Oberheim Eclipse

I have played one of these for 10 years. It has been very roadworthy and a very nice sound with good key action. I play a variety of music and have found this board to be very good overall

Never needed any

I have been very happy with this board

Very easy to use if you're versed in MIDI, has all the standard parameters. I, like many other users bought it without a manual. there may me technical details I don't know about yet that I hope I'll discover.

For what it's supposed to do, control, it's got a full menu of features: pitch/mod wheels, volume, brilliance and parameter, as well as after touch and velocity. I wish they would have placed some of the keyboard activated parameters on the top with buttons instead of the cryptic keyboard program method. I expect something like that on a 41 note controller, it's not like they didn't have the space. (That's really a minor issue.)

A love -hate relationship with the on-board sounds. I too regret (like other users who submitted reviews) that they didn't allow expandability. By today's standards they sound a tad bit too digital, but acceptable. The effects are good. The best sound is the jazz organ, with pedal controllable rotary, and it has a string preset, "A" string preset (only one). Pianos are a little tinny, but ok, (I've heard worse) After all it is a MIDI controller, your supposed to "modularize". Keyboard feel is not quite like a real wieghted piano (like the Korg SP-100 Which I have) but in a strange way , I love the feel.

I have a different experience for reliability. The sound sometimes works, sometimes doesn't, like there's an intermittant connection somewhere. hmmm. buttons and sliders are kinda flimsy. The saving grace is the flight case. I gotta have this controller serviced.

Haven't tried. There's a guy Well's who runs Well's Electronics here in Orlando Fl. Can fix anything to the microprocessor level and pulls rabbitts out of rear ends.

I'd buy it again being a little more careful. Buy it with a manual, and test it before buying, turn it on and off a few times and check to see if sounds come out of the phones/outs. Check your MIDI processor by playing a module. Oberheim is a reputable name, they normally don't make cheap equipment (come to think of it ,do they make any equipment? I don't see dealers carrying Oberheim anymore).

This keyboard is fairly easy to use and straight forward as a digital piano. Where some might have problems is using it as a midi controller. The manual is needed in order to really explore the features. If you are familiar with other controllers and the controller features on most synths it won't take you long at all to pick it up. I just happen to have a manual that's half Italian half English. Good enough to figure things out. Contact me at nigenoe@bellsouth.net and we'll discuss it.

The polyphony is very good at 32. Since this is not a synth and you'll only be layering strings polyphony doesn't become an issue. Effects such as chorus, tremolo, flanger, hall etc. are very good and can help to cut trough when playing with others. No sequencer and not expandable. Can change the response of the keyboard by using the dynamics key and pressing a key that the manual specifies. Don't have the manual with me right now so I can;t tell you which key it is. Can be transposed and the pitchbend mod wheels work with externally controlled synths. This is the way it is. Not much use for them on a digital piano. They are part of the controller features. Key feel is good. Somewhere between fully weighted and synth-weighted.

The pianos are pretty good. Much better than most synths with the exception of samplers. The Electric pianos are okay but could be a bit more expressive (IMHO). Could use a true Wurlitzer type sound. The organ is not bad but I'd like some options there. Overall a very good sounding board. Velocity and aftertouch work well and you can play with expressiveness when needed. Low range on piano2 sounds good but the midrange just below middle C has a slightly metallic quality(It is digital). Wish there were several string options.

I feel it's very dependable. Built like a tank. No problems moving it from place to place since it's built into a roadcase. I would gig without a backup with no hesitation.

customer support is non-existant. I was able to get a manual through Armadillo enterprises. Which is a distributor or was of Oberheim stuff in Clearwater Fl.

Although this has been a good board for me and I like the sounds. I would probably not buy another digital piano. There are quite a few 76/88 key synths out there with decent piano sounds. Especially with sample options available on most. A used Alesis QS8.1 can be found for around a $1000.00 or so. Also the yamaha S80 has a pretty good piano. If you really don't want all the synth sounds, Kurzweil has some fairl decent stage pianos the SP series with some controller features. Oberheim also still makes contollers the MC2000/3000. These can be expanded via a soundcard to have some piano sounds.

Generally, very usable. Has been great as a primary 'basic sounds' keyboard, as well as serving at times as a midi driver. Preset sounds are excellent, but limited in number, with no potential for expandability. Great feel. Build in case makes it mobile and 'giggable', if a bit heavy. My big problem is the lack of a manual. There was a brief overview 'manual' but it does not explain Midi functions adequately. With a real manual, rating would be a 10; this is the easiest to use keyboard I've ever owned!

Features are limited but what is there works well. Keyboard action is fabulous; reverb and chorus/modulation effects are useful. No polyphony, unless you count being able to do separate bass lines w/ acoustic or electric bass sound. No sequencer. I'm not a big midi user. I use one to play two and have never gone beyond that. This works fine, but I've found that, since using the Oberheim as a drive keyboard, I've been unable to get the mod and pitch wheels o work ON the Oberheim, only with the receiving keyboard. (if any other users have solved this problem, I'd love to hear how) A reasonable manual would probably solve this.

Great sounds. I wish there were more. I use all three pianos , the organ and electric piano sounds, as well as the vibes. Wish there was a basic brass or sax, rather than the harpsichord. Who plays harpsichord?

Never had a problem. Ease of use makes it a great gig board!

Couldn't even find a writeup on the web-site. No manual.

I would buy the same again in a second. Provides a great basic board and frees up the other boards for the more unusual or sequenced stuf.

Very easy to use. Plug and play. Several piano/organ selections without much work. String sounds are pretty real and volume controlable. Good Vibraphone too.

Polyphony, what the hell is Polyphony.

Built in effects are good and all controllable.

MIDI capable

Excellent sound. Very Very Very good play. I have a hrd time playing anything else

Very dependable, Comes with hard travel case built in. Very Easy to work on. Extremely simple mechanics, if required to clean inside.

An outstanding keyboard. Every member in my band loves it. I would have a hard time getting rid of it if forced. Very versitile and durable. Easy set up and ready for gigs.

I purchased this for my daughter in 1997. We received a Owner's Manual which was 3 pages and did not go into any detail of using all the keyes.

Works well with all types of music. No static.

But for a loose connection which has been fixed it can been depended on.

The customer support was ok. 1-800-279-4346. They had to call me back but did.

Was purchased for my daughter. We liked the full size keys and the sound was excellent.

Would like to sell it now. Does anyone know what it might be worth? it is a 1997.

Well, I assume this was an oversight, but when I opened the box after buying this I realized that there was no manual. This however has not yet really limited me at all in using this keyboard, so you can draw your inferences from that. All (12) sounds are presets accessed by their own buttons on the front panel. All rear panel connections are marked on top (I like that). Effects (4 verbs, chorus, tremolo, flanger, rotary speaker) also each have their own button, and there are sliders for volume, brilliance, and (1) effect parameter, which are very handy. Would be nice to know if those sliders map to a MIDI channel, I guess, so a manual would be nice for that. Transpose key and MIDI transmit are accessed via the keyboard itself, which I have found to be very easy and convenient. Finally, the main attraction for me to this board was the built in road-case, which makes it much easier to setup/take down than my previous (and other current) keyboards. This may not seem like that big a deal, but when you're freaking out plugging in midi cables, aux send/returns, mixer ins and outs, ten pedals, and everything else trying to get ready for sound check, being able to slap a keyboard on a stand and take off the cover is a nice little time saver.

I can't offer much in the way of technical details, as I have no manual, so I will stay away from polyphony (maybe 28ish? I haven't run out yet, but I use it in a band, and so tend not to use the damper too much -- which as an aside: WOW! 3 functional pedals. Kind of unneccesary if you ask me, since I wouldn't use this to replace a real concert grand, and I doubt most users are probably gigging band musicians, and don't really need a sostenudo pedal. But anyway, nice touch). But on to the 2 big questions: (1) how is it as a piano, (2) how is it as a MIDI controller. In my mind, this board is geared to the latter. Which seems a little strange, since it's not nearly as sophisticated in that regard as the PC88s, A90s, etc. The piano sounds on this keyboard are very nice. They may come off a little strident in a controlled studio environment -- a function both of their brightness (close, but a little less than Yamaha's piano sounds) and the keyboard action, which is not very heavy. This latter fact is why this keyboard works better as a MIDI controller than a designated piano. The lighter action (which is weighted, but not hammer) is a plus in regard both to portability and the ability to play non piano sounds (organ, synth, clav, etc.) well, but it forces the player to adopt a lighter playing style than one would have naturally on a real piano. Interestingly, playing this unplugged when I first got it, I really didn't like the action all that much, but actually playing it on a gig I found it to be really nice. I have tried Kurzweil's new SP76 and SP88, and I would compare the action to those -- not heavy, but suprisingly playable in terms of achieving that ear-to-finger connection (hope that makes sense.) And playing on stage is definitely what this thing was intended for. Certainly the built in road case is a dead giveaway, but also the bright piano sounds were exactly what I needed playing in a loud funk band. In a band like that, finding your niche--not only in the groove but in the harmonic frequency spectrum--is the name of the game, and the piano sounds on this board do a good job of sounding full, yet tight and punchy when going through a PA. I've heard other, more "realistic" pianos that played live just make mush of the entire lower midrange with any left hand comping. Before this, I was using Roland JV piano sounds, and this sounds much less wimpy. My only complaint about the piano sounds is that the attack clearly is designed to have some string bending emulation, which just doesn't sound realistic to me. Some presets are better than others for that.
The big downside of this keyboard (and the reason it can be had for a much better price than its competitors) is the fact that it only has the few preset sounds, and no expansion possibilities. In general, the 3 pianos offer a decent variety of good sounds, the Rhodes sound is quite useable, and the DX electric piano is just as cheesy as the original, the jazz organ is suprisingly good even though I use the real thing instead (I liked the fact that there is a built in split--with percussion in the top half of the board, and none in the bottom half, just like the top/bottom manuals of a Hammond). There is a pipe organ and a harpsichord -- totally lame it seems to me, although I guess if I was a gigging harpsichordist this would be a good board, having a more realistic action and all. A nice touch is the ability to layer string sounds on top of the piano (though would anyone besides Yanni really want to do that!?) and to split the bottom octaves to a bass sound, either acoustic or electric. Bottom line, if you are like me, and you use MIDI mainly for controlling modules on stage and not for really tricky stuff like automatic mixing, triggering sequences, and such, this is a good controller. (I believe it has aftertouch, as well as to pitch & mod wheels, and selectable velocity curves). If you are a gigging musician and looking for

Most issues of sounds were discussed above. As for expressiveness, I found this piano to be suprisingly playable when I actually plugged it in and started playing it in a gigging situation. At home, trying to play more typical piano passages, I found it a little lacking in dynamic expression (too little key resistance to play with quiet feeling), but in a funk/rock/rollickin' 'Nawlins piano environment I found it to be lots of fun to play. So I would recommend it for any type of club performance situation, and steer people away from it for classical or solo gig settings (except for you hard-gigging harpsichord players, as noted above...). The onboard reverb is good enough that I've saved myself the headache of patching through my outboard reverb, and I suppose the chorus, tremolo and flanger are fine but I don't really use them. Switching velocity curves doesn't seem to affect the internal sounds at all, so I'm guessing it just affects MIDI velocity data. I haven't used it to control anything with aftertouch, so I can't report on that, sorry. (However, I do recall hearing it had aftertouch ability).

It seems pretty solid. Metal casing, built into a road case. Foam on the inside of the wood case. Of course, that doesn't mean you can't get it to stop working by dropping it a few times, but it is still much better protected from bumps and bruises than most keyboards. Still, I haven't had it long enough for anything to go wrong, so consider reliability of 10 a spot estimate.

No idea. This apparently is the product of a joint venture between Viscount (the Italian company) and Oberheim. Who do I call if it breaks? I guess if I had a manual I would know....

I bought this keyboard recently because I wanted to move to an 88 note keyboard, and this seemed like too good a deal to pass up. Playing multiple keyboards, bass and guitar and building a recording setup, I have a lot of spending priorities, which makes it difficult for me to allocate huge sums of cash to one keyboard. Of course, cheaper isn't necessarily better, so I was a little worried this would be crap when I bought it. In this regard I was pleasantly surprised. I know there are a lot of these being sold now at prices in the $550-$600 range (I think they were discontinued), but nobody seems to know about them. When I bought mine (over the internet) I had never actually played one, and the only person I knew that owned one was Merl Saunders. I asked him how he liked his, and he was very nice in telling me about its features and giving me his (positive) impression of it before I bought it. So I'm trying to pass on the favor with this review, to let people who also like the price/feature combination but don't know anything about the board. In absolute terms of how it ranks in the competition of 88 key digital pianos, I would place it near (but not at) the bottom. In relative terms, accounting for its price, I think its near the top (of course this depends on how much a dollar is worth to you. If it's the record label's nickel, then buy something nicer. If you are going to be paying for this and your rent with a series $100/night gigs, definitely consider this before you drop 2 grand on some board that will be worth about the same as this one in 3-4 years...!)