Voice at Vintage Synth Explorer

Four Voice at Vintage Synth Explorer

Eight Voice at Vintage Synth Explorer
{{DEFAULTSORT:Oberheim Polyphonic

polyphonic Polyphony ( ) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice ( monophony) or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords ...