u/eajsimko

A few years back I wound up with a bunch of gear, some of it pretty niche, from an estate (really wish I could have met this guy!). This included the Drummer and Strummer from the short-lived Oberheim Perf/x series (great article about them: https://www.perfectcircuit.com/signal/oberheim-perfx-series?srsltid=AfmBOoqtJNYE8lWi0cW3OAJxG1FPy9_IZa8H9oZg9V8a-4svfJmPqaR7).

I’m trying to figure out whether or not they work (my hunch is that they do, everything else in his collection was super well maintained and functional) but things are getting complex quickly and making my head spin. Essentially the Drummer and Strummer are complex MIDI processors and were made before MIDI was standardized.

I have a pretty standard setup to use in testing them: MIDI controllers (mostly Arturia), audio interface with MIDI in/out, Ableton, a few Korg and Arturia synths, and also some MIDI converters/adaptors from RetroKits that seem like they could maybe come in handy (RK002, RK006, some TRSAxB adaptors). It’s been a few years since I was deep down the rabbit hole that led me to the RK stuff, so I’m not sure if and how they could fit in here.

For the Strummer, I was thinking of sending from Keystep Pro into the unit and then feeding the output into Ableton with a soft synth channel. My hope is this will avoid adding any other MIDI complications from feeding to a hardware synth. Does this seem like a reasonable approach? Are there any compatibility issues I’m overlooking?

For the Drummer, which was made to be compatible with several different drum machines of the time, all with their own non-standardized MIDI encoding, I’m really not sure where to start. If I feed it MIDI from a controller and then output into Ableton, will the signal be interpretable or is there some third party conversion that I’ll need to use?

Can anyone with a deeper knowledge of MIDI (especially pre/post standardization) help point me in the right direction? Does anyone out there have experience with the Perf/x line?

Edit: audio interface is Native Instruments Komplete Audio 6

Other than Superjam and LSZEE are there any other sets on the farm this year that are a rare appearance or otherwise hard to catch acts?

I’m super excited for LSZEE, not only are they making up for what we missed out on last year but also now it’s a one-off reunion for a project that they’ve since stopped touring with (sorry Modest Mouse, you’re a favorite but I’ll see you in DC in October). I don’t think I’ll ever get over my lost second chance to see Tipper.

Who else is playing that we probably wouldn’t get the chance to see otherwise, or wouldn’t be able to see in this sort of setting again? Curious about anything ranging from The Lonely Island dancing with JT and Gaga puppets to Chappell playing midday at an upgraded stage.