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Oberheim Matrix 1000

“Oberheim Matrix 1000 Vintage Rack Mount Analog Synthesizer Module

The mighty and classic Oberheim sound – as heard on all your favorite late 80’s to early 90’s synth hits – in a 1U rack.
The “1000” refers to the ridiculous (especially for the era) number of presets, classified as 195 keyboard sounds, 118 strings, 130 woodwinds and percs, 239 synthesizer, 119 bass, 74 lead, and 125 effects. It’s the same engine as the Matrix 6 and 6R, with 6 voices – each having 2 DCO’s, a low pass filter, 2 VCA’s, 3 envelope generators, 2 LFO’s, and 2 ramp gens.

This thing will eat for plug-ins for breakfast. It’s yummy warm for pads, punchy for bass, snappy for leads, and in true Oberheim style the brass patches have that reassuring foomf. OK – I just made that up, but it sounds great!

Overall condition is good – surface scratching from rack mounting and something took a chomp out of the lower right side rack ear (doesn’t effect the ability to slide it into a rack and be secured by the other three screws – hardly noticeable once rack’d.) Looks like some of the screws on the faceplate aren’t original so maybe it had some surgery at some point. I’m not the original owner but it has spent the past 20 years in my care under loving climate controlled smoke free studio conditions.

Buttons are responsive, audio output is clean and free from noise, LED’s are nice and bright – all functions tested and working.

When pared with the Ctrlr software (or any of many other editors) the true depth and power of this machine comes to life. It has the OS1.2 update and works well with MIDI controllers.

It has always served me well – now it’s looking for a new home so it can continue to make wonderful sounds for a long time to come.”
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