For the sake of completeness, the factory MIDI should be mentioned.
It did sysex dumps too in addition to the cassette. Naturally at the time no names could be saved, which is difficult obviously, but MIDI meant single patches could be shuffled into a better organised layout. I used Voyetra on a Toshiba luggable orange screened 286 running at 12MHz.
Downhill with the wind behind it, even days only.
Factory MIDI OB8
Brilliant.
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For a while I had 2 to try to recreate my OBXa warbly slightly random thickening, but that wasn't really successful.
I replaced the second OB8 with another OBXa eventually, and OB8 and OBXa were a fine combination, but a bit excessive size-wise.
2 OBXas were better while they both worked. I know where both of them are and neither work at the moment.
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When I got a DX7 the OB8 wouldn't MIDI to/from it, and Synth Service Centre had a re-written OS set that fixed that, I think it was based on the last known good version, plus the fixes they had done, and had an X suffix, I suppose for DX7 compatability. Maybe it was some active sensing issue, the DX7 was a bit odd.
David Croft was probably the originator.
MIDI clocking of arpeggiator
I used to use the DMX jack output myself.
I miss the OB8 now, it does really good small round sounds, like the Matrix 1000 but better, and the Brass was very crisp but not too bright.
Also it was lighter to carry and it stayed in tune, like all the later Oberheims.
From:
John <evening@...>
To:
oberheim@yahoogroups.com
Sent:
Friday, 27 January 2012, 15:07
Subject:
[oberheim] OB8 midi retrofit - recommendations/opinions
Just picked up an OB8 w/o midi.
And I'm looking at the Kenton and Encore retrofit kits.
The Kenton offers a dedicated volume & filter CCs while the Encore offers sysex patch transfer.
Let me know your experiences of either model, or if you know of another option.