One other more practical solution to the impossibly expensive/hard to find FVS/eight-voice is the new Oakley ASV modules in MU modular format. They are not 1:1 SEM clones, but have a similar filter and can be bought pre-built for ~500 UKP. Eight of those and a case/PSU and you are still looking at less cost than an OB-X.

Besides all the beautiful mountains and delicious chocolate, I need to go to Switzerland to get a great deal on a vintage synth apparently. I keep hearing about all the sweet prices there. If anyone finds an OB-X for under $7k in perfect working order there, the wife and I are taking a Swiss vacation to go pick it up.

if you want good sound you have to suffer .. of course not for the "where is the sysexdump, it has CC ?" people.
I only say the ulimative Oberheim in terms of sound .. the sem clones do not have the same level.
it's about half as bad as a poly boog system ..you can save certain parameters somewhat globally

yes in the area of lake geneva ... what do you mean you were interested?

That's a neat photo of your rig. Congrats!

OK, here is my first Oberheim OB-8 demo. I decided to recreate Enya's haunting theme song from Steven King's Sleepwalkers soundtrack called, "Boadicea". I hope that you enjoy it.

https://youtu.be/fNL0tlxcTSM

Very nice! I love Enya's music. I have my choir students sing several of her songs.

Thanks!

Yeah, I still remember in 1988 when Orinoco Flow came out while I was living in Southern California and it was playing on the radio stations nearly once an hour.

Nice! But a point of correction: Boadicea is from the soundtrack to The Celts/Enya’s first album.

Yeah, I know. It was actually reissued in 1992 coinciding its use in 1992’s Sleepwalker.

From Wikipedia-

In 1992, after Enya gained worldwide commercial success with her following two albums Watermark (1988) and Shepherd Moons (1991) for Warner Music, Enya was remastered by Arun Chakraverty and redesigned with new artwork designed by Sooky Choi with photography by David Scheinmann.[7] The album was reissued on 16 November 1992 as The Celts by WEA[13] in Europe and Reprise Records in the United States. The Celts outperformed its original sales, reaching a new peak of No. 10 on the UK Albums Chart for two weeks from the week of 28 November 1992. It returned for two separate weeks 1993, one week in 1996, and six consecutive weeks in 1998.[11] In the United States, the album sold a further one million copies. It contains a new version of "Portrait" that is named "Portrait (Out of the Blue)", which was originally released as the B-side to Enya's 1988 worldwide hit single, "Orinoco Flow".[7] In 2009, The Celts had a limited Japanese reissue on Super High Material CD with "Eclipse" added as a bonus track.

What’s your initial impressions of OB-8 vs Trident ?

Although I would say "That synth isn't worth it because its 40years old and virtually impossible to find parts"
Years go the obeheim SXs where all bought up and stripped for spares for OBs
You'll be lucky to find any left now. So whats coming in the future is selling your unrepairable classic synth as either parts or as a spares machine to someone whos prepared to pay out at all costs to keep their machine running.
Your 10k purchase is suddenly a 3k spares machine because a $100 part no longer exists.

I have had quite a few issues with Synthesizers from the 80's and 90's Luckily I do all my own repairs ( so labour costs a zero) and the odd one that stumps me I have a friend with a degree in electronic engineering to chat to.
Even so if you can't source the parts you now have an expensive studio ornament.
Literally in the past week or so my (not so classic) JD800 decided that most of the keys would stop working. The fault consisted of the rubber contacts becoming brittle and a crack in the contact membrane.
As both the Rubber contacts and the contact membrane are pretty much unobtainium that usually spells the end for a JD800 unless you buy a lesser Roland and canablise the keyboard and spend a few weeks redesigning the electronics to make it work.
As it happened between myself and my Design buddy we managed to repair the contact membrane an source rubber contacts albeit from about 5 different sources. Otherwise I was about to buy a suitable Roland to strip for parts

Whilst I almost get the 10K price tags on some of these Vintage classics
I also fear that as the prices get higher they end up in the hands of people with more money than talent! Otherwise know as collectors!

No collector shaming! They are the ones who keep the synths in good shape and condition.
Why is the average daw-less jam noodler on a higher synth-morality level than the guy at the fireplace who likes to pat his synth with a smile and a single malt in his hand.

The collectors that I've bought gear off have all been of above average talent/musical ability, and owned the gear because they used it - and sold it when they didn't. I think anything else is an understandable schadenfreude fallacy - it makes sense if you think about why those guys put so much into it in the first place. None of them had expensive cars.

I wouldn't necissarily call that a Colector .
I've had what would now be very collectable synths in the past.
"The Past" being the operative word here.
At the time they were the weapons of choice.
you sell them because they either become old and tempremental or that their value is such that its almost rude not to take someones money for something that spends most of its life unused either in a flight case or with a protective cover over it.
There are lots of such people that have such equipment becuse they bought it at the time and used it and they no longer have it because someone offered them good money for something that wasn't really being used anymore.
Sure some musicians buy something like that because its their dream to own one
that isn't what I'm talking about
It's those that buy such equipment because of its presitge and potential value whether or not they can actually play or not that is what I would call a collector.

Why not?
"They are the ones who keep the synths in good shape and condition."
No! they are the ones who chase down the absolute minters and would only buy one in such condition so as to maximise their investment!
Your noodler daw-less or not still appreciates his "Vintage" synth for its character.
He really doesn't care if the wooden end cheeks are scuffed up a bit and some of the paint is chipped and the decals wearing off. He still has his dream synth.
He will also pay to keep it fully working.
My part in this is to extract his cash to keep it that way.
I don't see most collectors patting their synths with a single malt in hand. What I see is it stuck in its flight case and an iPhone in hand with the price checked on Reverb to see how their investment is fairing.

I cannot think of a greater crime than Owning a "classic Synth" and not finding an excuse to record something at least once a week!

You never got your bike stolen.
I try to homerecord regularly but still have to find someone to listen to all that klingklang.
So while I am here: see my daw-less jam on my heavy used OB-8 that has a broken key and loses his memory every couple of days.

what are the unobtainable components the ob8 uses? asking for a friend.

No I never had my bike stolen because my parents wouldn't buy me a bike to steal in the first place.
I've had plenty of Guitars effects and Synths stolen though!

I was Incorrect. The greatest crime is, not fixing that sagging "E" key LOL
Now you see I'd be into that OB8 to fix the memory issue.
But thats a nice set up you have there.
There something organic in syncing up analogue gear and making up something on the fly. I think midi was a god send and a curse.
Most of my analogue gear was sold in the 1990s ( for peanuts)
At the time retro fitting midi to a Juno cost more than the Juno was worth.
Dont get me started I sold my Juno6 for £250 and my Juno 60 for £340.
I got £50 for my CS15 and £50 and £80 for my 2x Sh101s £95 for my Pro one
Ironically I've got someone elses DX7 in my roof no idea where mine is.
I expect who ever it belongs to is wondering the same thing.

My problem has always been that I can't refuse money.
So when some old piece of gear comes up cheap I'd buy it repair it and sell it for profit. It's just got a bit silly now the other day a dead Jupiter6 went for £2600 on ebay. Thats either the bargain of the year or a £4000 headache to get it fully working. My regret was selling all the JX3's I bought broken for under £100 and sold for £300 for quick bucks had I sat on them for a few years I'd have got £800-£1000 each for them.

I would have said The CEM and SSM ics
However acording to Wikipedia

"In 2016, it was announced that the CEM3340 VCO had been remanufactured by OnChip using the original design, the CEM3340 RevG. Other manufacturers manufactured copies of the Curtis Chips as well since the patents had expired. Cool Audio produces the V3340 and the V3320. AS ALFA RPAR released the AS3310, AS3320, AS3330, AS3340, AS3345 and AS3360 in DIP and SMD packages."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CEM_and_SSM_chips

So at least those parts are both obtainable and affordable.

As your point was to bring that to my attention I'll bring to yours that the synth has far more than Curtis chips in it. At 40 years old best of luck!

I have the same fear. I spend on average about $10k per year on gear, and a lot of these synths are even too rich for my bank account. Unfortunately, a lot of these expensive synths, such as the $20k (over-priced IMO) Jupiter 8 are going to wealthy people with way more expendable money than talent. It's for bragging rights. I already know of 2 people (friends of friends) who have an insane amount of vintage gear (like well over $70k and maybe up to $100k). Both hardly touch any of it according to their friends. One just likes "seeing them in his room" and the other is waiting for "another 20 years" so that he can "make a fortune". Vintage synths are inevitably becoming of use only to collect or for investment. Sad! :(

right, this is what i'm asking about. searching online produces contradictory results - some says it's impossible to source parts and techs refuse to service it, some say the parts are common and it's very easy to service. honestly just curious, it would be good to know!

I'll answer this as a my own general concerns with all electronics rather than the OB8 specifically

The problem with any electronics thats 40years old is deterioration of things due to age.
For example the PCBs themselves can become conductive internally through Conductive anodic filaments (CAF) this is esentially impurities in the glass fibre used to make the boards in the first place(if they are FR4) becoming conductive. There is also conductive Salt growth on the surface of the boards. The breaks down the surface insulation resistance (SIR) this would have been caused by manual handling during manufacture as these problems were unheard of in the 1980s. If they are made of SRBP then the boards can delaminate in damp or humid conditions.

In Something like an OB8 you will have SSM or CEM chips that were phased out in the 1990s and where virtually unobtainable and those that were had been harvested from lesser equipment so no guarentee of their condition and the prices where often extortionate.
A lot of these are now available as remanufactured for a sensible price.
However there is more than CEM chips.
You have programmed Roms the EEpromms used in the 1980's have been obsolete for 20years certain more common versions can be obtained from component brokers that essentially bought the stock up and charge premium price to sell to companies that still rely on old technology in their equipment rather than redesigning it. But unless you have the BIn Hex files and a EEProm programmer you are screwed!
Then there are matched transitor packages and arrays.
Used in antilog amps for 1V/Oct. This technology is obsolete as modern manufactures would now use a PIC or a CPU to control the circuit.
You may also encounter OP Amps ICs and Logic ICs that are also obsolete.
You can design a circuit to do the same thing but it not the realm of the average repair guy.

Assuming that all your electronics is Good then you have proprietry parts
This is things like modwheels or joysticks knobs and slider caps Switch Buttons Very often bought in from a manufacturer than made them exclusively for a particular company.
Then there's the keyboard Pratt Reed, Fatar ? Pratt Reed do a lot of the Bushings springs and dampers but you'll struggle to find replacements for damaged or Missing Keys.
Then there are the key contacts themselves.
Depending on the Vintage and manufacturer of your "Vintage" equipment the key contacts could be either sprung metal or Rubberized bubble contacts.
You have options with sprung contacts as you can usually engineer something to work. If however you have perrished rubber contacts on a 35-40 year old synth the chances of finding replacements is next to zero.
Your only option would be to either find a company to remake them for you.
Which the tooling costs alone would exceed the value of most "Classic Keyboards" Or modify/engineer a keyboard from a donor synth into it.

There is always a way to fix something It is only the cost that makes it prohibative

For those who have factory MIDI how is the timing?

When I had OB-Xa with Numera kit, then upgraded to Encore, there was considerable latency and sending fast (16th) notes also produced slop. In fact I remember measuring the slop, it wasn't random, but the offsets would themselves be quasi-periodic, as if notes could only be output on some slow internal clock.

Since I didn't have an improvement with the OB-Xa Encore kit. I thought maybe the internal CPU can't keep up.

Anyway, I do miss this sound but would like to know if the MIDI situation got better with OB-8 since this machine is from 1983-84.

And if the factory MIDI is still bad do any of the upgrade kits give an improvement?

I don’t have an answer to your question but regarding the Encore kit, which I have in my OB8, I had issues with it when I first installed it. It was really laggy. I pulled out the Z80 processor that was included with the Encore and put in the OB8’s original Z80 and it was fine. Weird thing is that the Z80 that came with the kit actually had a faster clock speed than the original Z80. I mentioned it to Tony at Encore and he didn’t know why it would have behaved like that.