Product: Oberheim OB-3 Squared
Price Paid: 299 (UK pounds)
Submitted
04/20/2000
at
02:59pm
by
Ian Drumm
Email: i<dot>drumm at salford<dot>ac<dot>uk
Ease of Use
:
9
This is a fairly straight forward module to use, I have a Hammond X5 and Leslie 820 - most of the layout out of the OB3^2 is quite familiar with Drawbars, Percussive 2nd/3rd and Leslie controls.
Except with this Organ module Ive said goodbye to hernias and damaged tailgates trying to lug it around.
Features
:
8
Pretty much like a hammond. There are some nice extras like a very good overdrive, tone controls and a number of reverb effects (delay, spring, plate, room and hall).
Theres also a number of chorus and vibrato settings, though for me these are a waste of time as the leslie takes care of this. It would have been better to have flange and auto wah which are very useful with the hammond sound.
There is no leslie pinout though the signal would some how need to be power amplified anyhow. Ive built a simple scram box with jack in and a speed switch for my Leslie 820, the OB3 sounds great through it.
Expressiveness/Sounds
:
10
This sounds great - ideal for classic B3 sounds.
Much better than the crappy Hammond XB2.
I even prefer it to my Hammond X5/Leslie 820, though - perhaps - it dosn't sound quite as weighty - it still has depth, presence and plenty of life to it. The slow leslie simulator and overdrive give me those Tony Kaye (early Yes) and John Lord (Deep Purple) sounds I couldn't quite get with my real Hammond set up.
Reliability
:
9
No problems so far - though I don't like having to use external adapter - they always break after a while.
Customer Support
:
9
I emailed them asking if they had any studioware for Cakewalk. I got a reply the next day saying they were thinking about it for the future and asked me to keep an eye on their web site - a promising start.
Overall Rating
:
10
I love this module and it was astounding value for money considering how much hammond sell there stuff for.
I havn't tried the Roland VK7 though I wouldn't be able to afford it anyhow. This module pretty much has everything I was looking for.
You will be able to MP3 recordings with OB3 Squared at http://trip.to/shush compared with my X5 and Leslie at http://trip.to/spacehopper
On this form Ive already started saving up for an OB12.
