Los Angeles, California, founded 1969 by Tom Oberheim · 1969 to about 2000, revived by Tom Oberheim from 2009

Vintage Oberheim synthesizers

Tom Oberheim started out in effects. In 1969 Chicago Musical Instruments asked him to make his ring modulator for its Maestro brand, and his Maestro phase shifter sold nearly 25,000 units in three years. He showed the SEM synth module at the Audio Engineering Society convention in May 1974, then put two, four and eight of them under one keyboard to make some of the first polyphonic synths you could buy. The OB-X followed in 1979, then the OB-Xa, the preset OB-SX and in 1983 the OB-8, with the DMX drum machine alongside. Tom also worked with Dave Smith on the MIDI standard. The Xpander and Matrix-12 arrived in the mid-1980s, around the company's 1985 bankruptcy, and Gibson bought Oberheim in 1988. Tom had left in 1987. He got the name back in 2019, and today's Oberheim makes the OB-X8 and OB-6 as part of the Focusrite Group. Those modern synths share the old names, so read titles closely on eBay.