Cherry Audio Drops Oberheim Eight Voice Recreation

It’s their take on 1977’s version of the Oberheim analog classic, renowned for its impact on rock, dance, and pop from the late ’70s and ’80s

Eight Voice is an emulation of the Oberheim Eight Voice synthesizer, originally released in 1977. It’s known for its huge sound – and huge weight.

The first version of Oberheim’s classic was a mono synth called the Synthesizer Expander Module (SEM), was intended as a companion to the Oberheim DS-2, one of the earliest digital sequencers. Oberheim then packaged two of them in an enclosure with a keyboard, creating a polyphonic synth. They released the Two Voice, Four Voice, and ultimately Eight Voice.

The Cherry Audio Eight Voice retains the original synthesizer’s sound and features, including a detailed emulation of the original instrument’s multi-mode filter. However, it adds some modern features, including a sub oscillator and noise source for each voice. It also has velocity control over the over filter and amplifier dynamic’ envelopes. 

Each “voice” has full control over its parameters in the Cherry Audio version, but it has a Voice Link feature to adjust them together. This avoids having each voice sound different (unless you adjust it individually), useful for big poly sounds.
One feature not possible in hardware: the tool bar Focus buttons allow any section of Eight Voice to “zoom in” to a larger size. Each voice also contains Key Range zone selectors, for layering and zoning. 

The expanded version of the Oberheim eight-step Mini Sequencer features include switchable step gating, adjustable gate length, and pitch quantization. There’s also a mod delay and a reverb section. Both Classic and Black themes are available.

Price: $29