UJAM offers UFX DELAY plugin as a FREE summer sale signup bonus
UJAM is offering UFX DELAY as a free download for anyone who signs up for the company’s summer sale mailing list. To get it for free, you’ll need to visit the signup page and enter your email. I tested the process yesterday, and the email arrived right away. Clicking the button in the email opened [...]
View post: UJAM offers UFX DELAY plugin as a FREE summer sale signup bonus

Avalanche Tones release Chainsaw Suite Avalanche Tones' debut product is an all-in-one plug-in suite that's been created with ultra-heavy modern guitar tones in mind.

Tom Oberheim: “The history books say I was involved in creating MIDI – that’s such a joke”By allowing computers, synthesizers, controllers and other instruments to speak to each other via a universal digital language, MIDI, introduced in 1983, has become one of the most pivotal inventions in the history of music technology and production.
While spearheaded primarily by Dave Smith of Sequential – alongside his contemporaries Dave Rossum, Bob Moog, Don Buchla, Roger Linn and Alan R. Pearlman – Tom Oberheim is often mentioned in the conversation surrounding MIDI’s widespread adoption, but in a new interview with MusicTech, the synth pioneer plays down his role.

READ MORE: The best new music plugins this week, free and paid

“The history books say that I was involved in [creating] MIDI, and that’s such a joke,” Oberheim says. “When Dave [Smith] did his first paper about tying synthesizers together, it was a digital thing and I wanted absolutely nothing to do with it.
“I said, ‘Don’t talk to me about a digital interface hooking up machines. I don’t want to do that.”
But after Roland founder Ikutaro Kakehashi started collaborating with Dave Smith and Sequential – and subsequently incorporating MIDI technology into their instruments – Oberheim later ended up becoming the first president of the MIDI Manufacturers Association.
While a legendary name in synthesis, Oberheim’s career hasn’t always been in the music world. In fact, in the mid ’90s, he opted to work several non-music-related jobs in Silicon Valley, in an environment he calls a “high-tech rat race”.
“I decided in the mid ‘90s  that it was time for me to go to work and pay the mortgage on the house,” he tells MusicTech. “I just got a job off the internet, and then for the next five or six years I worked three different jobs in Silicon Valley, none having to do with music.”
These jobs included building microcontroller software for traffic light systems, high-level tech writing, and working at a think tank owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.
“We thought that, ‘Well, if we’re careful, when we get older, we’ll probably be able to pay for the nursing home,’” Oberheim says.
Read our full interview with Tom Oberheim – as he celebrates his 90th birthday – at MusicTech.
The post Tom Oberheim: “The history books say I was involved in creating MIDI – that’s such a joke” appeared first on MusicTech.

Music industry proposes new system to tag AI-generated songs: “Fans want to know whether and how generative AI has been used in the music they listen to”As AI-generated music continues to flood streaming platforms, some of the music industry’s biggest organisations are launching a new labelling system aimed at giving listeners a clearer picture of how the songs they hear were made.
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) have joined forces with several other organisations – including the Grammys, A2IM, WIN, IMPALA, SAG-AFTRA and the Human Artistry Campaign – to introduce a voluntary standard for tagging music created using generative AI.

READ MORE: LANDR boosts Fair Trade AI licensing programme with $1 million advance scheme and bigger revenue share

The proposed system features two labels: “AI-Generated” for tracks created entirely from AI prompts or featuring AI-generated lead vocals or “key” instrumental parts, and “AI-Assisted” for songs where AI played a supporting role but the core performance still comes from human musicians.
The labels are said to be conceived with “broad, global adoption” in mind, across digital music services and other partners.
“Fans want to know whether and how generative AI has been used in the music to which they listen,” say IFPI CEO Vikki Oakley and RIAA Chairman and CEO Mitch Glazier in a joint statement. “Given how important human artistry and authenticity is to music lovers all over the world, these labels will provide an immediately understandable and easily scalable approach to transparency.”
“For artists and fans around the world, true connections and trust are everything,” says Noemí Planas, CEO of Worldwide Independent Network. “Clear labeling of AI-generated content is central to this: it gives fans the transparency they deserve and supports the human-centered, safety-first approach that the global independent community has championed through the WIN Principles for Generative AI. Implementing the shared standards that the music industry is collectively developing is key to navigating AI responsibly and keeping creativity at the heart of it.”
The announcement comes as AI-generated music becomes an increasingly pressing issue for streaming platforms. French service Deezer recently revealed that AI-generated tracks now account for more than 44% of all daily uploads, while Apple Music said that more than one-third of the tracks uploaded to its platform are “100% AI”.
Labelling AI music has emerged as one of the industry’s preferred responses. Last year, Deezer began automatically tagging fully AI-generated tracks detected on its platform, while filtering them out of royalty payments and editorial playlists. The company has also launched a free online AI music detector that lets anyone check whether tracks in their own playlists – even on rival streaming services – were created using AI.
Meanwhile, Tidal announced last month that music it identifies as “wholly AI-generated” will no longer earn royalties or be eligible for direct-to-fan sales, though they will remain on the platform.
Learn more at RIAA.
The post Music industry proposes new system to tag AI-generated songs: “Fans want to know whether and how generative AI has been used in the music they listen to” appeared first on MusicTech.

How to get playlisted on streaming services: 7 playlist pitching tipsAd feature with BandLab Sounds
If you’re working on a new song and already thinking about playlist pitching, you’re a step ahead of most. The right placement can put your music directly in front of listeners who already love your sound. And that can easily take you from a quiet drop to thousands of streams overnight.
The catch is that curators get a lot of pitches, so standing out takes a bit of know-how. Check out these tips from BandLab Sounds to nail playlist pitching, whether you’re figuring out how to get on Spotify playlists, Apple Music, or anywhere else.
7 tips to nail your playlist pitch
1. Start pitching early
Playlist pitching should be the first thing you do once your release is scheduled, not just before it goes live. Editorial teams review submissions weeks before release day. If you’re pitching after you release your song, you might have already missed the window for consideration.
Timelines vary by platform, but as a general rule:

Spotify: At least 7 days before release, though 2 to 3 weeks gives you a better shot
Apple Music: At least 10 days before release
Amazon Music: 3 to 4 weeks before release
Independent curators: 2 to 4 weeks before release

2. Tell the story of your music
A generic description of your song isn’t going to stand out when curators have hundreds of pitches to read. Instead, give them the story behind it. What inspired the song? Why did you feel the need to write it?
For example, instead of: “This is an indie-pop track about heartbreak.” Try something like, “I wrote this after moving out of the home I shared with my ex. The song is how I felt about packing up memories and knowing there’s no going back.” It’s more personal, but that’s the point!
It’s also worth including a short promotional plan in your pitch. Curators want to know that you’re invested in the track’s success. If you’re planning to run ads to increase listens and traffic, or promote the release through Spotify for Artists, mention it. Just a sentence or two showing that you’re actively bringing listeners to the song can make your pitch stand out.
3. Be clear about your tracks style and genre
Telling a curator your track is ‘Alternative’ doesn’t give them much to work with. Describing it as “melancholic lo-fi bedroom pop with 90s indie guitar influences” paints a much clearer picture and helps them immediately picture where it could fit.
Be honest about it too. It’s tempting to squeeze your song into a trendier genre in hopes of landing a bigger playlist, but that usually backfires. You’re better off landing on a smaller playlist where listeners genuinely connect with your sound.
4. Put your track into context alongside other music
Curators can tell immediately whether you’ve listened to their playlist or are mass-submitting to a list. Name specific tracks on their playlist that feel similar to yours, and explain why your track belongs in that specific context.
Reference the mood or listening scenario the playlist serves. Something like “this would fit perfectly on a late-night drive playlist alongside your Phoebe Bridgers picks” lands a lot better than a generic submission.
5. Keep it skimmable
Long, dense paragraphs are easy to skip over, so keep your pitch concise and easy to scan at a glance. Aim for three short paragraphs, use plain language, and lead with the most compelling detail first – whether that’s the story behind the song, the placement suggestion, or the promotional push you have planned.
If they can get the full picture in under a minute, you’re already ahead of most submissions in their inbox.
6. Make your artist profile count
Curators will check your profile, so make sure it’s complete and up to date. A well-written bio, compelling photos, and your most recent releases all signal that you’re an active, serious artist. That matters when a curator is deciding whether to take a chance on a new name!
7. Explore playlist pitching services
If researching and reaching out to curators one by one feels overwhelming, try playlist pitching services. Some common ones are SubmitHub and Groover. They connect you straight with curators who are actively looking for new music to feature.
If you’re a BandLab member, don’t sleep on BandLab Opportunities. Apply and you could land playlist pitching campaigns with the likes of High Road Publicity and more.
Playlist pitching isn’t a guaranteed shortcut to virality, but it’s one of the most effective things you can do to give your new release a real shot at being heard! Put these 7 tips into practice on your next release and see what a difference it makes.
The post How to get playlisted on streaming services: 7 playlist pitching tips appeared first on MusicTech.

“Think Google Docs meets a creative sandbox like Fortnite or Minecraft”: Audiotool 3.0 turns its multiplayer online DAW into an open platform for creator-built music toolsAudiotool 3.0 has arrived, a ground-up rebuild of the brand’s highly collaborative browser-based DAW. The new iteration of the platform brings real-time multiplayer music creation to web browsers and tablets, with native mobile versions coming soon.
Audiotool 3.0 also sees the launch of NEXUS, a new open-source SDK that lets musicians and developers build their own instruments, plugins, and AI-connected music creation tools directly into the platform.
“I’ve spent most of my life in studios, and the thing that got in the way of creativity was almost never the people in the room. It was the software,” says Audiotool co-founder and producer Daniel Rowland. “Audiotool 3.0 takes that wall down. People can finally create together using any device, anywhere, and we’re giving them a way to build the tools tomorrow’s music will need.”

READ MORE: Audiotool is hosting a “hackathon series” to teach people how to make virtual instruments, plugins and music education tools

While sharing projects between producers has become easier over the years, differing devices, incompatible plugins and missing files can still slow sessions to a crawl.
Audiotool says its rebuilt platform is designed to remove those barriers by allowing users to collaborate in real time from virtually any device, with what it describes as the lowest latency of any online music production tool.
Beyond collaboration, Audiotool 3.0 also opens up the DAW itself through NEXUS. Rather than relying solely on built-in features, users can create their own instruments, effects, visualisers, educational tools, music games and hardware-connected apps. The SDK also supports AI integrations via MCP and Context I/O, allowing creators to connect their preferred large language models (LLMs) to the platform.
“Think Google Docs meets a creative sandbox like Fortnite or Minecraft. The DAW becomes a platform where creators can build, experiment, and make music together,” says Audiotool co-founder and CEO Andreas Jacobi. “And with low- and no-code development tools, people who never saw themselves as developers are bringing entirely new perspectives to how music is created. The next generation of music tools will be shaped by the people actually making the music.”
Launch partners for NEXUS include Splice, Ujam, BandM8 and Fraunhofer, with Audiotool inviting more music technology companies to bring their products to the platform. The company is also hosting its Let’s Build! hackathon series, which runs from now through 23 August.

More information is available at Audiotool.
The post “Think Google Docs meets a creative sandbox like Fortnite or Minecraft”: Audiotool 3.0 turns its multiplayer online DAW into an open platform for creator-built music tools appeared first on MusicTech.

LANDR boosts Fair Trade AI licensing programme with $1 million advance scheme and bigger revenue shareLANDR has announced the expansion of Fair Trade AI, its opt-in music licensing programme, with a $1 million advance fund for participating artists.
The new advance programme allows musicians to receive upfront payments while continuing to share in future recurring revenue. Fair Trade AI participants will also receive 25% of net licensing revenue, up from the previous 20%, distributed based on each artist’s contribution to the dataset. LANDR will issue the first payouts from Fair Trade AI to participating artists later this month.

READ MORE: LANDR’s Blueprints and Layers are AI tools that promise to inspire ”mix-ready” ideas

“For independent artists, distribution can no longer end when a song reaches streaming platforms,” says Daniel Rowland, VP of Strategy & Partnerships at LANDR. “The future of music distribution is helping creators find new ways to monetise their work, wherever it creates value. Responsibly licensing music for AI is one of those channels, and we’ve built the infrastructure to support it at scale.”
Fair Trade AI allows artists to voluntarily license their catalogues to companies developing AI-powered audio technologies, from music creation tools to voice applications. According to LANDR, the programme has grown to include more than 30,000 participating artists and hundreds of thousands of opted-in tracks, creating a sizable pool of fully licensed, professionally tagged music for AI developers.
That pitch arrives at a time when the legality of AI training data remains under intense scrutiny. While many generative AI models have been criticised for relying on web-scraped datasets without permission, LANDR says its programme is built on three core principles: consent, transparency and participation.
“The conversation around AI and music has focused almost entirely on what creators stand to lose,” says LANDR CEO Pascal Pilon. “We’re proving there’s another path, one built on consent and providing recurring revenue for artists. As technology continues to evolve, artists deserve the choice to participate and the opportunity to benefit from the value created.”
Fair Trade AI is currently available to eligible LANDR Distribution users, while artists distributing through other platforms can transfer their catalogues to LANDR using the company’s Release Importer tool before opting in. The $1 million advance programme will remain open for opt-in through 20 July.
Independent artist XO Jane, who has joined the initiative, says the programme has already made a difference to her workflow.
“It gives me more time to breathe, more time to be creative,” she says. “My wish is that more AI companies follow LANDR’s example: ask first, and pay the artists who say yes.”
Learn more at LANDR.
The post LANDR boosts Fair Trade AI licensing programme with $1 million advance scheme and bigger revenue share appeared first on MusicTech.

I’ve used the Palmer Orbit 11s monitors daily since they launched — the hype is real!£699 each, palmer-germany.com
Palmer has a history of producing sturdy, utilitarian audio gear such as DI boxes and monitor controllers. Its latest release, though, is far more exciting and appealing: a three-way, coaxial active monitor with a cardioid response and bass extension all the way down to 28Hz.
That’s enough bass to make your studio throb without using a sub-woofer, and the product seems to have shaken up the market as well.

READ MORE: I put the HEDD Type 20 A-Core three-way monitor against my Genelecs and now I don’t want to switch back

Monitors with a similar design—three-ways with bass radiators on the side to bolster low end—tend to be far more expensive than the Orbit 11’s £1,400-per-pair price. Barefoot’s Footprint 02 Gen 2 for example cost over three-times more at £4,495.
Talk of this bargain three-way rocketed through various forums (you know the ones), with some commentators concluding that it was all too good to be true. Others were apparently struggling to find fault and declaring the orange ring around the Orbit’s coaxial driver to be an aesthetic faux pas. There had to be something wrong with them at this price after all.
Well, I just had to experience the Orbit 11s for myself. I’ve been using them as my main monitors for the past couple of months, and I have to say, I’m totally blown away.
Image: Press
The low-down
The Orbit 11 is housed in a die-cast aluminium case that exudes sturdiness and reminds me of high-end Genelec monitors. On the front, there’s a 1-inch tweeter mounted concentrically to a 6.5-inch mid driver. As well as being super-compact, this arrangement helps with phase coherence, making the monitor closer to a point source and therefore is ideal for immersive arrays (bracket mounting is an option). Dual 8-inch woofers are mounted around the sides to facilitate the impressive bass capabilities.
I’m immediately struck by the slender footprint of these large-sounding monitors in my relatively small studio space compared to other three-ways I’ve tested from HEDD and Adam Audio. The fact that they also have a near-cardioid response is also a big win, meaning they’re less likely to suffer unwanted low-end build-up by being placed close to a wall.
On the back are analogue and AES digital inputs; with the AES option you can chain the two monitors to make cabling simpler, and then select the correct channel using the control panel on the top. Power switches are also around the back but are easy to locate, which is welcome because there’s unfortunately no auto-standby option. This doesn’t bother me really, since I just switch them off when I’m not using them.
On the top of the monitors sits a digital control panel, with the first option being a sensitivity pad. There were various reports on forums of the Orbit 11s being excessively hissy at close range. This is true with the pad turned off—the default state when the Orbits are first turned on—but I find that setting horrendously loud for my set-up. I swiftly switch the pad to the maximum attenuation of 20 dB on each side and the self-noise is dramatically reduced, and I can still muster plenty of level from my RME interface. I’m really irked by hissy monitors, so I’m delighted to report that it’s not really an issue here once the pad is set correctly. Yes, there’s a little more self-noise than with my Genelec M040s when you have your ear pressed to them, but it’s perfectly fine working in a near-field position.
Onboard digital processing gives you the option of various filters to tweak the sound, with multi-position, three-band EQ settings, plus Desk and Rear Wall filters that can be activated according to the monitor’s physical location. DSP is always on, so there’s a permanent latency of four milliseconds. That means it’s best to mute headphones when you’re swapping back to playback on monitors, because the latency is perceivable. That said, I don’t encounter any additional lag when triggering software instruments with a USB MIDI keyboard.
Image: Press
The sound of Palmer’s Orbit 11
Leaping into critical listening, I plug in an IK Multimedia ARC Studio to apply ARC X room correction to EQ the monitors, since I have an issue with a low-mid bump with my monitors placed on a desk. Despite the cardioid response, I’m also wary of the potential heft of the bass build-up in my room, so I’m resigned to switching ARC on straight away. Once complete, ARC’s analysis reveals little need for any correction above 130 Hz or so, which is an impressive feat.
I’m immediately struck by a large yet tight bass extension, plus an incredibly detailed and agile mid range. The mid articulation is a pleasant surprise as many three-ways lean towards a scooped mid voicing (for increased flattery rather than accuracy); I’m reminded of high-end B&W mastering monitors here. Highs are also crisp and articulate, and I prefer leaving the room correction off from the high-mids upwards, as the Orbit 11 stock response is sweeter.
Doing a shoot-out with my Genelec monitors, there’s nowhere near as much bass extension as the Orbit 11s, and mids on my own monitors sound a touch blurred and harsh in comparison, with the harsh timbre becoming more apparent at louder motoring levels. However, the Orbit’s twitters are slightly too crisp for my taste; I’m a sucker for a ribbon tweeter and so select a warmer target curve in the ARC room correction.
At my friend’s studio we make a similar comparison with his mk1 pair of Mackie HR824s. The ‘824s appear to have a more thunderous bass than the Palmers with room correction switched off, yet with ARC X on, the Orbits reach further down than the Mackies, while also sound tight and controlled. Comparing the Orbits with an equally-large set of monitors helps to demonstrate the effectiveness of the cardioid response. The Mackies continue to excite the room modes even after room correction, resulting in a lingering bass sustain that gives a false impression that tricks the listener into hearing —and feeling—a far larger bass end than there actually is. Conversely, the Orbits remain articulate, without the bass lingering on. You hear subsonic details in the mix you never knew existed, and start to address them by either shaping them or else high-passing them into oblivion.
Comparing the mid range, there’s a similar picture building to before – the Mackie mids are scooped, smoothed yet more brash in presentation. We’re both left wondering whether we need to buy new monitors, such is the lasting impression left by the Palmers.
Image: Press
Should I buy Palmer Orbit 11s?
If you’re looking for three-way monitors that reach the lowest octaves without need for a sub, or a large sound in virtually any size room, the Palmer Orbit 11s have you covered — all for a startlingly low asking price.
The tightness and depth of bass coupled with fast mid-driver articulation is far more than you could have previously hoped for at £699 per side, while a cardioid response means less hassle with unwelcome room modes in the bass end.
I hope we see Palmer’s Orbit range grow to include smaller models to sit alongside the 11s for immersive audio set-ups.
Image: Press
Key features

3-way active coaxial monitors
Die-cast aluminium case
1-inch tweeter mounted to 6.5-inch mid driver; dual, side-facing 8-inch woofers
Cardioid response
Frequency range: 28 Hz – 28 kHz (-3dB)
1000 Watts (peak) class D amplification (250W each for tweeter and mid driver; 500W to woofers)
Analogue XLR in
AES digital in; AES thru for daisy-chaining
Onboard DSP and control panel for level selection and filter settings (permanent 4ms latency)
Black and white colourways
Weight: 13.9 kg per monitor
Comes with power lead and bracket security fixings

The post I’ve used the Palmer Orbit 11s monitors daily since they launched — the hype is real! appeared first on MusicTech.

Eldoraudio launches Guitar Audio to MIDI Converter for turning guitar recordings into MIDI
Eldoraudio has launched Guitar Audio to MIDI Converter, a browser-based tool that transcribes guitar recordings into standard MIDI files. The new guitar converter joins Eldoraudio’s existing Piano Audio to MIDI Converter. You upload an audio file, set the BPM if needed, and get back a MIDI transcription for editing in your DAW. For anyone who [...]
View post: Eldoraudio launches Guitar Audio to MIDI Converter for turning guitar recordings into MIDI

Porting the Nvidia GPU Driver to Haiku for 3D AccelerationAs good as a desktop OS may be, at some point it has to feature accelerated 3D graphics. This has been a bit of a sticking point for Haiku OS, as none of the big names in GPU cards are likely to start putting out drivers for this OS any time soon. Fortunately there is the Linux open source driver code from Nvidia that can be used as a jumping-off point for a port, which is what [X512] and the community did over at the Haiku forums did over the course of more than a year.
In a recent video [Action Retro] takes a poke at the fruits of these efforts, trying out the driver with an RTX2070 Super GPU. Of note is that this driver requires the GSP (GPU System Processor) controller that got added by Nvidia with the Turing series of GPUs, meaning that you need at least a GTX16 or RTX20 series card.
You can get an installation package from the GitHub repository, such as for the v0.0.2 pre-release that was created in January of 2026. In this pre-release state quite a few things are working, with the ability to play 3D games at a reasonable FPS being the biggest improvement over plain VESA mode. Features like CUDA are not available as they’re not in the open sourced section, of course.
In the [Action Retro] video the whole installation process is demonstrated, starting with a fresh nightly Haiku build. First the gaming performance in software-rendered VESA mode is demonstrated before the GPU driver is installed. This shows a marked improvement in performance, although Minecraft needs to be updated for the newest Mesa library that omits OSMesa, so that couldn’t be tested. Overall it shows that Haiku has made another massive leap forward in becoming a viable daily driver OS.
Meanwhile, over on the ReactOS side of things we just saw a Half-Life 2 playthrough by [Aotori Hibiki], on an Intel Sandy Bridge PC with GeForce 8400GS graphics. Here ReactOS has the advantage of being Windows NT-compatible, including WDDM-style GPU drivers, allowing it to use the same drivers as Windows. Simultaneously, ReactOS is now implementing its first NT6 kernel API calls to make it compatible with modern  (Vista+) Windows.
The upshot here is that for people who want to daily drive an open source OS with all the creature comforts imaginable, things have never seemed more promising. Especially for people who don’t want Yet Another Linux Distro but just an utterly boring desktop-centric, single-user focused OS that Just Works these are great tidings.

Strategy's Saylor needs clarity in BTC pivot message to convince investors: StanChartStandard Chartered sees communication challenges facing the biggest digital asset treasury company as "muddying the waters" for Bitcoin in the near term.

Tom Oberheim at 90: “I can never retire, first of all”Four days ahead of his 90th birthday, Tom Oberheim can still remember that night in 1979. He was in bed in his hotel room at The NAMM Show in Atlanta fretting about the debut of his new synth, the Oberheim OB-X.
“I couldn’t sleep,” he tells me from his Northern California home. “In 1978 my sales were falling very fast…So I got up, went down to the hotel lobby, and wrote the owner’s manuals for the OB-X. The next day, when the show opens, me and my engineer and my sales guy were wondering, ‘Will we still have a company by the end of the day?’”
The show started at 10am. By noon, team Oberheim had landed half a million dollars in business.
47 years later, Tom is less concerned about the survival of his synthesizer business. His career, while legendary, has not been a straightforward success — he lost the rights to his own name, worked in various Silicon Valley jobs for 20 years, and only returned to making synthesizers thanks to a nudge from fellow instrument designer Roger Linn. But with several immense Oberheim instruments hitting the market in the past decade, the OB-X8, TEO-5 and the Sequential OB-6 among them, Tom is no longer losing sleep over synthesizers.
But he makes one thing clear, chuckling: “I can never retire, first of all.”

Tom celebrated his 90th birthday this week, on 7 July. A new video created by the Oberheim company, which is now part of Sequential, sees the legendary synth designer receive birthday wishes from Herbie Hancock, JJ Abrams, Roger Linn, Dave Rossum, Steve Roach, Lisa Coleman and more. As a Sequential team member warned me ahead of our interview, “Tom is always admirably humble about his contributions to the world, but in reality, he has touched so many people with his amazing instruments.”
By all accounts, they were right. Talking to me over video call while sitting at a desk that’s brimming with paperwork and a can of WD-40, Tom is supremely coy about his impact on music, synthesizers, and music production. If he’s aware how truly beloved he is, he doesn’t let on.

“I’ll tell you what’s a joy,” Tom says when I ask about his influence, recalling the countless times he’s asked what he does for a living. “I say, ‘Well, I make music synthesizers.’ And they’d say ‘Oh, I’ve heard of that, but what do they do exactly?’ I say, ‘I’ll show you’, and I take out my cell phone and play them Jump [by Van Halen].” (It’s the company’s OB-Xa that’s responsible for the song’s iconic opening riff.)
Tom beams. “I get bits and pieces of recognition, which is fun. But overall, I’ve had a wonderful life. I can’t complain.”
Starting one of the industry’s most legendary synth companies wasn’t something Tom had planned for in the 1970s. “I kind of got into the synth business out of desperation,” he admits. Born in tiny Manhattan, Kansas, he relocated to Los Angeles in 1956 to attend UCLA, where he studied physics part-time and took music classes for fun. He supported himself with a part-time job as a draftsman at the NCR Corporation, one of the early computer companies in the US, which was based 45 minutes from the UCLA campus. When his boss at NCR left the company to go design circuit boards, he asked Tom to join him.

“It was only 10 minutes from UCLA,” Tom recalls, “so I worked for them for a while, just making printed circuit boards and drawing schematics. [It was] a small company with only three engineers, and me and a woman that was building their logic boards. It was in 1957 and there were no books about computers; the industry wasn’t even 10 years old.”
After learning more about digital logic, Tom was eventually tasked with building a time-code generator. It took him a few months, but he completed the assignment and was subsequently tasked with similar projects. After graduating with a degree in physics he continued working in computing for nearly a decade, but ultimately became burned out.
“I was absolutely sick of all that,” he says. “I didn’t want to ever do it again.” Meanwhile, a less lucrative hobby of his was beginning to occupy more of his time.
Tom was living in Santa Monica in the late 60s, in a one-bedroom apartment. Here, he began making “little boxes” for his musician friends — mostly amplifiers for the likes of Don Ellis and Joseph Byrd. A friend approached him to build a ring modulator. “I didn’t even know what it was,” he says, chuckling. After reading an article in a 1961 issue of Electronics magazine, he had a better picture of the assignment and assembled a prototype. He ended up assembling a few, actually.
“A ring modulator drastically changes the [frequency] spectrum [of a signal] and makes for some very weird, very crazy sounds,” Tom explains. “That’s where people were at in 1969. Synthesizers were just barely invented, and it was a few years before the Minimoog [came to market]. Eventually, in 1969, I decided to put that into limited production just by myself — and that was the beginning of Oberheim.”
Chicago Musical Instruments (CMI) approached Tom about the ring modulator, asking him to produce it for the brand. It was sold as the Maestro RM-1A, and he estimates sales at only around 200 units. But it was his next product in this family, the Maestro PS-1 phase shifter, that let Tom take the next leap. The company sold 70,000 units of the PS-1, which gave him the money to take on new projects.
But synthesizers weren’t top of his mind until he attended the 1971 NAMM Show in Chicago and saw a now-legendary modular synthesizer first-hand: the ARP 2600.
Tom loved the 2600 — he told me in 2024 that he stayed up for “36 hours straight” playing it when he got his hands on one. So enthralled, he asked ARP if he could be their Los Angeles dealer. He then sold the 2600 to artists such as Lalo Schifrin, Frank Zappa, and Leon Russell.
In the studios of these musicians, he happened across early Moog and ARP sequencers, which sparked an idea: “a digital sequencer where you could load the notes from the synthesiser keyboard,” says Tom. “So I developed that product. It was called the DS-2. But it had a problem that I didn’t think about.”
The DS-2 could only send pre-programmed sequences to a synth, meaning the performer couldn’t play new notes simultaneously — you’d need two synthesizers to make this work. Tom decided to create a small “absolute minimum analogue synthesizer module”, which became the Synthesizer Expander Module (SEM), to load ideas from the DS-2 and play along on the synth at the same time.
Little did Tom know, the SEM would be the catalyst for his soon-to-be synthesizer company. In January 1975, CMI (which had been acquired by Norlin) cancelled its orders of the Maestro pedals Tom was making. With a handful of employees to retain, he had to pivot his business, fast. He says that “almost overnight”, he had the idea to link multiple SEM modules, connect an E-Mu digital scanning keyboard, and create a synthesizer: the Oberheim Two Voice and the Oberheim Four Voice were exhibited at the NAMM Show in Chicago in June 1975.
The SEM, the Two Voice and the Four Voice were the earliest examples of the signature Oberheim sound, which is rich, fat and wide. (To understand what it sounds like, listen to Rush’s 1982 prog rock opus Subdivisions, and Eurythmics’ 1983 moody synth-pop hit Sweet Dreams.)
“I decided to put in a two-pole filter that [ARP’s Dennis Colin] designed for me — Jim [Cooper, of UCLA] designed the envelope generators and Dave [Rossum] designed the oscillators — I designed the front panel, the power supply and all the metal work. Everybody did a great job, but I wasn’t real happy with the sound.” He took his soldering iron and resistors and tinkered with the signal levels of the oscillators, the filter, and the voltage-controlled amplifier until he found something he liked.
Once he found the sound, the Oberheim team never changed it. “I’m proud to say I had something to do with it,” says Tom.

Despite a turbulent 1978, where sales dropped after Dave Smith’s Sequential Circuits released the Prophet-5, Oberheim had an inspiring seven-year run. It released a string of studio icons, including the DMX drum machine, the OB-X (which “saved the company”, says Tom), the OB-Xa, and the OB-8.
Oberheim was making history, but Tom doesn’t think of it that way at all. “All we were doing was trying to stay ahead of the mad rush…Roland, Korg, Yamaha, there was a lot of competition. We were on a continual crash programme for several years.”
The money that Oberheim Electronics made from this run set up Tom nicely. He married his wife, Jill, and they moved into a small house in Santa Monica, which he then remodelled. (During our talk, an immensely friendly Jill appears on camera to say hello and crack a few good jokes about various British and American politicians.)
Although he was building synthesizers that were defining the sound of 80s music, Tom still doesn’t consider himself a musician, nor does he keep many of his own instruments at home. An OB-Xa, which Prince used for his album 1999, will set you back around $10,000 today — Tom doesn’t own one, but a framed picture of one hangs on the wall beside him, like a proud parent putting up a photo of their child.

“I don’t have room for stuff, and I’m not a collector. I’ve got a couple of SEMs and I’ve got an OB-8, which actually is not here — I’ve loaned it to a friend now for two years,” he says with a laugh.
Oberheim Electronics flourished until 1985, when the production of the Matrix 12 synthesizer was delayed, and the company was forced into bankruptcy. Tom’s lawyer acquired the Oberheim name (although Tom eventually sued this lawyer for legal malpractice), and released the Matrix series. The Oberheim brand under the lawyer hit bankruptcy again in 1988, and guitar behemoth Gibson then purchased the rights to Oberheim’s brand. Roger Linn and Dave Smith’s companies also went out of business around the mid-80s.
Tom tried keeping a foot in the synthesizer business, and in 1990 came up with another idea for an instrument called the SEM Max, but couldn’t make it work. “I was just by myself, and didn’t have a lot of money,” he recalls. “This synthesiser was way too big for me to handle on my own. And so I decided in the mid-90s that it was time for me to go to work and pay the mortgage on the house. I just got a job off the internet, and then for the next five or six years I worked three different jobs in Silicon Valley, none having to do with music.”
These jobs included building microcontroller software for traffic light systems, high-level tech writing, and working at a think tank owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. From the mid-90s to the late 00s, Tom’s focus wasn’t on building a new, revolutionary instrument or influencing culture, but simply on getting by with his wife and family, paying off his mortgage and building his savings.
Paul Epworth’s Oberheim OB-X. Image: MusicTech
“We thought that, ‘Well, if we’re careful, when we get older, we’ll probably be able to pay for the nursing home,’” he says. Tom and Jill still live in the same Bay Area house they bought 35 years ago after leaving Los Angeles.
He describes his work in Silicon Valley as a “high tech rat race”, and has fonder memories of his time in the synth world. I suggest that he was part of a ‘synthesis brat pack’, with his contemporaries Dave Smith, Dave Rossum, Bob Moog, Don Buchla, Roger Linn and Alan R Pearlman all creating innovative, competing products in the same era. It’s this gang that is also responsible for the development of the MIDI protocol — but Tom humbly plays down his role.
“The history books say that I was involved in [creating] MIDI, and that’s such a joke,” he says. “When Dave [Smith] did his first paper about tying synthesizers together, it was a digital thing and I wanted absolutely nothing to do with it. I said, ‘Don’t talk to me about a digital interface hooking up machines. I don’t want to do that.’”
However, when Dave and Roland began implementing MIDI into their instruments, and convinced other manufacturers to follow suit, they asked Tom to become the first president of the MIDI Manufacturers Association. As a neutral party between Roland and Sequential, he ultimately said yes.
It’s thanks to the synth brat pack that Tom ever got back into the synth business at all. After Dave started Dave Smith Instruments in 2002 and revived the Sequential brand, in 2009, Roger convinced Tom to produce a reissue of the SEM module created in the 70s.
“I sold a couple thousand all by myself, and then I had the idea for the upgrade to the Oberheim Two Voice — that’s my baby, the newer Two Voice,” he says. “That got me back into it a little bit. But I didn’t want to have a company again, because I’d proven that I didn’t have the chops to be a good company president.”
With the help of his good friend and previous employee Marcus Ryle, he soon reclaimed the rights to the Oberheim name. Uli Behringer had acquired the rights from Gibson, and Ryle convinced Behringer to return the name to Tom. Marcus later worked with Tom to get Focusrite to buy his name and trademark, with Sequential as the distributor for Oberheim products — a setup that continues today. Oberheim and Sequential now ship the TEO-5, OB-X8 and OB-6.
Tom Oberheim. Image: Sequential
At 90, Tom remains sharp and curious. He asks me about my role at MusicTech, what my hometown in England is like, even asking me for photos of the town square and surrounding nature. He recently spent a year reading about quantum mechanics — “I still don’t understand it,” he says. And, while technically retired, he also remains an advisor to the Sequential and Oberheim brand, working on instruments such as the TEO-5, and organises his local church’s organ concert a few times a year.
“I do also have a little project, which I can’t talk about but it’s keeping me busy,” he teases.
Modest as he is during our two-hour video call, Tom refrains from congratulating himself on his contribution to music, but his impact is undeniable. Musicians who are credited with changing the trajectory of pop music in the 80s did so using Oberheim’s instruments — Prince, Van Halen, Rush, Stevie Nicks, The Police, Kool & The Gang and countless others. Today, producers like Paul Epworth, Jack Antonoff and Stranger Things’ Michael Stein and Kyle Dixon are shaping the modern music landscape, still using Oberheim’s tools.
While he says he’s slowing down — “it takes me a day to do the things I used to do in an hour” — with new instruments still coming from Oberheim, Tom’s influence persists. All of it, he says, is simply what happens when you “do the work you love, and combine that with what you like to do that isn’t work.” 70 years into his career, this country boy from Kansas is still finding time to tweak filters and oscillators: “I love being in the lab tinkering with something.”
 
The post Tom Oberheim at 90: “I can never retire, first of all” appeared first on MusicTech.

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XNULLX releases five FREE plugins for sound design and sound mangling
Developer XNULLX has released five free donationware plugins covering granular processing, saturation, wavefolding, spectral smear, and beat slicing. I will be honest right away. I like the tools themselves, but I am getting tired of the current wave of AI-generated plugin websites, where everything starts to feel like the same blocks of text in the [...]
View post: XNULLX releases five FREE plugins for sound design and sound mangling

Montagem Phonk FinisherPhonk Finisher is a single-parameter effect plugin. The Amount control drives a signal chain of saturation, a high-frequency tilt, and output limiting, calibrated for the funk automotivo / phonk genre's sonic characteristics (driven low end, bright top end, consistent perceived loudness). The plugin is currently in public beta: builds are functional and tested on both Windows and macOS but are not yet code-signed or notarized, which requires a one-time manual step on first install (documented in the download). Available as VST3 and Audio Unit, plus a standalone application for use without a DAW. Read More