Details
The OB-6 is a result of unique collaboration between two legends in the synth industry, Dave Smith and Tom Oberheim.
The chart-topping Oberheim sound is here in the OB-6, a 6-voice analog poly synth, marrying Tom’s engineering artistry with Dave Smith’s modern instrument design, adding more control, more nuance and more sonic flexibility than ever before.
A Modern Take on a Classic Sound
The chart-topping Oberheim sound is here in the OB-6, a 6-voice analog poly synth, marrying Tom’s engineering artistry with Dave Smith’s modern instrument design, adding more control, more nuance and more sonic flexibility than ever before. The OB-6 takes the classic bold Tom Oberheim sound — with its true voltage-controlled oscillators, 2-pole filter, and amplifiers — and adds modern enhancements such as studio-quality effects, a polyphonic step sequencer, an arpeggiator, and more.
Easy to Program and Play
OB-6 includes 500 factory preset programs, ready to tweak and save in 500 rewritable user program slots. Quickly move from inspiration to creation, using your latest and greatest sounds. The knob-per-function front panel puts virtually all OB-6 functions at your fingertips. Turning on the Manual button enables live panel mode, in which the sound of the OB-6 switches to its current front panel settings. In this state, what you see is what you hear. The OB-6 features X-Mod, which expands the tonal palette and makes it easy to create dramatic and unconventional sounds. Modulation sources are filter envelope and oscillator 2, both with bi-polar control. Destinations include oscillator 1 frequency, oscillator 1 shape, oscillator 1 pulse width, filter cutoff, and filter mode.
The polyphonic step sequencer allows up to 64 steps and up to 6 notes per step. You can create sequences polyphonically, with rests, and sync to an external MIDI clock. The full-featured arpeggiator can be synced to external MIDI clock as well. Unison mode features configurable voice count (1-6 voices), chord memory, and key modes. This analog powerhouse is packed into a four-octave, semi-weighted keyboard with velocity and channel aftertouch, making it perfect for stage or studio.
Specifications:
- Two discrete VCOs per voice with continuously variable wave shapes (sawtooth and variable-width pulse, plus triangle on oscillator 2)
- Hard sync: oscillator 1 syncs to oscillator 2
- Square wave sub-octave generator (oscillator 1) per voice
- Low frequency mode (oscillator 2)
- Keyboard tracking on/off (oscillator 2)
- Oscillator detune amount for increased tuning instability, from subtle to extreme
- White noise amount
- Two-pole, resonant, filter per voice with low-pass, high-pass, band-pass, and notch functionality inspired by the original Oberheim SEM filter
- X-MOD Sources: filter envelope (bi-polar) and oscillator 2 (bi-polar)
- X-MOD Destinations: oscillator 1 frequency, oscillator 1 shape, oscillator 1 pulse width, filter cutoff, filter mode, normal to bandpass filter
- Four-stage (ADSR) Filter envelope generator with velocity
- Four-stage (ADSR) Amplitude envelope generator with velocity
- One synchronizable LFO with five wave shapes: sine, sawtooth, reverse sawtooth, square, and random (sample and hold)
- LFO Mod destinations: oscillator 1 frequency, oscillator 2 frequency, oscillator 1 and 2 pulse width, filter cutoff, filter mode, amp
- Synchronizable master clock with tap tempo
- Arpeggiator and polyphonic step sequencer with up to 64 steps and rests
- Stereo analog distortion
- Dual, 24-bit, 48 kHz digital effects, including: reverb (room, hall, plate, spring), synchronizable delay (full bandwidth digital delay and emulated bucket brigade), chorus, flanger, phase shifters, and ring modulator
- True bypass maintains fully analog signal path when digital effects are off
- Full-sized, semi-weighted, 4-octave keyboard with velocity and aftertouch
- Backlit pitch and mod wheels
- Spring-loaded pitch wheel with selectable range per program (1 to 12 semitones up and down)
- Transpose controls for an 8-octave range
- Hold switch latches held notes on
- Manual switch: when on, the front panel is live; what you see is what you hear
- Polyphonic portamento
- Unison (monophonic) mode with configurable voice count, from one to all six voices, chord memory, and key modes
- 500 user and 500 factory programs in 10 banks of 100 programs each
- Direct program access, including single-button access to the current set of 10 programs
- 8” L x 12.7” W x 4.6″ H (80.7 cm x 32.3 cm x 11.7 cm)
- 20 lbs (9.5 kg)
- Walnut end panels
IN/OUTS
- Left/mono and right audio outputs (2 x 1/4” phone jack)
- Headphone output (stereo, 1/4” phone jack)
- MIDI In, Out, Thru
- USB for bidirectional MIDI communication
- Filter cutoff expression pedal input
- Volume expression pedal input
- Sustain footswitch input
- Sequencer start/stop footswitch input
- IEC AC power inlet for internal power supply (Operates worldwide on voltages between 100 and 240 volts at 50 to 60 Hz; 30 watts maximum power consumption)