Oberheim OB8 Processor board problem
2013-12-15 by Gregory Cox
Wondering if anyone has any advice for me on this problem my OB8 just developed. I recently installed the encore midi interface to my OB and it's worked pretty well the last few months, until I plugged my iPad and iRig to it thats when it all started. Not sure if directly related, but it can do weird stuff when the iRig is slightly unplugged, maybe it sent some bad voltage to the OB. Anyway, I was getting it up and running and closed a few programs on my iPad and when i went over to the OB it's lights were all coming on and it made some strange and out of tune blips when I tried playing it so I shut it off. When I turned it back on all the memories were gone and it only worked in manual, everything was out of tune. I managed to get it back in tune later by doing the reset. I realized that I could save the manual patches to memory afterwards, but they couldn't be created if on an empty patch. Before I installed the encore I did back up my sounds by cassette out, but when I tried playing my backups and any factory wav files into it nothing happened, the "play" light just stays lit up and doesn't indicate any activity. Also noticed that if I put it into split or dual, the lower half is out of tune by almost a semi-tone. I can say I've tried a few things as I suspected in the service manual-- swapped out U35, U37, U38 but didn't do anything. With the pitch drop in split & dual I'm wondering now if there is a power drop somewhere when these modes are activated. Problem is I can't tell where I should be looking for this area if anyone may be able to point me in the right direction. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks Greg