A Misunderstood Synth...

http://www.tapeop.com/magazine/bonus/fizmo.html

There is a thread on the-gas-station.com, on the Voyager which evolved to comparisons to the soft synth Minis (Arturia's Minimoog V and GMedia's Minimonsta) as being even better. The thread like most goes off into tangents and the notorious OB-Mx comes up. But the theme is all the same. Synths that disappoint, which the OB-Mx is notorious for. So far I've only heard neutral to negative comments on the synth. Neutral is bad when something as anticipated as an uber all analog Oberheim with Don Buchla on helm comes out. But this particular post was *not* another bad one, it was an actual "hands off to Don Buchla." I remember being in awe when the OB-Mx came out (heck, matrixsynth and matrix comes from my first synth the Matrix-6 and my love for it and my "ultimate" synth, the Matrix-12). As the saying goes, there's nothing like the first... : )

I am curious as to what the poster, Giant Robot, has discovered that so few if anyone else has with the OB-Mx. What is the hidden treasure in there? Does it exist? This reminded me of another little flop in the synth world. A little magical synth that was killed before it was ever allowed to shine, the FIZMO. See the link above to read the interview. It's worth reading.

From my post:
"I remember being intrigued by the FIZMO when it came out. Not on the synth legend level but pretty intrigued nonetheless. Then it got horrid reviews and I finally got my hands on one. I wasn't too impressed, but again... only a "2 second" trial and I was in the VA mode digging the Nord Lead and JP8000; so like everyone else, when it couldn't make "those sounds," I dismissed it. Just recently I was more intrigued and out of my everything analog and VA stage. So many beautiful synths out there and just a few methods of synthesis. Transwave being something missing in my gear I thought I'd try it again. One came up locally pretty cheap. I read up on it again and found an article by the maker who stated how sad the whole thing was. The FIZMO was supposed to be anything but VA. It was supposed to be a new take on transwave synthesis with more motion and immediate control. It was supposed to be a beautiful evolving synth, and a synthesist's synth not some sample playback preset synth. And sadly it flopped because of the power supply issue and people just couldn't see past the knobs, thinking knobs = analog/VA.

I picked it up and man... I was and still am blown away. It's an ethereal synth. Just beautiful; in motion. It actually reminds me of a softer version of the Evolver. It kind of sounds like the FS1R, but different - almost more delicate for lack of a better description. It's a beautiful synth that was misunderstood and mistakenly given a bad wrap. I think all synths have something to offer. I keep wondering what the OB-Mx has. Even if Oberheim cut it short, it did have some of that Buchla magic didn't it?"