This is a sound programmed on the Oberheim OB-8 using the oscillator sync mode. I set each oscillator to the pulse wave, enabled sync, then modulated the frequency of the synched oscillator. This made a very rich sound and when I viewed it on the oscilloscope I saw these crazy animated castle walls going by. I used my Nexus One to shoot the screen then added in the recorded audio so you can properly hear how it sounded.
I recently acquired the temporary use of a beautiful Oberheim OB-8 complete with the official Oberheim MIDI modification. My friend Chuck Love is temporarily using one of my electro-mechanical favorites, the Musitronic Wurlitzer, and in exchange he has allowed me to setup his OB-8 in my studio.
The machine is in excellent condition and sounds amazing. I did run into what might be a minor calibration issue. Four of the eight voices are significantly louder than the others. Fortunately I discovered a workaround to solve this problem for recording purposes.
Each voice on the OB-8 can be panned left or right. I panned the four louder voices to the right and the quieter ones to the left, then adjusted the gain on my input levels while watching the oscilloscope until they matched. Finally I used the Utility plugin in Ableton live to reduce the width of the panning so that the voices weren’t jumping hard left and right constantly. This makes the instrument much more consistant and nicer to play.
Here’s an excerpt from a seven minute experiment I did today by sending the MIDI from Ableton’s arpeggiator to the OB-8 while manually adjusting the filter and envelopes during the recording.
Arpeggiated Oberheim OB-8 Demo
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In continuing my analogue synthesized study of the Japanese reed instrument called a shō, I have played and recorded the traditional chords for the instrument using my programmed version. This brief composition is a sequence of the traditional chords Otsu, Bi, Ichi, Kotsu, and Hi.
After pre-recording the chords I set them up with triggers on separate tracks then played them so that they overlap creating dense and eerie harmonics during the transitions.
Shō Composition
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I extracted this bendy mono-synth line from a collaborative project that I’m working on then soaked it in loads of reverb and delay before presenting it here.
Bendy Mono Synth
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Plucky Arpeggio
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