Rounding off the hardware tour, the rear panel has stereo and headphone outputs, MIDI In, Out, and Thru sockets, a master tuning pot, three footpedal jacks for overall volume, rotary fast/slow speed selection, and one to alternate between the currently selected preset or live drawbars. In front of the drawbars are 22 rectangular LED‑embedded buttons that deal with selecting presets, user patches, percussion settings, vibrato assignment, the rotary effect and MIDI functions. To the left of the drawbars are six rotary knobs that cover treble/bass EQ, master level/overdrive and effect selection/level, and below those is one larger knob to select vibrato type. The 'keyboard off‑cut' appearance is enhanced by the polished wooden end cheeks, and the overall effect is very stylish. The livery is unmistakably Oberheim, featuring the famous logo and black legending on a white background - no low‑lighting visibility problems here. The OB32 is solidly built and reassuringly heavy - hence it's unlikely to be pulled from the top of your master keyboard by the weight of its own connecting cables. The panel legending displays the words 'Viscount joint venture' so it doesn't take much to deduce that Oberheim sought Viscount's not inconsiderable organ‑building experience to assist in the voicing of the OB32. The OB32 is in fact Oberheim's second product of this type - as the name OB32 suggests, there was a previous model called the OB3 (released late 1995, reviewed SOS March 1996.) The newer OB32 offers significantly improved functionality, and dramatically improved sound. If that sounds disparaging, it is not meant to be - a real Hammond organ has no means of customising certain features, and as such the design of the OB32 can be regarded as more faithful to the original Hammond.
(2) The Hammond offers extensive editing of many parameters, while the Oberheim offers 'take‑it‑as‑it‑comes' features - parameters available for editing are kept to a minimum. (1) Whereas the Hammond XM comes as two separate items (the sound module and a remote drawbar unit), the Oberheim takes an all‑in‑one approach it's a single unit resembling the sawn‑off left‑hand control panel of a keyboard‑based organ, such as a Hammond XB2, Korg CX3, or Roland VK7.
The principal differences between the Oberheim and the Hammond are twofold: Both the XM1 and the OB32, unlike the standard 19‑inch rack modules to which we are by now all accustomed, offer the benefit of physical, hardware drawbars that can be manipulated in real time whilst playing, or used to create various registrations to store within user memories. The Oberheim OB3 squared (OB32) follows hot on the heels of the Hammond XM1/XMc1 (reviewed SOS May 97) in a bid to satisfy those looking for the famous vintage tonewheel organ sound in a rackmounting format. Now Oberheim have teamed up with Italian organ specialists Viscount to produce the enhanced OB32. In 1995, Oberheim released the OB3, a little‑known drawbar organ module, subsequently eclipsed by Hammond and Roland's advanced electronic tonewheel organ emulations.
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