Tom Oberheim Demonstrates His New Two Voice Pro Synthesizer

This video captures a visit by Tom Oberheim to deliver one of his new Oberheim Two Voice Pro synthesizers.

Oberheim drops by the home of SF Bay area musician Mikael Johnston to deliver Mikael’s new Two-Voice synthesizer, and gives us a tour of the synth and his design philosophy in the process.

Oberheim Two Voice Pro Features:

  • Mini-Sequencer is enhanced – you still generate a sequence with the knobs ( up to 16 positions ) but you can store sequences from the knobs into flash memory
  • Two sequences can be played simultaneously (or play one sequence while also playing on the keyboard, like the old one)
  • After sequences are stored in flash memory, you can edit them to add 2-way, 3-way or 4-way ratcheting and you can program the gate length from zero (like a rest) up to almost the complete step length
  • Sequences can be chained into songs, and each step in a song can be programmed for sequence number, transpose amount and number of repeats
  • Sequencer syncs to Midi Clock
  • Keyboard outputs velocity and pressure
  • Each module (both SEMs, Mini-Sequencer, Keyboard Control) has mini-jack patch points (56 patchpoints)
  • Pitch and Modulation wheels
  • Pan pots
  • Headphone output
  • Separate Vibrato LFO

The U.S. price of the new Oberheim Two Voice Pro is $3495. See Oberheim’s site for details.

via keyboardmag1

16 thoughts on “Tom Oberheim Demonstrates His New Two Voice Pro Synthesizer”

  1. Great video… really helped me understand some of the sequencing and other functions I was not aware of. I’d pick a 2 voice over a voyager any day.

    On a side note, I wonder how many of these will actually be made. Tom isn’t getting any younger (I wish him perfect health and a long life) and I don’t think most people understand what a monster synth this is (or the history behind it).

    I really want to scoop one of these up before they stop being made.

    1. something to note though, Goku,
      the originals were made of discrete components too! (with the exception of the Env ICs in the FVS programmer, but that isn’t nevcessarily useful / needed…) This means that the originals will be around for a long time as well, and be just as awesome! The price for them is surprisingly low in comparison to the inflation for other synths (you can get a TVS for $3000-5000 or so). No need to stress I suppose, plenty of Oberheim love to go around!

  4. This and the Schmidt are the only two synths that are in a league of their own. Nothing else can get anywhere near to them.

  7. Mr. Oberheim has continued to use ADS envelopes on the new SEM instead of ADSR envelopes. The new version of the MiniMoog, the Voyager, corrects that problem, which was also true of the original MiniMoog (ADS enevlopes). No thanks, Tom, I would rather have a Moog.

    1. That’s true. It’s not a dealbreaker if you’re using the SEM with patch points, and use a eurorack envelope generator — you can patch it directly to the SEM’s VCA. Or just consider the SEM as a separate dual-osc and filter. But you’re right – it is a little frustrating to have ADS vs. ADSR.

  9. Hey folks, you might want to just buy a pair of the (new) Tom Oberheim SEMS: the pro model with MIDI and patch points. Add a midipal for handling the logic of duophony, and you’re off to the races. Cost about 2.5K. The 2-voice looks great if you need a keyboard. But if you have a decent midi keyboard already and are short of space, a pair of SEMs is more cost effective.

  10. Nice Job Tom…… the duo tones and small polyphony synths are here.perhaps to endure… They mocked the timbre wolf….scoffed at moog if to have or not
    to have a synth that was not monophonic…I say…as if I can not stand the pleasure# mysic):ll

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