In the early 1980's Oberheim unveiled a new (pre-MIDI) proprietary system called the Oberheim Parallel Buss. This was a system in which several newly released pieces of Oberheim gear could be easily connected and synchronized. These included the lush OB-8 eight voice synth, the DMX drum machine, and the DSX Digital Polyphonic Sequencer. The DSX can interface directly with other Oberheim synths as well, including the OB-Xa, OB-SX, and OB-X. The DSX can synchronize to the DMX, or it can control the OB-synths. In addition to controlling these synths, the DSX features 8 CV and Gate outputs to control up to 8 more other analog synthesizers!

For an analog synth player, the DSX adds an incredible amount of sequencing power never really seen on other analog synths' built-in sequencers of the time. The DSX records in realtime the notes and patch changes you create while playing your OB-synth. It can hold up to 6,000 notes! The DSX can store up to 10 different sequences/songs. Each sequence can have 10 polyphonic tracks for multiple OB-synths and DMXs. Patch info including splits and doubles can be stored too. Quantizing, looping, editing, transposing, and sequence merging are a few more features. If you've got any of these classic (pre-MIDI) Oberheim analog OB-synths lying around, the DSX is an easy way to directly control them in a classic way, and without any need for MIDI retro-fits or interfaces.

Dj Pound

November 21, 2009 @ 1:10 am

David Frank from the System also used this with an Ob-Xa and a DMX for most of his early/mid 80's productions for people like Howard Johnson, Phil collins, Scritti politti, Chaka Khan etc.....

Micke

November 6, 2008 @ 1:08 pm

According to the owners manual, the DSX started shipping in Oct 1981 (one month before the DMX).

tomislav babic

August 17, 2008 @ 9:27 pm

Beautiul example of prominent use of DSX, as a part of a Oberheim system with DMX and OB-XA, is on two Mike Odlfield albums: "Crises" (1983) and "Discovery" (1984).

Its main drawbacks are that it requires either a OB-X/OB-XA or OB-8 keyboard to input notes, and its limited to real-time recording, there's no step input.

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