Students’ Leaf Blower Suppressor To Hit RetailElectric leaf blowers are already far quieter than their gas-powered peers, but they still aren’t the kind of thing you’d like to hear first-thing on a Saturday morning. Looking to improve on the situation, a group of students from Johns Hopkins University have successfully designed a 3D printed add-on that manages to significantly reduce the noise generated by a modern electric leaf blower without compromising the amount of air it’s able to move. The device has proven to be so successful in tests that Stanley Black & Decker is looking to put a commercial version of the device on store shelves within the next two years.
The team says the first part of the problem was identifying where the noise was actually coming from. After taking an example leaf blower apart and studying all of its moving components, they determined that most of the noise produced wasn’t mechanical at all — what you’re actually hearing is the complex cacophony of high-speed air rushing out of the nozzle. With this knowledge in hand, they isolated the frequencies which were the harshest to the human ear and focused on canceling them out.

Let’s try spinning the air, that’s a good trick.
We’re assuming the pending commercial venture with Stanley has prevented them from releasing too much technical information about the gadget. But from what was published on the university’s news site Hub and the video below, it’s explained that a portion of the air is redirected into channels printed into the device, which slows it down before dumping it back into the stream.
To be clear, this doesn’t eliminate the noise completely. In a side-by-side comparison, the suppressed blower is still fairly loud. But with the shriller tones removed from the mix, it’s at least a less annoying noise.
As designed, the printed suppressor is meant to attach to an otherwise unmodified blower. But we’re willing to bet that Stanley instead plans on implementing the technology directly into the nozzles of their future blowers. That way, rather than selling you a simple plastic add-on, they can get you on the hook for a whole new blower.
That is, unless somebody out there decides to come up with their own DIY version. We’ll keep an eye on the tip line should anyone want to share with the class.

SUPERBOOTH24: UDO Audio Reveals Super 8 Polyphonic Synthesizer
UDO Audio revealed the Super 8, a 16-voice polyphonic, bitimbral analog-hybrid performance synthesizer. We had the chance to hear it in action and film it at Superbooth24. A big THANK YOU to Minimal Audio for sponsoring our Superbooth24 coverage. Superbooth is in full swing, so you’re bound to see some stuff that inspires a little [...]
View post: SUPERBOOTH24: UDO Audio Reveals Super 8 Polyphonic Synthesizer

Getting It Done: The Week in D.I.Y. & Indie MusicThis week, our tips and advice for independent, do-it-yourselfers covered how to release albums like top artists, how to get more streams (without bots), and more.
The post Getting It Done: The Week in D.I.Y. & Indie Music appeared first on Hypebot.

REWIND: The new music industry’s week in reviewIt was a busy week by any definition, and the music industry was no exception, from the Kendrick and Drake feud to musicians missing millions in unpaid royalties and more…
The post REWIND: The new music industry’s week in review appeared first on Hypebot.

Korg announce the ST1K Synth Tuner Korg announce a new tuner designed specifically for the unique needs of synthesizer players.

SUPERBOOTH24: Bitwig Studio 5.2 Bitwig talked us through the new compressor and EQ plug-ins in BITWIG Studio 5.2 as well as detailing some of its new editing capabilities.

SUPERBOOTH24: Get Your ‘80s on With Dreadbox Murmux Analog Poly Synth
Dreadbox launched the new Murmux Adept analog polyphonic synthesizer, a hardware unit that’ll set you back a cool €2,180 + VAT (Sweetwater lists it at $2,999.) Bedroom Producers Blog saw this bad boy in action on the floor of Superbooth Berlin this week. Watch our video above the article (thanks to Minimal Audio for sponsoring [...]
View post: SUPERBOOTH24: Get Your ‘80s on With Dreadbox Murmux Analog Poly Synth

Kubernik: 'REVIVAL69' The Concert That Rocked the WorldIn 2022, producer/director Ron Chapman interviewed me for his music documentary, REVIVAL69: The Concert That Rocked the World, which celebrates and chronicles a 1969 rock festival in Toronto, Canada that spotlighted the debut of John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band along with the Doors, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Bo Diddley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Gene Vincent, backed by the Alice Cooper band.

  I served as a consultant for the film and helped arrange an interview with Robby Krieger for it.

   The film captures John Lennon’s first solo booking outside of the Beatles.

    It details how promoters John Brower and Ken Walker were able to book Lennon for the show and how his appearance almost didn’t happen. The Plastic Ono Band’s lineup: Yoko Ono, Eric Clapton, Klaus Voorman, and Alan White. The movie includes interviews from Krieger, Voormann, White, Cooper, and Geddy Lee of Rush, who attended the festival.  

   The documentary incorporates plenty of live footage from legendary documentarian D.A. Pennebaker who lensed the action.

   It will be released in theaters and digitally this year on June 28th.

   A few years ago, I interviewed a few principals in the important documentary about the landmark event. Portions appeared in my book Docs That Rock, Music That Matters.   

John Brower, Toronto Concert Promoter

Q: Talk to me about this monumental endeavor.

A: I called Lennon at Apple Records asking if he wanted to emcee the gig. Lennon said, ‘no…but he would like to play!’ We went from selling a couple of thousand seats to selling 25,000 tickets when it was announced Lennon would play.

Q: Did Morrison and Lennon actually meet at the show?

A: When Morrison and the Doors heard that Lennon was now going to play, he asked [manager] Bill Siddons to set up a meeting to discuss who would headline the show.

    There was a knock on the locker room door and it was Bill [Siddons] and Morrison asking if they could talk to John and I. I grabbed John and we met in the hallway. The two singers didn’t acknowledge each other or shake hands but Siddons wanted to ask Lennon if the Doors could go on before Lennon.

John’s eyes opened wide and he said, ‘No, you guys are the headliners. That means you go on last, that’s the way it works.’ John was not about to be upstaged by Morrison and whatever antics he might pull off. Just then, Little Richard appeared, and said to us, ‘Hey, I will headline! I will headline!’

    I then told Morrison, ‘Look, I have already paid you guys, so if you don’t want to play, you can go back to your hotel room and relax. No problem.’

    Morrison nodded at Siddons and they agreed to go on after Lennon. Then Morrison said, “one thing: We want to be on the side of the stage so we can watch the set.”        

John Densmore, The Doors

Q: Tell me about this Toronto concert

A: We came to Canada and at the airport we all got into two black Cadillacs, then all of a sudden several hundred bikers started zooming along beside us, they were in a club called the Vagabonds. A hundred ‘Hell’s Angels’ types, and we’re going, ‘Hey, this is kind of cool.’ And we come into the stadium, a football stadium, and they drive the limos all the way around the entire circle of the track with these 150-200 bikers leading us. So, it’s real profound. Like, ‘Oh my God. Here comes Lucifer,’ you know. It was really great.

    So, I go backstage and Eric Clapton says to me, ‘Isn’t this a crazy life?’ Eric has not cleaned up his act yet. I didn’t get to see John. And we have to follow John and Yoko, and it’s a monster band. Eric, Klaus, Alan. Ridiculous. They start and then we hear this noise coming out of the speakers. Everyone on the stage is saying, ‘what the fuck is going on here? Some feedback with their set? And then everyone notices a bag on the floor of the stage with a wire leading from it. Yoko is in the bag with a microphone warbling. It was great. We didn’t know what the fuck was going on. ‘Oh, wait a minute, she’s in there.’ Really outrageous.

    I mean, you know, John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band walked out on stage and it was the biggest roar of the century and we’re supposed to follow this group?

   Kim Fowley introduced us and we played the best we could. In my opinion we were fine. We weren’t great. We weren’t lousy. We were fine. But everyone was so in awe of the Mop Top…It was great.”      

 

    D.A. Pennebaker 

Q: You saw and documented the Toronto moment but didn’t film The Doors. 

 

A: Morrison had come to me a couple of times and he obviously was interested. He and Bob Newirth came and showed me Jim’s film. His student film HWY. I was not impressed, but that didn’t mean anything. And I was interested in anybody who was a poet and wanted to make films. That was interesting to me. I didn’t look down like this was amateur. But the fact is that he was a boozer. And, you know, that’s a hard thing to make a film about. My father was a boozer. You can’t count on getting their real lives. You get something else. They put on a kind of a show. And that was a problem.

 

      And, Morrison was funded. He had some kind of money. And I had some concerns what he would look at in 20 years. When the Doors got to Toronto, they were all very puffy. They looked like chefs in a big restaurant. And I would have shot them, but we couldn’t afford to stay for the two days. But I heard them and we couldn’t afford the tracking. We paid for the track for Yoko and John and gave it to them to release as a record.   

 

   It’s an amazing thing. Coming at the end of that whole concert it was the end of the Beatles. They understood it and at the end they fell silent. And John looked out and it was kind of scary and nobody was there. It was a funny moment. And they all left the stage and I remember a piece of paper blowing across the stage and slowly the audience came to life. I thought, ‘My God. This is a fantastic wake.’

 

   Yoko was so crazy, but still, there was something so fascinating about what she did. You could see she did it with absolute conviction. What she was bringing to me was a kind of funeral cry for something that was lost. At the time I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. But I did welcome it.” 

Gary Pig Gold, Writer 

 

 

    "Saturday, September the 13th of 1969 broke particularly warm, bright and sunny over the suburbs of Toronto," recalls decidedly suburbanite Gary Pig Gold. "And this was to be the day the drummer in my very first teenaged garage combo agreed to accompany me all the way into the Big City in order that I could buy my very first teenaged guitar. But! An electricone this time; the better to approximate the walls of sound on our bass player's 'Summertime Blues' 45 ...Blue Cheer version, that is.  

 

   "Only one problem though: I had only managed to accumulate twenty Canadian dollars with which to accomplish this most momentous of tasks. Which of course upon arrival dictated we bypass the big downtown music stores and traipse directly instead over to that string of seedy-and-then-some pawn shops which littered – literally! – the city's infamous Church Street strip. Needless to say the proprietor of the very first establishment we entered certainly must have seen us coming, as in answer to my request he pulled from the back room a flaming once-red electric (sort of) guitar of questionable pedigree, not to mention intonation which cost – surprise! – exactly twenty dollars. The grin on my face as I emptied my pockets was equaled only by the smirk on said salesman's face as he packed my new best friend into a 'complimentary' cardboard carrying case and sent us triumphantly upon our Blue Cheer way.

    "However, strolling back to the train station drummer Mike and I were suddenly struck by music – loud music; rock and roll music! – drifting enticingly overhead from some far-off location. It didn't sound like a record ...or a radio... and as we ventured northwesterly it grew ever louder and absolutely groovier by the block. Soon enough we found ourselves, along with about a thousand or so other curious kids milling outside the University of Toronto's Varsity Stadium, wherein it seemed like there was an actual bonafide rock festival going on. Could it... Could it be the Great White Northland's very own Woodstock a-happening?!!

   "Eagerly circumventing the perimeter of the gigantic structure we came upon one rear entranceway guarded by a genuine dyed-in-tie-dyed-wool hippie – yep, just like those our parents had warned us about via the pages of The Toronto Daily Star – who said 'Hey, man. You guys wanna come on in?' welllll... Explaining we'd just lost our last remaining $20 on Church Street he replied 'Don't worry, man. Just sneak on in. I won't tell anyone. Go on!' 

     "But alas, what with the complimentary elastic band already giving way 'round my pawnshop guitar case [sic!], and terrified said instrument might fall into some wrong hands altogether I regretfully said 'No thanks,' clutched my six-strings ever tighter, and Mike and I continued our journey back to Union Station just as it sounded like Jerry Lee Lewis was taking the stage. We tried consoling ourselves on the ride home that not only would there be other rock concerts to sneak into in our futures, but that with an actual electric guitar finally in our arsenal, someday WE would be playing Varsity Stadium. And the Killer would be opening for us!

   "Now, here's the punchline: A few hours later, safely home after Saturday dinner, my phone rang. It was drummer Mike. 'Gary! Quick! Turn on CHUM-FM right now!!' he gasped before hanging up. Hmmm. Downstairs to my radio I went, just in time to hear our favorite jock gasping 'And I don't believe it, ladies and gentlemen, but it's true! As we report to you now, live from Varsity Stadium, none other than JOHN LENNON has just taken the stage! Yes, JOHN LENNON. This is unbelievable, ladies and gentlemen!!'

    "Eight years later I also turned down two free tickets to go see April Wine at the El Mocambo ...yes, on the night it turned out the Rolling Stones were playing instead. But I really do much more miss having missed the world premiere of the Plastic Ono Band right there ten blocks northwest of Church Street near the end of one of the greatest 1969's of my life. But every September 13th I still pull Live Peace in Toronto out for a spin on the ol' Pig Player ...Side 2 and all, I'll have everyone know.

    "Oh, and that semi-red $20 electric special from Church Street? Turns out its frets and neck altogether were no more durable than its cardboard carrying case: the poor thang survived less than two months of my adolescent Blue Cheering all over it.   

    "I certainly learned my lesson though: I spent nearly Fifty dollars on my next guitar..."        

Harvey Kubernik in 1969 witnessed his first two concerts by the Rolling Stones in Southern California at the Inglewood Forum.

        Kubernik is the author of 20 books, including 2009’s Canyon Of Dreams: The Magic And The Music Of Laurel Canyon, 2014’s Turn Up The Radio! Rock, Pop and Roll In Los Angeles 1956-1972, 2015's Every Body Knows: Leonard Cohen, 2016's Heart of Gold Neil Young and 2017's 1967: A Complete Rock Music History of the Summer of Love.

   Sterling/Barnes and Noble in 2018 published Harvey and Kenneth Kubernik’s The Story Of The Band: From Big Pink To The Last Waltz. In2021 they wrote Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child for Sterling/Barnes and Noble.

    Otherworld Cottage Industries in 2020 published Harvey’s Docs That Rock, Music That Matters. His writings are in several book anthologies, including The Rolling Stone Book Of The Beats and Drinking With Bukowski.

    Harvey wrote the liner notes to the CD re-releases of Carole King’s Tapestry, The Essential Carole King, Allen Ginsberg’s Kaddish, Elvis Presley The ’68 Comeback Special, The Ramones’ End of the Century and Big Brother & the Holding Company Captured Live at The Monterey International Pop Festival.  

   During 2006 he spoke at the special hearings initiated by The Library of Congress held in Hollywood, California, discussing archiving practices and audiotape preservation. In 2017 Kubernik appeared at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, as part of their Distinguished Speakers Series. For a decade, Harvey has been the Editorial Director of Record Collector News magazine.

Ghana, Singapore conduct trade in semi-fungible token pilot projectProject DESFT is meant to encourage trade between small businesses using a CBDC and a stablecoin, with an emphasis on credentialing.

Adobe comes after indie game emulator Delta for copying its logoAfter Apple loosened its App Store guidelines to permit game emulators, the retro game emulator Delta — an app 10 years in the making — hit the top of the App Store’s charts. But the increased attention also brought the threat of legal action, as Adobe targeted Delta for sporting a logo that looked too […]
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Hardcore Duo Thrillrot Sign to Lost Future RecordsCalifornia label Lost Future Records has announced the signing of Denver based duo THRILLROT. The band's ultra-tight rhythms and creative dynamic shifts have earned them a growing following. Their forthcoming new album on Lost Future will be announced soon."I am very excited to announce that Denver based duo Thrillrot have signed to Lost Future for an LP to be released in 2025," writes label chief Ben Kaplan. "Their latest EP, B.O.S., immediately blew me away and I reached out to Noah and Mason the day after I heard it. These guys are super talented and focused on making something unique and artist driven which is what we are all about here at the label. I think on a full length album even more dimensions of this band will emerge and create something that all fans of metal will appreciate."Thrillrot is a two-piece metal band from Denver, Colorado known for their intense and energetic sound. The duo blends relentless drums, searing guitars and vocal savagery into a feast of fury, showcasing a raw aggression that resonates with listeners as much as it incites. With each performance, the band aims to be not just heard but felt, with the visceral nature of the genre always at the forefront.

On The Web: thrillrot.com

Emulating Biology For Robots With Rolling Contact JointsJoints are an essential part in robotics, especially those that try to emulate the motion of (human) animals. Unlike the average automaton, animals are not outfitted with bearings and similar types of joints, but rather rely sometimes on ball joints and a lot on rolling contact joints (RCJs). These RCJs have the advantage of being part of the skeletal structure, making them ideal for compact and small joints. This is the conclusion that [Breaking Taps] came to as well while designing the legs for a bird-like automaton.
These RCJs do not just have the surfaces which contact each other while rotating, but also provide the constraints for how far a particular joint is allowed to move, both in the forward and backward directions as well as sideways. In the case of the biological version these contact surfaces are also coated with a constantly renewing surface to prevent direct bone-on-bone contact. The use of RCJs is rather common in robotics, with the humanoid DRACO 3 platform as detailed in a 2023 research article by [Seung Hyeon Bang] and colleagues in Frontiers in Robotics and AI.
The other aspect of RCJs is that they have to be restrained with a compliant mechanism. In the video [Breaking Taps] uses fishing line for this, but many more options are available. The ‘best option’ also depends on the usage and forces which the specific joint will be subjected to. For further reading on the kinematics in robotics and kin, we covered the book Exact Constraint: Machine Design Using Kinematic Principles by [Douglass L. Blanding] a while ago.

TEO-5, as told by Tom Oberheim: “If we made this 30 years ago, we’d have ruled the world”Thomas Elroy Oberheim removes his glasses and wipes his cheek. “It still makes tears come to my eyes, I’m sorry.”
On the morning before his new synthesizer, the TEO-5, is released, Tom isn’t shedding tears of sadness. He’s just astounded by the impact of his 50-year career and the myriad ways artists have crafted legendary sounds with his namesake Oberheim synths.
“I gave lectures at some colleges and gatherings, like Moogfest 19 years ago” Tom says from his Moraga, California home. “And I had six or eight clips that show some Oberheim sounds — Dreamweaver by Gary Wright which, depending on the audience, they’ve never heard of. And then, of course, Weather Report…But I always end it with [Van Halen’s] Jump. Whether they’re 60 or 15 years old, they’ve all heard Jump. Then people leave saying, ‘Oh, now I know what you do!’”
Oberheim is approaching his 88th birthday. “It’s hard to think of another job I could have done,” he says, “that would give me such satisfaction.”
The new TEO-5 expresses Tom’s dream: to put that instantly recognisable sound into a compact machine that’s more affordable than any Oberheim since the company began in 1974.

After speaking to Tom Oberheim, you understand why musicians and synthesists revere him. You believe the quirky anecdotes — how he apparently once invited a fan and his dog over for dinner when he learned the dog, Obie, was named after him. You get why his instruments have stood the test of time and why his name is synonymous with Bob Moog, Dave Smith, Don Buchla and Roger Linn. He’s dedicated his life and career to putting immense instruments into the hands of creatives — and he’s learned a lot.
“What I’ve found over 50 years,” Tom says, ”is that, as an engineer, you develop a machine, and then you put it in the hands of a musician, and what comes back are sounds that you never thought were possible. That’s still the thrill for me.”
With the TEO-5, named so for his initials, Tom believes he’ll get that same joy from those who take the chance to play it. At $1,500, it’s not immediately accessible to all synth lovers, but he says the “goal was to have a machine that was more affordable [than other Oberheims] and yet not have to apologise for it. And I think that that’s been achieved.”
Tom Oberheim and the TEO-5. Image: Press
For those who’ve always wanted an Oberheim synth, then, the TEO-5 might be the easiest way in. “It’s the exact filter circuit from the original Synthesizer Expander Module (SEM) from 1974,” says Tom, and it sports that classic blue-striped finish – “I’ve always loved that look,” he adds.
But the TEO-5 is more than just a tribute to the glory days of Oberheim. It’s designed for modern producers, with built-in digital effects including chorus, delay, reverb and phaser, a modern take on oscillator X-Mod, a 64-step sequencer and multimode arpeggiator, plus a Fatar keybed with aftertouch.
Tom is pretty chuffed. “I have to say, having lived through the Four Voice, the Eight Voice, the OB-1…” he rattles off the names of products like they’re his children. “…We’ve had the OB-6 for a few years, and now the TEO-5. I couldn’t be happier. If we made this 30 years ago, we’d have ruled the world.”
Image: Simon Vinall for MusicTech
The beauty of the TEO-5 — along with the design — is how quickly you can patch in a sound and get lost. It immediately sounds fit for a stadium. The presets boast inspiring sequences and patches (yes, including a sound in the style of Jump), and there’s no need to dive into menus — it just has the sound.
Tom admits that even he wasn’t sure how good a $1,500 Oberheim synth could be. After all, the most recent and celebrated Oberheim is the OB-X8, which costs an eye-watering $5,000.
“It doesn’t do any good to put every bell and whistle on a machine, sell it for $8,000 while some of the features never get used,” he explains. “It’s always a matter of thinking about the sound, effects and modulation, but keeping the cost in mind. It’s a puzzle and, if you’re lucky and know what you’re doing, you can solve that puzzle in different ways. After 50 years, you find yourself getting good at that. There’s still some compromise but with the TEO-5, we did things that I didn’t think were possible.”
Image: Simon Vinall for MusicTech
So what is it about retro synthesizers? For the past few decades, producers have been enthralled by them, as software emulations of vintage gear and buzzwords like ‘warm’ and ‘imperfect’ are thrown around. Why would you want the sound of 50-year-old synthesizers rather than something fresh and new?
Tom laughs — “We live in a high-tech world, but the music instrument business does not follow suit. I don’t think anybody would ever consider Apple reviving the first iPhone. But here we are.
“I recently had a prototype SEM module in my lab and got it working. I gave it to a young musician — when I say young, he’s under 30 with a great career; he’s got 15 synthesizers. And this module was either going to the recycling or to somebody who could use it. And I sent it to him, and he said, ‘That sounds so good.’ There was no talk about it being retro, even though it’s…let’s see…50 years old. It has nothing to do with retro; I’ve learned over the years that if it doesn’t have a sound that a musician wants, then they won’t want it. And it’s thanks to some brilliant people like Bob Moog, Don Buchla and Dave Smith and a long line of others, that this idea of an analogue synthesiser has become a standard.”
Tom encountered the synthesizer that got him hooked on the scene in 1971, several years after moving to LA and becoming “burnt out” from working in general computer design. He needed something new.
“I talked ARP [owned by Alan Robert Pearlman] into letting me be an ARP dealer in LA. I didn’t know that much about synthesizers. I’d read about them. I’d seen a big Moog in a studio in LA in ‘71. But I got my ARP 2600, and I was up playing it for 36 hours straight and I thought, ‘This is amazing! Where have these things been? Why has it taken so long?’ I still remember the sounds I made. I don’t really play an instrument but I found lots of things to do with that 2600, and it stayed with me.”
Image: Simon Vinall for MusicTech
You might think Tom Oberheim, with his name branded across almost 20 beloved machines, would have an impressive studio with racks of coveted music gear like the ARP 2600. “But that’s not true!” he says with a chuckle. That hasn’t stopped him, at 87, from learning new studio techniques, though.
“I have never had a studio. I’m not trained on any instruments. So I’m at a point where I’m looking at different DAWs and learning about samples. I’m collecting stuff, and I’m like some young kid that just just got out of junior high, and I think it’s amazing.At the beginning, I talked to friends and, of course, if I take five of my friends, each one has a different DAW so I’ve been pretty much on my own.
Tom continues, beaming and chuckling: “My wife continually scratches her head. ‘Why are you doing this?’ But it’s fun discovering this stuff. I’m embarrassed to sometimes call a friend and say, ‘What does this mean? How do I get USB MIDI into my computer and make sounds? Oh, it’s like that. That’s simple!’ But I’m having fun and continuing to learn. Once you stop learning, you got a problem.”
It’s easy for many of us to take modern instruments and software for granted. Tom is among those who paved the way for our go-to plugins like Serum, Diva, and Pigments. He began at a time before bedroom studios; before plugin emulations and hardware clones. Many Oberheim synths have been subject to emulation — some subtle, some blatant. But Tom isn’t so bothered by that.
“Anything that brings new sounds to, let’s say, young musicians just starting out, is exciting to me. And I don’t care what the brand is.
Image: Simon Vinall for MusicTech
“There’s been a few different simulations of Oberheim over the years and, I have to say, GForce did a great job. I don’t have the ear training to get into the fine details — I’ve been relying on musicians to tell me what sounds good since the ‘70s. But the reaction to the GForce stuff was very positive, and I certainly think it sounds really good.
“I mean, the fact that you can spend $1,000 and get a great system in your bedroom is exciting, no matter what’s being simulated. Imagine if you were able to do this in 1970.”
“And I’m sure there’ll be more to come. So much has happened — Dave Smith really pushed the idea that became MIDI. And I think that was really a revolution.”
The late Dave Smith, a friend and colleague of Tom, was known as the godfather of MIDI. Not only did he invent MIDI and convince other synth brands to adopt it, but he was also the person behind Sequential Instruments. Later acquired by UK brand Focusrite, Dave and Sequential became a major part of bringing back the Oberheim name in 2016 with the Sequential OB-6. The trademarked Oberheim name, however, was owned by Gibson until 2019.
Image: Simon Vinall for MusicTech
But, after Dave’s passing, he and Sequential continue to inspire Oberheim. Keen synth lovers will note the similarities between the TEO-5 and Sequential’s Take-5, released in 2022. Like Tom, Dave was a visionary. And there was one thing he did that Tom still admires.
“One thing that I wish I had done sooner is what Dave did in the early 2000s. He realised that analogue was coming back. He got back into the business. At first, it was with the Evolver but when he did the Prophet-08, it just exploded. I wasn’t going to start another company at the time but now things have changed. Now I’m in alliance with Focusrite and I’m back in the business.”
Before we say goodbye, we can’t help but wonder what Tom’s favourite synthesizer is, given his time in the game.
“It’s hard to ignore the Roland Jupiter-8,” he says. “At the time it came out, we were making either the OB-Xa or the OB-8. I saw the machine and just didn’t think I had the resources to go as far as [Roland did with the Jupiter-8. That’s a great machine. But there really hasn’t been that much that I said, ‘Oh God, I wish I’d done that. I was never enamoured with the DX7 because it was just too mysterious. You know, maybe five people on the planet Earth could programme it — and they’re getting old now, like me!”
Image: Simon Vinall for MusicTech
It’s impossible to talk about synthesis and not talk about Tom Oberheim. The past five decades have been a rollercoaster, he admits. But, at 87 years old, he’s still looking for the next challenge; the next opportunity to learn.
“A lot’s happened since Focusrite came on the scene,” he says. “And there’s a lot to do. Some people think the industry’s reached a pinnacle. I don’t see that. I’m certainly not at the point where I’m going to do major design work — I’m getting up there,” he says as he nods upward. “But I think we’ll continue to see a lot of creativity in this business because you can take a certain bag of parts and do a lot of different things with it.
“I mean, you can do a lot and make an awful big sound at home with an Oberheim. I usually wait until my wife takes the dog out for her morning walk, and then I turn it up loud!”
Image: Simon Vinall for MusicTech
Read more music technology interviews and features. Learn morea bout the TEO-5 at oberheim.com
The post TEO-5, as told by Tom Oberheim: “If we made this 30 years ago, we’d have ruled the world” appeared first on MusicTech.

Raspberry Pi Files Paperwork With The London Stock ExchangeIf you’re a regular visitor to the Raspberry Pi website and you have a sharp eye, you may have noticed during the last few days a new link has appeared in their footer. Labelled “Investor relations“, it holds links to the documents filed with the London Stock Exchange of their intention to float. In other words, it’s confirmation of their upcoming share offering.
It has been interesting to watch the growth of Raspberry Pi over the last twelve years, from cottage industry producing a thousand boards in China, to dominating the SBC market and launching their own successful silicon. Without either a crystal ball or a window into Eben Upton’s mind, we’re as unreliable as anyone else when it comes to divining their future path. But since we’re guessing that it will involve ever more complex silicon with a raspberry logo, it’s obvious that the float will give them the investment springboard they need.
For those of us who have been around for a long time this isn’t the first company in our corner of the technology world we’ve seen burn brightly. It’s not even the first from Cambridge. Appointing ourselves as pundits though, we’d say that Raspberry Pi’s path to this point has been surprisingly understated, based upon the strength of its products rather than hype, and while Eben is undoubtedly a well-known figure, not based upon a cult of personality. There is already a significant ecosystem around Raspberry Pi, we’d like to think that this move will only strengthen it. We may not be looking at the British Microsoft, but we don’t think we’re looking at another Sinclair either.

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