Oberheim family of products - The System, Keyboard 1982

Oberheim family of products aka 'The System', including the OB-Xa and OB-SX synthesizers, the DSX digital sequencer and the DMX digital drum machine from page 7 of Keyboard Magazine June 1982.

My recent blog posts have been about "The System" - but those posts were all about the Oberheim 1983 System which included the OB-8 synthesizer.

Here is an ad featuring the older version of "The Oberheim Performance System" circa 1982. *THIS* is the system I dream about at night. I drool every time I look at it.

I not only drool because of the gear-nerd that I am, but also because the marketing guy in me knows a good thing when he sees it. This ad documents the point in time that Oberheim's marketing department finally started to push the concept that "the whole is greater than the sum of it's parts".

Oberheim knew these pieces looked good together. Oberheim knew they sounded great together. They just needed to be tied together into one... cool... slick... package...

And The System is born!

I also dig these earlier Oberheim ads because they feature these particular pieces of gear. And knowing when the OB-Xa, DMX and DSX started showing up in ads helps give us a good idea of just how long the tech *behind* the Oberheim system had been around before MIDI made it's commercial breakthrough.

Before doing research, I was thinking ---> This ad started showing up in June 1982? The first MIDI synth came along shortly after in 1983. Bah!

True. But as it turns out the the actual technology behind "The System" was available long before this first ad.

I started looking back at old issues of Keyboard to see just how far back the technology went, and, even more interesting to me, how Oberheim positioned these pieces before "The System" as a whole made an appearance.

I found one of the earlier direct mentions of the multi-pin connector back in the June 1981 Keyboard review for the OB-Xa. The interface is mentioned very briefly in the description of the rear panel, where Dominic Milano writes that the owner's manual explains it "is for interfacing the instrument with future Oberheim products".

Not only is "The System" not mentioned yet, but there isn't even a brief mention of the DSX or DMX, which is strange because....

Just a month later in the July 1981 issue, Oberheim began running a two-page advertisement for the DSX Digital Polyphonic Sequencer and DMX Programmable Digital Drum Machine. The photo in the ad has the two featured products up front, and shaded out in the background is the OB-Xa synthesizer. This is the first sighting I've found of the three pieces together.

There is a lot of ad-copy in this two-pager, including one brief bullet point on the DSX's side mentioning that the DSX sequencer "interfaces directly with the OB-X, OB-SX and OB-Xa and the new DMX".

The ad-copy still doesn't mention "The System", but it does end the ad by mentioning how great the three separate pieces of gear work with each other

"The OB-Xa, DSX and DMX are amazing by themselves, but together... watch out!"

The next month in the August 1981 issue, the DMX and DSX show up in the Spec Sheet section of Keyboard. Again, there is only a brief mention that with the DSX, "direct interface is possible with the Oberheim OB-X, OB-SX, and OB-Xa synthesizers and DMX drum machine". (I'll save the full text of the Spec Sheet for another day - another ad :o)

But, still no direct mention of "The System". Come on, Oberheim marketing guys - MIDI is getting closer and closer to launch!

And in the January and February 1982 issues, Oberheim runs another two-page ad featuring the the updated OB-Xa with 120 programs. Again - only a brief mention that "The OB-Xa is interfaceable with Oberheim's DMX Digital Drum machine and DSX Digital Polyphonic Sequencer".

Is 'interfaceable' even a word? I guess I've used worse...

But, gah! It's been almost a year since Oberheim started putting these three pieces together in ads, and the Marketing Department still hasn't turned it into "System" gold!

And then, a few months later... BAM!

In the June 1982 issue of Keyboard ("The New Synthesizer Rock" issue with Michael MacNeil of Simple Minds playing an Oberheim OB-Xa on the cover - sweeeeet!), we finally have this first "The System" ad on page 7, directly across from the "Letters to the Editor" section. Great real estate!

And what a beauty it is. These three pieces of gear look great together, all wrapped up snuggly in their "System" marketing package. Seriously.

So, although it took until June 1982 to finally call this 'The System' in advertisements, Oberheim obviously had the system in mind since at least June 1981. And if you take into account that I probably didn't catch the first documented instance of the tech, and the fact that the development of the OB-Xa started much earlier... then Oberheim probably beat out MIDI by more that two years.

Nice work, Oberheim.

Oberheim 'The System' rebate advertisement, Keyboard 1984

Oberheim 'The System' rebate advertisement, including OB-8 synthesizer, DSX sequencer, DMX drum machine, and Model 700 amplifier from page 22 of Keyboard Magazine January 1984.

What a great ad. What a great font with "REBATE" spanning to width of the page!

At a time when most of the big synthesizer companies were churning out full-colour ditties with fantastic photography, Oberheim gets reader's attention with a full-on black and white all-text ad. Including '$500 cash' in big bold letters doesn't hurt either.

My last blog post featured Oberheim's first 'The System' advertisement. It started running in keyboard in late 1983 through to early 1984 - and this rebate advertisement started running along with it for a few issues during the holidays. Oberheim even had the two ads appearing across from each other in the February issue (last page and back-inside cover page). This stark, clean rebate ad on one side, and that gorgeous photography of 'The System' on the other.

And, you gotta admit, Oberheim gear *is* gorgeous. Along with being relatively easy to learn and use ('clear and logical' was how Jim Aikin described it - more on Jim's views below...). And every Oberheim synthesizer I've come across has been built like a tank.

As stated in this advertisement, "...as we all know, the best tools are never cheap".

So, $500 off a full Oberheim system is a nice little holiday treat. Considering that together, the OB-8, DSX and DMX cost a little over $9,000 at the time, that's a good five or six per cent discount.

I have to keep reminding myself that I can't think of this $500-off deal in today's terms, where five or six percent wouldn't even make it into that coupon book your little sister is selling for her school fund-raiser. Back then, synthesizer price-points were much higher and there were far fewer bedroom musicians around expecting a great deal every time they walked into their local music store. Plus, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say if you were buying $9,000 worth of gear back in 1984, you were probably doing okay as a musician, or were seriously thinking you were going to be doing okay in the near future. So, $500 off is icing on an already really delicious cake.

Jim Aikin reviewed all three pieces of the Oberheim system - the OB-8, DSX, and DMX - in the April 1983 issue of Keyboard, interestingly, months and months before any of 'The System' advertisements started to appear.

Right at the beginning of the article, Jim makes a great observation, comparing this new breed of synthesizers, drum machines and sequencers to individual modules of a modular synthesizer of old:

"A number of manufacturers are getting into the business of building whole lines of "modules" that are designed to be electronically compatible, and that are hooked together with patch cords. The difference is that the "modules" are no longer simple things like oscillators or filters; they 're complete musical instruments and accessories, each with its own complex internal structure. "

I know I sound like a parrot, but let's remember, back before MIDI, it was hard to get everything to work together nicely (hence the existence of the Doctor Click :o)

And this historical reality is also reflected in Jim's review:

"You might be able to cobble together similar units by three different manufacturers and get them to talk to one another, but there might be a lot of headaches involved in getting them all operating smoothly and predictably. The people at Oberheim have gone to a lot of trouble to eliminate the headaches... the advantages of having an integrated setup should be obvious."

And apparently the $9000 price tag was worth it at the time. You can't get half-way through the intro without realizing that Jim was very impressed with the system, and in the conclusion of the article states as much:

"The System is in many ways a remarkable set of equipment. It's materially more advanced in design than the kind of hardware we were dealing with only a couple of years ago, and the musical potential is correspondingly great."

But, here's the thing. Well, two things.

1. The article doesn't mention MIDI. Not even once. Companies have already agreed on the MIDI specs and the Prophet-600 advertisements have been out for a couple of months already. I guess I have to keep reminding myself that MIDI still wasn't a 'sure thing' at this point, and history has shown that there has been a a lot of good 'universal' technology that had missed the boat and not taken up by the masses. Maybe Jim was just trying to keep the article from getting even more complicated than it already was.

2. Could that rebate offer be partly due to the pressure Oberheim must have been feeling as MIDI inched it's way forward? As pointed out in the previous blog post, certain individuals at Oberheim were apparently a little on the anti-MIDI side earlier in MIDI's development phase. They had spent a lot of money and time coming up with their own proprietary technology.

I better stop before the conspiracist in me starts rambling.

And, for the record, I *heart* Oberheim.

Oberheim family of products - The System, Keyboard 1983

Oberheim family of products aka 'The System', including the DX and DMX digital drum machines, DSX digital sequencer, OB-8 synthesizer and 700 professional amplifier from page 59 of Keyboard Magazine October 1983.

'The System' - sound familiar? It should.

Because Oberheim was already part of a 'The System' back in 1978, which included the 360 Systems Slavedriver and Oberheim SEM.

Then, in mid-1982, Oberheim came out with their own 'THE SYSTEM', packaging their own OB-X and OB-XA synthesizers with their DSX sequencer and DMX drum machine. Synths, drum machines, and sequencers that all worked well together through their own proprietary technology.

Jump to the beginning of 1983, and Oberheim decides to replace the aging OB-X and OB-XA synthesizers with the newly designed (internally anyways) OB-8 - advertised as having the sound of the OB-XA, but with many new features and a lower price.

Now, if you are still with me, and you have been reading the last couple of my blog posts, you know that by the beginning of 1983, the universal MIDI standard had been introduced to the masses in the form of the Prophet-600, and other companies were also on board. MIDI had the potential to allow all synthesizers, drum machines, and sequencers to work together - no matter what manufacturer they were from.

But, their was still a lot of hesitation in the industry on whether MIDI would get off the ground, and on the surface at least, it looks a lot like Oberheim, with this 1983 advertisement, was betting on that fact by reintroducing their own system of perfectly connected machines to the masses in the hopes that they could leverage their technological investment as long as possible.

So, was it as clear-cut as that? Was Oberheim protecting it's tech investment? Or did it go deeper?

An article in the June 1984 issue of Keyboard called 'Turmoil in MIDI-land' discusses a lot of the issues surround the launch, confusion, and implementation of MIDI by different manufacturers, and includes an interview with Tom Oberheim. One of the questions/answers includes mention of 'The System' and where the company stood on MIDI in the past.

"You were pegged as being very much anti-MIDI when it was first being proposed. Do you still feel that way now that you've started including MIDI on Oberheim instruments?

We made some statements early on that gave people the impression that we were anti-MIDI. That was more an opinion of individuals at Oberheim, not the attitude of Oberheim, the company. I think that MIDI will further to a great extent what we started three years ago with our system idea."

Opinions count for a lot, and I would guess that those individual's anti-MIDI opinions at the time may have helped keep steering the company towards it's own proprietary standard.

Plus, in a way, Oberheim had history on their side. In 'the good old days', keyboard players and synthesists were very brand specific. Because there wasn't a universal compatibility between those high-priced synthesizers, I'd bet Moog people tended to stick with Moogs,Oberheim people tended to stick with Oberheim, ARP with ARP, etc. There's always a good reason to think that the future will remain the same.

But, as synthesizers became more compact and price points came down, players began to build up their synth stacks with many different brands. The game started to change. Suddenly, that good ol' company strategy of a closed proprietary system to help keep your clients investing in your new products, may not look like such a great idea.

Unfortunately for those companies, a universal standard might be the only logical conclusion to come to, because as soon as two of your competitors start to share their tech, they would have a distinct marketing advantage over a company that didn't share with anyone. Better to support a universal standard than to try and go at it alone.

Plus, you have to take into account all the pressure that was probably coming from the outside world. If you look back at those Garfield ads I blogged about recently, you could say that Pia Zadora and all those other famous users listed in those advertisements were making a statement when they bought a Doctor Click. They were effectively telling all those companies that they wanted to use many different brands of sequencers, drum machines, and synthesizers. TOGETHER.

I'm not saying that Oberheim's system wasn't good. Apparently it was VERY GOOD. The fact that 'The System' continued to be advertised in Keyboard well after their own MIDI-equipped Xpander and MIDI-option for the OB-8 became available, goes to show just how powerful 'The System' probably was.

So, maybe 'anti-MIDI' goes a little too far.

'Pro-proprietary' may be a better description. :o)

Garfield Electronics Doctor Click Rhythm Controller, Keyboard 1983

Garfield Electronics Doctor Click Rhythm Controller advertisement from 1983. The ad on the left is from page 13 of the February issue, and the one on the right is from page 65 of the June issue.

Garfield quickly caught on that their original ad (in place for only a couple of months) was running a little low on actual info. Tech guys in the studio would be in need of a lot more information about this device before shelling out a grand or more. And, not sure if they realized it at the time or not, but Keyboard magazine's review for the device wasn't going to be published for at least another nine or ten months, limiting user knowledge of the machine even further. So, Garfield needed to get a lot more information out there. And fast.

That is exactly what this ad does. The ad itself is divided into five basic sections - title, intro, list of compatible devices, problem solving, and finally some name-dropping. And together, they almost make up a whole article on Doctor Click.

For interests-sake, I've included scans of both the first and final version of the ad. I really like looking at how ads gradually change over time, and this one went through several small changes between its introduction in February, through to the final June version, which then ran in Keyboard until January 1984.

I've included a list of changes below, and it's almost as interesting to note the devices and names that had been dropped rather than added (although that's mighty fun too!). You can see that both the Moog Rogue and Kraftwerk were both added in the March version, and then unceramoniously dumped the next month. Booo to both of those! The OB-SX was dumped as well in April. Meh.

As a Canadian, I always find it interesting when I see Canadians appearing in Keyboard ads - the addition of Gordon Lightfoot in this case.

Here's the full list of changes:

March 1983 ad
Added: KPR-77, Moog Rogue, OB-SX
Removed: DR-55
Names added to 'used on tracks' list: Anthony Marinelli, Kraftwerk, Craig Harris, John Farrar

April 1983 ad
Added: Drumulator, Prophet-600, Prophet-T8, OB8, Poly-61, Voyetra-8
Removed: Moog Rogue (Just added in March?!?), OB-SX
Names added to 'used on tracks' list: Tony Basil, Suzanne Ciani, Lou Garisto, James Horner, Jeffrey Kawaluk, Jason Miles, Greag Phillingaines, Mike Sembello, Universal Paramount,
Names removed: John Farrar (Just added in March?), Craig Harriss, Kraftwerk, Anthony Marinelli
June 1983 ad
Added: Chroma
Removed: None
Names added: Kim Carnes, Bill Cuomo, Dominic Frontier, Terry Fryer, Hawk, Gordon Lightfoot, Jerry Liliedahl, Keith Olson, Paramount, Oscar Peterson, Jean-Luc Ponte, Steve Pocaro, Steve Schaeffer, Sound Arts, Universal, Steve Winwood
Names removed: Universal-Paramount

The one thing I don't like about this ad, but that couldn't be helped with all that ad-copy, was that the photos of the machines had to be shrunk significantly. Not too mention the photos are in black and white.

The machine looks much better in colour. There are surprisingly few photos of Doctor Click online. The 2008 MATRIXSYNTH auction post I threw at you in my last blog post has a couple of good photos, along with some good reference info.

Another MATRIXSYNTH auction post from December 2009 also has some good large photos. Click on the images and expand to full size to really see some great detail. You can see all the labels on the back panel, and you will notice that the front panel 'tempo' indicator uses what looks like to be rotating-dial numbers.

Very retro! I like that a lot.

At the end of my last blog post, I made the comment that I shouldn't really find it amazing that Dr. Click's existence is in large part due to the historical paranoia that synth companies had with each other. Maybe paranoia is a strong word. Bob Moog has referred to it in the past as 'the business climate'.

So, in other words: The historical business climate made it next to impossible for companies to try and work together (that *will* have to wait for a future blog post). And I say historical, because things were about to change with MIDI.

But for now, products like the Garfield made it clear that users wanted to buy Company A's product and wanted it to work with Company B's product. Maybe, in some way, Pia Zadora and all those other famous users listed in this ad were making a statement when they bought a Garfield. Effectively telling all those manufacturers that they wanted to use many different brands - TOGETHER.

you tell 'em, Pia!

Garfield Electronics Doctor Click Rhythm Controller, Keyboard 1982

Garfield Electronics Doctor Click Rhythm Controller advertisement from page 29 of Keyboard Magazine December 1982.

This was the first Doctor Click advertisement to appear in Keyboard, and only ran once or twice before being replaced by a much more descriptive ad (...next post maybe ?!?! :o)

The ad itself it actually pretty well-balanced. Maybe a bit top-heavy, but, right away, the eye definitely catches the name of the device in that really cool computer techie font that I used to see on many early rave posters.

The photos are great too - large enough that the reader can even make out some of the front panel text. And, Garfield was smart to show off the back panel with all its connections, enforcing the message that this thing has more in's and out's than you can shake a DIN cable at.

Garfield also took a page out of ARP's marketing plan and provided a list of artists who's tracks had used the device. Pia Zadora? Really?

So, what exactly is Doctor Click? How did it come to be? I guess you could say that it's all about timing... pun absolutely intended.

Go back to late 1982. At the time, synth companies weren't really open to talking to each other much about their technology, and the result was that pretty much every company had developed a different standard to sync their own gear.

To get an idea of the number of sync standards that were around in 1982, you just have to tally up all those inputs and outputs available on the machine. I found a list of them in a 2008 MATRIXSYNTH post:

Inputs: Pulse, Tape Code A/B, Tape Code C, External Metronome Trigger, Inverter In, Delay In, Reset, Play, Enter

Outputs: 12X (Roland CR68/78, SCI), 24X (MemoryMoog, MXR), 48X (LinnDrum, Roland MC-4, E-Mu), 64X (PPG), 96X (Oberheim DSX, DMX, DX), 348X (Fairlight), DIN Sync (Roland x0xbox, Korg), Gate (5V/15V), Trigger (5v/15V), Trigger to Click, Time Lag, Envelope 1, Envelope 2, Headphone, Metronome, Inverter Out, Delay Out, 5V Start, Ground Start

For a musician or producer, trying to sync up all that different gear must have become increasingly painful.

And you can almost feel author Craig Anderton's own pain, in the introduction to his November 1983 Keyboard review of Doctor Click (almost a year after this ad's debut!):

"Those of you who have tried at one time or another to interface various electronic music devices together have probably noticed that this is easier said than done. Not only do different synthesizer arpeggiators accept different kinds of triggers - some positive-going, some negative-going, and so on - many drum machines use particular timing references (sync tracks) which make them incompatible with other drum machines."

Craig goes on to explain that it was only a matter of time before some brainiac came along with a box to sync all everything together:

"Doctor Click is not a keyboard instrument, not a drum machine, and not a signal processor: What it does is synchronize and interface these three families of devices together. Not only can it interface to existing sync tracks, it can build up click tracks from incomplete click tracks, and even create sync and/or click tracks which are referenced to a live musician."

The review does a great job of explaining how to use Doctor Click, including an example of how Craig used the device when the original sync track on one of his recordings was accidentally erased. Great stuff.

In his conclusion, he has nothing negative to say about the functionality of the machine itself. He explains that Doctor Click's 'Achille's Heel' was that with all the cords running in and out of the unit to all those different synths and recording gear, it was really easy to create grounding issues that would introduce noise into recordings. Hmmm... I had never even thought about that - and I experience it every day with all my gear running through my old trustly Mackie 24 channel 8-bus mixer with the 24 channel side-car -- Doh!

But, my biggest issue with the device was the cost. The Doctor Click initially went for $1,950.00, with an expanded version up'ing the price to $2,295.00. To me that seems steep. You could get another synthesizer or two for that price.

Sure, the device was cutting-edge with its ability to sync Roland, Linn, Oberheim, Sequential Circuits, Korg, Moog and virtually every other synthesizer and drum machine out there - as well as humans. And as far as I know there was nothing else around at the time that could do what Doctor Click could. So, maybe it was worth it.

In the review, Craig agrees that the Doctor Click 'isn't cheap', but that its not unreasonable either:

"...once you have the Doctor Click, you really are set - this one device solves just about every common (and not-so-common) interfacing problem you might encounter in the studio or while playing live..."

Well enough.

Those issues aside, Doctor Click is a great example of a company seeing an increasingly open opportunity and creating a nicely packaged solution.

I guess I shouldn't find it amazing that it's existence is in large part due to the paranoia that synth companies had at the time with sharing technology. But more on that in my next blog post...