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Behringer OB-Xa


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If the Oscillators can be matched that's a big plus.

DM12 I bought was a great synth for Filters and polyphony, certainly making my son very happy.

I loved all of the features, especially HPF Boost.

But the Oscillators just didn't punch enough to replace my SE-1s.

 

The only 2 Oscillator hardware synths I ever liked were Oberheims.

ARP Odyssey gets great sounds but I much preferred Minimoog and 2600S because 3 Oscillators make a big difference.

OBX was the fattest 2 Oscillator synth I owned.

Which is why I'm on a short list for a Relic 6.

 

If Ulli B. can get the Oberheims Oscillator dialed in it would be great.

He definitely has Filters capable enough.

 

Hope it isn't as big as th Xa.

Magnus C350 + FMR RNP + Realistic Unisphere Mic
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If the poor quality of past Behringer products is any indicator, I'm a big skeptic. There's a REASON why their products are cheap.

 

Their latest stuff is pretty robust. My x-air 12 mixer, and one of our sound engineers X-air XR18 mixer's are solid, and just plain work.

 

My older 1602 rack line mixer is also solid. Never failed me in three years of gigging.

 

Yeah, their older stuff was always hit or miss. I concur a lot of it was crappy.

 

They really have come around.

David

Gig Rig:Casio Privia PX-5S | Yamaha MODX+ 6 | MacBook Pro 14" M1| Mainstage

 

 

 

 

 

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It will be interesting to see how the DM holds up. Will their history continue, or will they be like Peavey and turn it around. I remember the late 80's when everything Peavey made sounded like it had a blanket over the speakers but sold because they were cheap and carried by all of the stores. Now they make some respectable amps and even a respectable electric bass guitar. Maybe Behringer will turn it around with respectable mixers and synths.

This post edited for speling.

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From the link:

 

"Originally released in 1980, the OB-Xa is a large analog synthesizer with a distinctive Oberheim sound. It can be compared sonically to the Prophet 5 from Sequential Circuits. "

 

WRONG.

 

RIGHT! It's large, it's distinctive sounding and yes, it can be compared to a Prophet 5...or any other synth for that matter. You can even compare it to mushroom brie on a cracker.

:keys:

 

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It will be interesting to see how the DM holds up. Will their history continue, or will they be like Peavey and turn it around. I remember the late 80's when everything Peavey made sounded like it had a blanket over the speakers but sold because they were cheap and carried by all of the stores. Now they make some respectable amps and even a respectable electric bass guitar. Maybe Behringer will turn it around with respectable mixers and synths.

 

Well the X32 family of mixers is a great example of turning it around. Solid, affordable and good sounding.

Montage 7, Mojo 61, PC-3, XK-3c Pro, Kronos 88, Hammond SK-1, Motif XF- 7, Hammond SK-2, Roland FR-1, FR-18, Hammond B3 - Blond, Hammond BV -Cherry
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My OBXa is in the garage... blows a fuse on power-up. Someday I might get to it. But most repair places claim that these old beasts need major $$ rehab... like all new caps on the voice boards.

 

If my basketcase OBX is any indication, they need a lot more than that.

 

Interesting read - thanks! Curious, why does the CA3080 OTA come up as hard to acquire and expensive when I see multiple listings like this?? Are these different not being the original RCA type?

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Curious, why does the CA3080 OTA come up as hard to acquire and expensive when I see multiple listings like this?? Are these different not being the original RCA type?

 

Ebay is a cesspool of counterfeit parts, and the 3080 is a popular one to counterfeit. Caveat Emptor.

 

You can use a brand new 13700 as a dual 3080, just omit the predistortion bias and output driver and it is functionally (although not pin-for-pin replacement) the same as a 3080.

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I have a bunch of CA3080s in storage that I bought over the years for projects I was going to build and never got to. I also have an envelop of CLM6000's that I acquired some years back for the same reason.

Dan

 

Acoustic/Electric stringed instruments ranging from 4 to 230 strings, hammered, picked, fingered, slapped, and plucked. Analog and Digital Electronic instruments, reeds, and throat/mouth.

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I used to have an OB-X but what are we going to do with these replicas? Are you going to take them on gigs?

It was a good polysynth but no good for leads. Plus, mine was out of tune all the time as well.

Korg Kronos, Roland RD-88, Korg Kross, JP8000, MS2000, Sequential Pro One, Micromoog, Yamaha VL1, author of unrealBook for iPad.

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I used to have an OB-X but what are we going to do with these replicas? Are you going to take them on gigs?

It was a good polysynth but no good for leads. Plus, mine was out of tune all the time as well.

 

Play Jump?

Dan

 

Acoustic/Electric stringed instruments ranging from 4 to 230 strings, hammered, picked, fingered, slapped, and plucked. Analog and Digital Electronic instruments, reeds, and throat/mouth.

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I used to have an OB-X but what are we going to do with these replicas? Are you going to take them on gigs?

It was a good polysynth but no good for leads. Plus, mine was out of tune all the time as well.

 

Play Jump?

 

Might as well.

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>Play Jump?

 

Been there, done that.

 

BTW that free OB-X plugin found on the web sounds pretty good!

 

After I bought my OB-X used, I called Oberheim to get 2 more voice cards and was told - the OB-X is OBSOLETE, we have the OB-XA now. Yet they didn't have a problem selling me voice cards for $400 each. Or was it $600???

 

Korg Kronos, Roland RD-88, Korg Kross, JP8000, MS2000, Sequential Pro One, Micromoog, Yamaha VL1, author of unrealBook for iPad.

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mine was out of tune all the time as well.

 

The OBX does have its comedy of errors that contributed to tuning problems. Among them were cheap and nasty open frame trimpots, inferior opamps, circuit design errors, and the base which happened to flex which cracked the solder joints on the voicecard pins on the motherboard.

 

When I finished the full-bore restoration on my OBX and corrected all the faults, it was actually the most stable in-tune polysynth in my arsenal - doesn't even need a warm-up! It stays in tune better than any of my (also restored) CEM3340-equipped polysynths - Memorymoog, OBSX.

 

It was a good polysynth but no good for leads.

 

You probably had one of the early ones which used CA3240 opamps in the glide circuits. These opamps would go bad in a way that when you turned up the glide, the voices would go out of tune.

 

Early ones also didn't have consistent glide rates between voices due to variances in the CA3080s in the glide circuits. The glide rates could be WAY off. Oberheim matched the 3080s in later OBX but they still weren't perfect. Some consider this "imperfection" a "feature", as imperfect glide rates could really fatten up the sound. Oberheim even duplicated this "imperfection" when they introduced digital glide in the OBSX.

 

A properly restored OBX is a goliath lead synth. You can get it down to one or two voices using the pan pots and an A/B footswitch.

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I haven't seen anything regarding re-issue of the CEM3360, which the OBXa uses. Wonder if Behringer is planning for this.

 

Or the CEM3310... or the CEM3320... among other long obsolete ICs.

 

Spear Electronics is going to have an easier time replicating the OBX - and he's already built two.

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>A properly restored OBX is a goliath lead synth. You can get it down to one or two voices using the pan pots and an A/B footswitch.

 

Possibly. I used to use my OB-1's for this, but they are both broken now. Will be a major pain to debug!

Korg Kronos, Roland RD-88, Korg Kross, JP8000, MS2000, Sequential Pro One, Micromoog, Yamaha VL1, author of unrealBook for iPad.

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I think it's really slimy of Behringer to reproduce an Oberheim synth while Tom Oberheim is still alive and well and making Oberheim synths. It's just wrong. If they worked with him like Dave did that would be another story, but to just copy his work is really lame. It's disappointing, because I was really hoping for something like this to come out from Tom because, while I like the OB6, I was hoping for more voices, but I can't see giving Behringer my money for a direct ripoff. At least the DM is dramatically different from the Juno it was inspired from.
1974 Rhodes, CP70B, Polivoks, Dominion 1, Behringer D, Mother 32, DFAM, MS20 Mini, Folktek Mescaline, Nord Lead 2x, KArp Odyssey, Jv1080, Digitakt, Hydrasynth,
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> but I can't see giving Behringer my money for a direct ripoff.

 

Welcome to the music industry. Maybe you weren't aware but MXR, ROSS all types of pedal makers copied each other freely. There are so many "versions" of a tube screamer, it boggles the mind. This type of copying is similar and has been going on for a long time. Not to mention guitars, amps etc....

Korg Kronos, Roland RD-88, Korg Kross, JP8000, MS2000, Sequential Pro One, Micromoog, Yamaha VL1, author of unrealBook for iPad.

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I know. I get it. But it just feels different when it's something as legendary as an Iberheim synth. A pedal or an amp doesn't seem quite as bad. I know that logic isn't sound. But the fact that Behringer could sell this very cheaply like they want to do with the mini clone could mean People may not want to buy Oberheim synths from Tom if they can get them at a fraction of the price from Behringer. It could put Tom out of business. Taking a man's life's work and selling a knockoff on the cheap while he is still alive selling his own products is just yucky.
1974 Rhodes, CP70B, Polivoks, Dominion 1, Behringer D, Mother 32, DFAM, MS20 Mini, Folktek Mescaline, Nord Lead 2x, KArp Odyssey, Jv1080, Digitakt, Hydrasynth,
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> but I can't see giving Behringer my money for a direct ripoff.

 

Welcome to the music industry. Maybe you weren't aware but MXR, ROSS all types of pedal makers copied each other freely. There are so many "versions" of a tube screamer, it boggles the mind. This type of copying is similar and has been going on for a long time. Not to mention guitars, amps etc....

 

The difference is the other copycats made copies that WORKED.

 

Behringer doesn't have a stellar history with products that work.

 

Too many stores opened brand new Behringer products that didn't work out of the box, so they stopped carrying them.

 

The ones that did work out of the box would eventually break in the hands of the customers, too many customers tried to dump their broken Behringer gear, word got around and nobody would buy them so stores stopped taking used Behringer gear on consignment because they were worthless.

 

The ones that get sent to be repaired stay broken because repair techs either can't get parts, or they got tired of fighting Behringer for reimbursement of their labor rates for warranty repairs so repair shops stopped accepting repairs on Behringer gear.

 

What good is copycat gear if it doesn't work new out of the box, doesn't stay working, are worthless on the used market, and you can't repair them?

 

I won't give any of my money to a chronic plagiarist who sells landfill fodder. I don't buy into the argument that Behringer has turned around because I have been lied to too many times.

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