Joe Zawinul, Styx, Rush and Jean-Michel Jarre built signature tones on the 8-Voice. As OB-E® neared release, Tom Oberheim and Marcus Ryle, an Oberheim engineer in the 1980s, were impressed enough to suggest a collaboration, and v2 shipped with their full endorsement.

Despite several Best Soft Synth 2021 awards, we worked with Tom and Marcus to refine the Detune and add a Vintage control that dials in the original’s musical inaccuracies for a truly authentic 8-Voice experience.

The 8-Voice is not eight identical SEMs. The interaction of eight independent, slightly different modules makes the sound so beautiful. Every section of every SEM is painstakingly emulated, with zero-delay feedback filters and authentic inaccuracies injected into each one, making OB-E the most authentic emulation of the SEM™ sound and the 8-Voice instrument.

Each SEM has front and rear panels, three oscillators, the Multi-Mode Filter, two envelopes, and modulation, with a new VCO3 that doubles as an audio-rate LFO. Edit one SEM at a time, or switch to Group mode, and every knob glows green as one change mirrors across all eight. Copy, paste and save individual SEMs.

Mono, Mono Legato, Poly, Unison and Split modes, with round-robin voice allocation. Split the keyboard so SEMs 1 to 4 play below and 5 to 8 above, route SEM 8 to the sequencer, and you have a complete three-part soundscape in a single patch.

With the original MS-1 as its reference, it is an extremely comprehensive 8-step sequencer that triggers monophonically or steps through each SEM in turn, with a Zoom view for detailed editing. Drum Mode assigns each SEM to its own key, turning OB-E into a surprising analogue drum machine.

An analog-style Stereo Delay and a lush Matrix Reverb, routable to the Upper module, the Lower module or both, with Upper and Lower mixers giving every SEM its own volume and pan.