The Official Sequential/Oberheim Forum

OTHER DISCUSSIONS => General Synthesis => Off Topic => Topic started by: musicmaker on December 07, 2018, 08:53:31 PM

Title: What happened to Oberheim ?
Post by: musicmaker on December 07, 2018, 08:53:31 PM
What happened to Marion Systems as well ? All information and products are gone from the website except a front page with the OB-6. Did Oberheim transfer all the rights to Sequential ? Could this mean a long awaited (Sequential) SEM-X Eurorack is in the pipeline but then with some Sequential features ?
Title: Re: What happened to Oberheim ?
Post by: LoboLives on December 08, 2018, 03:33:43 AM
What happened to Marion Systems as well ? All information and products are gone from the website except a front page with the OB-6. Did Oberheim transfer all the rights to Sequential ? Could this mean a long awaited (Sequential) SEM-X Eurorack is in the pipeline but then with some Sequential features ?

Long story short. Tom Oberheim has become so back ordered they had to cease production and cancel a lot of orders submitted. Tom was inspecting every single unit that went out and at over 80 years of age, it's just not feasible for him to do anymore. I was trying to contact them for 9 months in regards to my order for a Two Voice Pro that I had placed and then they said they aren't taking anymore orders and cancelled mine. Unfortunately, they also didn't notify their customers publicly (and apparently still haven't ) and a lot of their distributors weren't even aware of the situation until some customers complained.

I do hope we will see someone help Tom out, stuff like the Two Voice Pro and even the SonOf4Voice are too great to let just slip away. I don't think they've transferred it over to Sequential. Unless Sequential is going to replace their modular stuff with exclusively Oberheim SEM based stuff but I can't see Sequential being large enough to offer both their own gear and Tom's.
Title: Re: What happened to Oberheim ?
Post by: Sacred Synthesis on December 08, 2018, 05:49:00 PM
His website is now virtually a link to Sequential:

http://www.tomoberheim.com/
Title: Re: What happened to Oberheim ?
Post by: LoboLives on December 09, 2018, 11:41:55 AM
His website is now virtually a link to Sequential:

http://www.tomoberheim.com/

Pretty much. The OB6 link always led to Sequential but now since all other products are no longer currently in production, that’s all that’s left. Sad man. I feel bad for going off on his company when my order was cancelled now.
Title: Re: What happened to Oberheim ?
Post by: dslsynth on December 09, 2018, 01:12:58 PM
Let wait and see what happens. It could be everything from Tom finding a good business partner continuing the production to a well known "commercial problem" doing what it usually do. Lets hope that Tom Oberheim's products reenters the market in a constructive way possibly even produced in more affordable ways.
Title: Re: What happened to Oberheim ?
Post by: LoboLives on December 10, 2018, 06:10:21 AM
Let wait and see what happens. It could be everything from Tom finding a good business partner continuing the production to a well known "commercial problem" doing what it usually do. Lets hope that Tom Oberheim's products reenters the market in a constructive way possibly even produced in more affordable ways.

I was told by Perfect Circuit Audio it would be a two or three year hiatus.
Title: Re: What happened to Oberheim ?
Post by: Sleep of Reason on December 10, 2018, 08:44:04 AM
I was told by Perfect Circuit Audio it would be a two or three year hiatus.

Two to three years is quite a long time at 82 years of age. Regardless, hopefully Tom made enough in his distinguished career to be able to live in leisure.

As for possibly bringing back his products without him, I don't see much of a point in rehashing the instruments of yesteryear, but maybe that's just me. I think it would be more fruitful to keep his voice cards alive in new and hopefully improved instruments.
Title: Re: What happened to Oberheim ?
Post by: LoboLives on December 10, 2018, 10:23:24 AM
I was told by Perfect Circuit Audio it would be a two or three year hiatus.

Two to three years is quite a long time at 82 years of age. Regardless, hopefully Tom made enough in his distinguished career to be able to live in leisure.

As for possibly bringing back his products without him, I don't see much of a point in rehashing the instruments of yesteryear, but maybe that's just me. I think it would be more fruitful to keep his voice cards alive in new and hopefully improved instruments.

Yeah that's what I thought as well but who knows Perfect Circuit Audio may have just been told that.

Well it's not like his new synths were direct copies of his original ones. They had a lot more features added and also included the best step sequencer I've played built into an analog synth.
Title: Re: What happened to Oberheim ?
Post by: Sleep of Reason on December 10, 2018, 12:02:48 PM
Sure, you get the patch panel and what not, but I would much prefer a mod matrix anyhow. Plus not having savable patches in this day and age seems absurd. Just imagine a modern Matrix 12 with the SEM-based sound cards and more knobs. Boom.
Title: Re: What happened to Oberheim ?
Post by: LoboLives on December 10, 2018, 05:58:36 PM
Sure, you get the patch panel and what not, but I would much prefer a mod matrix anyhow. Plus not having savable patches in this day and age seems absurd. Just imagine a modern Matrix 12 with the SEM-based sound cards and more knobs. Boom.

Well, I guess with the ARP Odyssey, Moog Model D, Grandmother and quite a few other synths with no memory it’s not a huge deal when a Monophonic or Duophonic synth doesn’t have it because you can change it fairly quickly. The key on the TVS Pro was the sequencer and you could save sequences and songs on flash cards.