In his latest mini-documentary, synthesist Alex Ball shares his take on the story of Oberheim Electronics, founded by Tom Oberheim in 1969.
Ball discusses how Tom Oberheim’s ring modulator design led to it being featured on the soundtrack to Beneath The Planet Of The Apes, which led to more interest in his designs, and to the start of Oberheim’s company.
The video explores the evolution of Oberheim’s products in the ’70s and ’80s, covering many of the most influential electronic instruments ever made.
Topics covered:
0:00 Intro
1:31 Tom Oberheim
2:55 The 60s and 70s
24:08 The 80s
39:48 The Gibson Era
43:17 The Return
52:07 End Credits
Ball gives a shout out to Tom Oberheim, Marcus Ryle, Anthony Marinelli, Dave Spiers and TC, who contributed to the making of the documentary.
What this documentary doesn’t discuss is the horrible things Gibson did while owning Oberheim. A group in Oberheim developed a groundbreaking synthesis technology called F.A.R. Synthesis (Fourier Analysis and Resynthesis). It had the potential to do things no other keyboard could do. Thanks to Henry J. President of Gibson at the time, Gibson stupidly killed the project while managing to harass Lynx Crowe, the genius behind it. Gibson is forever the enemy of keyboardists and the synthesizer world. I rejoice that Gibson recently lost protecting the 335 guitar shape in court.