5 minutes with the Oberheim Four Voice - Carlo Mezzanotte

video upload by carlomezz

"When in 2021 Amedeo Tommasi - excellent pianist, teacher, composer and person - passed away, the St.Louis Music Center in Rome acquired his collection of instruments. And what a collection it was... several of the most sought after vintage synthesizers on the planet. Only thing, they were in a deplorable state, not having being played for a number of years. One of the first of these instruments to return from repair was the Oberheim Four-Voice. Still not perfect maybe, but with its magic and power clearly palpable; I couldn't resist switching it on and playing it for a while. In fact, I have played it for quite more than just the 5 minutes of this video: It's an early model without the Programmer module - which means that for each sound, you are forced to program every SEM (sound module) separately! Now, the unavoidable differences in timbre among the four voices could be pleasant sometimes, but it's still a nightmare to try and match the four modules to an acceptable level.
Also, one of the modules didn't want to know about staying in tune no matter what, and as the icing on the cake, the computer that was recording the audio ate a good chunk of the session... so I ended up with just a few minutes of presentable performance.
I couldn't resist adding a slight bit of ambience effect.
Thanks to St.Louis Music Center, and in particular to my friend and colleague Luca Spagnoletti."