Obermoog (alleged Moog / Oberheim hybrid?)

[Alternative Electronics]

Just wondering if any of you have any insight regarding the "Obermoog" modular synth.

As readers of any of my other posts will already be aware of, I run a gear website (http://www.alternative-electronics.com) where I list what music gear has been used by various bands.

I've been contacted by an Australian band claiming they have 1 of the 3 Obermoogs ever created and am unsure of whether to enter it or not. More info on the synth here: http://angelspit.net/zoog/?p=188

Supposedly it is *not* the same as the Oberheim OB-Mx.

What do you all think? Is it a real synth or a myth someone made up about a custom synth?

[MC]

The Obermoog was the prototype to the OBMx.

Built by Gibson (who owned the Oberheim tradmark) before Don Buchla got involved. Tom Oberheim had nothing at all to do with this product. Gibson CEO "King Henry J" is technically incompetent, acquires (some would say steals) all sorts of IP but is a bumbling idiot when trying to exploit his IP, refuses to pay a decent salary, and thus does not attract competent engineers. Their engineers made the Obermoog sound good, but they were not competent enough to make it reliable (IE stay in tune or keep it running). King Henry also made the fatal mistake of stockpiling thousands of components to put the Obermoog in production. The obermoog was two years in development and not ready for production. Warehousing components over multiple years is not only expensive but the value of all those components depreciates rapidly.

Don Buchla was contracted to make the Obermoog into a viable production item. He concluded that a reliable machine was not possible with the original design and components. Lynx Crowe joined him as his firmware wizard. His modified machine became the OBMx. When it went into production, King Henry substituted critical components with ones in his warehouse so he could recover his investment. The result was a synth that would not stay in tune and had been delivered to prominent magazines for review. When Buchla found out about the bum units, he got one of those machines back and discovered the component swaps. His electrical drawings specified NO COMPONENT SUBSTITUTIONS and he was less than pleased.

Buchla left the project and King Henry tried to sue Lynx Crowe for the copyright of the firmware, a favorite tactic to extort IP when King Henry "acquires" companies. Lynx ultimately prevailed, and rather than pay royalties on every OBMx sold Gibson ceased production. So the OBMx had a short and murky life.

The Obermoog was reported to be much better sounding than the OBMx - if you could keep it in tune or keep it running at all. NIN had an Obermoog, then when they received one of the first OBMx they were shocked at the difference. I have seen a prototype OBMx on the 'bay with pics of the insides. The power supply was simply a switching supply right out of a PC. The voicecards are incompatible with the OBMx. Highly doubtful that any schematics exists for the prototype. I never saw a detailed pic of a voicecard to ascertain circuit differences, but I can confirm that my trial of an OBMx in a store was not positive as the filters sounded nothing like their namesakes and the VCOs drifted worse than my Memorymoog.

You got a rare unit, but if it breaks it is not repairable.

[Alternative Electronics]

Wow - thank you so much for the detailed and interesting response! In case anyone else in interested in the topic, Matrixsynth has some more info here: http://matrixsynth.blogspot.com/2006/10 ... story.html

After searching around on some other sites, it seems that the terms "OBMx" and "Obermoog" are used almost interchangeably. Trent Reznor also called it an OBMx Obermoog in some interviews. Thanks for clearing up the differences. I'm just still not exactly sure how Moog fits into the whole picture. This Australian band, Angelspit, says the Obermoog was a Moog / Oberheim collaboration? But if I follow your explanation correctly, it sounds like it was an entirely Oberheim venture (along with parent company Gibson). Or am I missing something?

[MC]

The obermoog was introduced in 1990.

The moog trademark had elapsed and was not yet owned by Don Martin. Don Martin applied for the trademark in 1992 and ultimately had to submit to bankruptcy liquidation, which was how Bob had acquired it by 2002. That's the other reason it became the OBMx - moog became a trademark owned by somebody else.

Bob Moog and Tom Oberheim had zero collaboration on the OBMx. Moog, Oberheim, and Buchla care not to have any association with the OBMx. It is better thought as a Gibson venture.

[BrianK]

The reason for the (temporary) name was that it had both Oberheim and Moog filters available (at the same time). I had one, and it didn't sound bad - it sounded GREAT at times, and ran rings around things like the Matrix 12 etc. It was far more routable and programmable, and it worked fine for many, many years. It would drift slightly out of tune sometimes, but you could autotune it in a few seconds by hitting that feature. I REALLY REALLY liked using it, but it was better for hard and dirty sounds than clean and sparkly ones. Amazing lead and atmospheric sounds. It was also smart in that you could buy just a 2-voice version (one card) and expand it. I WISH companies still offered such ideas start the system then grow as your budget does, like modular synths. But with MIDI and programmability. Nice idea.

I have owned a lot of synths in my time and consider the OB-Mx to be a winner in a certain style, it's GREAT if you're a diehard programmer. Sad, but had to trade mine for a mixing board.

[Alternative Electronics]

Thanks for all the info!

[FlametopFred]

I used to own an Oberheim SEM that I connected to my Minimoog. I called it the Obermoog. It was great and yielded very cool sounds. They are different sounding and playing, but worked well together. Better than connecting the SEM to my ARP 2600 .. which seemed a little redundant.

[EricK]

MC,
Where do you come up with this stuff?

[MC]

I have a July 1991 Keyboard issue that announced the Obermoo6/OBMx in Music Messe (correction for my post btw)

As for the dismal history behind the OBMx, there used to be a webpage with all that stuff. It was mysteriously taken down (King Henry doesn't like his name sullied) but the rest of the website is intact. I archived that webpage.

[space_nerd]

This OB-MX story is totally horrible.
Luckily I found the pages made by Mary Mason preserved on internet archive.
I was even thinking to make a PDF and share it with my friends and colleagues in my industrial design polytechnic, in an "what kind of boss to avoid" manner.
IMHO, to buy a large stock of components for a prototype system that HADN'T being ready and in working condition, is just plain stupid, to say the least.
You don't have to be an engineer to figure this out

http://web.archive.org/web/200609042212 ... mmary.html

[Kevin Lightner]

They may have been confident in the designers.
Similar to pre-paying for a synth before it's released: the buyers have confidence the company will come through.

There may have been parts with long lead times for delivery, large minimums or other perks provided by the vendors (free shipping, low quantity prices, etc.)
Never know.

I agree that it doesn't appear smart from what's being told, but there may be more to the story or reasons we're not aware of.
Very often I encounter clients that have more money than brains or are so caught up in their emotions about synths that they do irrational things.
And even more often there's a disconnect between people that design and/or build things and people that deal with money, figures and percentages.
To the former, they may have no concept of how much money something will actually take to build.
And the latter may have no concept how difficult it is to bring a good product to market, how long software takes to write, etc.
Many companies have suffered from an inability to conceptualize other's tasks.
The Alesis Andromeda and several Arp products come to mind.
The Polymoog and Memorymoog projects too.
Most good things are harder to do than they appear, imho.

[space_nerd]

Kevin,
you've got a clear point here, surely things aren't black or white, and maybe I was a little bit over the top in my last post
but I read the story thoroughly, and if those decisions had been made from some unexperienced company, this would be more understood.
But they were an industry giant and they were acting without care - also, it's seems like, the people that were working in projects like the OB-8, Xpander or Matrix 12 weren't no longer working in the company to help and pass their knowledge - but I don't know (Marcus Ryle, Michel Doidic and Tom Oberheim himself, weren't)
I mean, if the project was rightly set-up by the start, this would save them time and money.
Anyway, the fact that a lot of people (like Brian Kehew does) use and love their OB-MX's, says a lot
As we use to say with a good friend of mine, "machines shouldn't take the blame for their faults"

[Kevin Lightner]

Perhaps you hit on the main point right there: They were an experienced company and used to doing things a certain way, but took on a project that wasn't their normal business.
Overconfidence? Apathy? I don't know.

It's just kind of tragic because there's a long list of fantastic synths and other projects that come so close to becoming a reality and one small detail or unexpected situation derailed it all.
Happens frequently in film-making too.

... and some people wonder why Moog doesn't just come out with a polyphonic synth. Heh.

[Alternative Electronics]

I never would have though there was so much history behind this synth. Thanks to everyone for their contributions on this thread.

Just one more question - this band I have been in contact with claims their synth is one of "only 3 in the entire Universe" (see their description of their synth here: http://angelspit.net/zoog/?p=188). I take it since you all know so much about it, there can't possibly be only 3 in existence?

[space_nerd]

@ Alternative Electronics:
I 'm still not convinced about this Obermoog modular is related somehow to the OB-MX.
Also, the name 'Obermoog' was the initial name of the OB-MX, for the obvious reason that it had both 'Moog' and 'Oberheim' filters.
I remember reading in Peter Forrest's 'A-Z of analogue synthesisers' books about a custom Oberheim modular, made in Gremany, made of OBXa voice cards or something - I guess this one comes from the same source - the German synth making history is full of mysterious and charming machines, that not much is known about .
So these Oberheim modulars are maybe custom jobs, made by the Oberheim dealer in Germany: the 'Matten & Dirk' firm had some relation with a small company called 'EEH/SYNTEC' - they were making modules and a polysynth (in mid 80's Oberheim style) called the "Banana":
http://www.elektropolis.de/index.htm
http://www.sequencer.de/syns/eeh/Banana.html
There were three (pre-Buchla) prototypes of OB-MX, and each one of them, had different panel graphics - even, one of them hadn't the LCD display