SUPERBOOTH 2024: Oberheim has announced the release of a new polyphonic analogue synthesizer, the TEO-5. Priced at £1499, the TEO-5 could offer a great way to access the classic Oberheim sound in hardware form, for a fraction of the price of the company’s top-end OB-X8 or OB-6 instruments.
Sequential’s Take 5 was the first product released after the brand was acquired by Focusrite in 2021. Based on a similar architecture to Sequential’s iconic Prophet-5, the synth took the core elements of the Sequential sound and packaged them into an instrument that was not only more compact and affordable than its influence, but also felt like a fresh and modernised take.
Now we have the TEO-5 – effectively the same concept but with Oberheim in place of Sequential. Once again released under the Focusrite umbrella (while the modern Oberheim brand is still headed up by Tom Oberheim, it operates in collaboration with Sequential and Focusrite) the TEO-5 is based around many of the same features found on the company’s recent OB-X8.
These include two analogue oscillators per-voice equipped with Oberheim’s distinctive X-Mod functionality, as well a SEM filter that can function in low-pass, high-pass, notch and band-pass modes.
Alongside these core features, the five-voice TEO-5 also packs two DADSR envelopes and two LFOs for modulation, a 64-step polyphonic sequencer and multi-mode arpeggiator.
There is also a ‘vintage’ control that can be used to add a little of the drift and unpredictability inherent in vintage analogue gear. Its signal path is rounded off with overdrive, plus digital reverb and multi-effect slots.
