Oberheim

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Oberheim Electronics is a company, founded in 1973 by Tom Oberheim (a former design engineer at Maestro), which manufactured audio synthesizers and a variety of other electronic musical instruments. Originally a manufacturer of electronic effects devices, and briefly an ARP Instruments dealer, Oberheim went on to create several ground-breaking products in the early days of synthesizers and electronic music including the DS-2 (one of the first analogue music sequencers) and the Synthesizer Expansion Module (SEM). The first commercially available polyphonic synthesizers, Oberheims Two-voice, Four-voice, and Eight-voice configurations were based on these modules.

The Two-voice synthesizer included a two channel voltage controlled sequencer, and the Four-voice and Eight-voice machines included a rudimentary Programmer, capable of recalling sound settings.

Oberheim's later synths like the OB-X and OB-Xa abandoned the relatively bulky SEMs in favor of individual voice cards, and common cabinetry and power supplies. Oberheim continued to make synthesizers until the late 1980s. Other notable Oberheim synthesizers include the OB-1 (monophonic), the OB-8, the Xpander, the Matrix-6, the Matrix-12, and the Matrix 1000.

Oberheim closed its doors in 1986, when it was acquired by Gibson Guitar Corporation, a larger musical instrument manufacturer (who, incidentally, also owned the Maestro brand).

The trade mark was later licensed to Viscount International SpA, an Italian digital-organ producer, by Gibson. Viscount developed in a few years various instruments that were very innovative for the time and are still requested: the digital synth Oberheim OB12, the guitar DSP GM-1000 with lot of effects, the MC series of master keyboards, and the OB3², a portable and inexpensive imitation of the popular Hammond series of organs.