So I went to Moog Audio today and tried out the Tom Oberheim Two Voice Pro. My thoughts:
First and foremost it’s a beautiful instrument, they had the new Black version which was nice (I’d still prefer the white version) and it seems pretty robust. Key word: Seems.
The SEMs themselves seems fairly sturdy (the slim fine tune knob has quite a bit of wobble) but the sequencer buttons and volume knobs were incredibly tiny and cheap feeling. Shocking on a synth with this price point.
Then I tried the pitch and mod wheels...neither worked...nor did the transpose buttons. The staff came over and confirmed that there was something wrong and they would have to fix it. The A440 on one of the SEMs wasn’t working not was an LFO on one of the SEMs. Something else they said they’ll look into. The A440that did work seemed off...I had to really crank the VCO frequency to match it...usually it should be around the middle for standard tuning but this seemed unusually high.
The sequencer is clunky but it probably has to do with me being unfamiliar with it. Switching between modes (Unison, split, SEM A first, re-trigger-some which weren’t working) is awkward. Editing the sequencer on the fly in terms of adding ratchets, rests is awkward too.
Overall the sound was amazing but I just wasn’t getting the sound I wanted totally but that’s probably due to the transpose knobs. The sequencer is great (probably the best on board sequencer built into a synth I’ve tried) but still needs some getting used to.
The sound does sound massive when cranked but it does take some getting used to when creating patches...it’s tuning is incredibly precise and just a mile second off and the thing is out of tune and not in a good way.
The sound Is historic but creating patches takes longer than it needs to be and some of the build quality is lacking and for a synth at this price point that really shouldn’t be the case. I also couldn’t believe the amount of things not operating properly. It’s a $5000 Synth it shouldn’t be so sensitive or clunky especially with an estimated 6-8 month waiting period. Come on. I get Tom isn’t a young man but these things need to be tested properly...especially at that price point.
I’m going to order the ARPs and I’ll seriously have to consider about this investment. Everyone kept saying “it’s one of a kind, you’ll never get it again”...but that could be said about a Yamaha CS80 or Prophet 10, do I really want to spend thousand on something that may not be that reliable?