360 Systems 'The System' - Slavedriver and Oberheim SEM, Synapse, Summer 1978

360 Systems 'The System' advertisement, consisting of the 360 Slavedriver and Oberheim SEM, from page 10 of Synapse magazine, Summer 1978.

Interesting. If you have been following my posts recently, then you know I've been focusing on the 360 Systems/Oberheim partnership. The latest of which was the blog post about the Slavedriver/OB-1 dual advertisement that appeared in early 1978.

But, by the summer of 1978, it seems that 360 Systems decided to tone down the Oberheim connection a bit. Kinda. In a way. Not really? You be the judge.

Gone is the Oberheim logo practically holding hands with the 360 logo, and also gone is the Oberheim OB-1 - replaced in the photo with an Oberheim SEM.

In fact, compared to the Slavedriver/OB-1 ad, even the ad-copy in this ad doesn't seem as 'clingy' to Oberheim in general, and 360 goes as far as to admit that the Slavedriver 'works with most popular synthesizers'.

That's not to say that Oberheim was booted out the door. Far from it. As mentioned above, you still have the photo of the SEM in the advertisement, and the smaller photo even includes them nicely tucked into bed together in an Anvil case (ask your dealer...). The ad-copy also includes all the reference info for the SEM.

The most interesting part of this ad to me is the fact that 'The System' now consists of the SEM rather than the OB-1. But I think the prominent inclusion of the Anvil case in the ad gives us a hint as to the first of two reasons why the switch was made.

1. Portability. Lugging around an OB-1 could get a little annoying. But now, you get the same Oberheim sound AND the Slavedriver in one portable case. The only trade-off is that you don't get the easy sound accessibility with the eight memory locations of the OB-1. But, I'm guessing that 360 Systems were finding (or betting) that at least a few guitarists were used to the on-the-fly programming that was common with their non-memory-based guitar pedals.

And the second reason to make the switch to the SEM?

2. Cost. An SEM only cost 695 bones. Quite a bit cheaper than dropping $1895 for an OB-1. 360 Systems must have realized that they were marketing mainly to guitarists that were used to shelling out hundreds of dollars for pedals. Not thousands of dollars.

The 360 Systems' Spectre Guitar Synthesizer

Eventually, 'The System' of the SEM and the Slavedriver merged completely, to become the 360 System Spectre.

MATRIXSYNTH has had a few auction posts in the past that included photos of the Spectre. In particular...

• A post in November 2006 includes some info on how they had a deal with Oberheim to buy SEMs.
• A later post in November 2007 also has a great photo of the Spectre.

A quick email to Tom Oberheim helped confirm that they were indeed "custom" SEMs. Tom "knew Bob Easton (President and CEO of 360 Systems) before the Slavedriver because of a mutual interest in electronic music equipment in the early 1970s".

End note: It wouldn't be a retosynthads blog post if I didn't comment on the general design of the ad at least a little:

As far as the design of the ad itself goes, everything is tip-top except the font used for the words 'The System' that appears at the top of the ad, and as subtitles in the ad-copy. It just doesn't seem as endearing or as futuristically timeless as the 'Slavedriver' font to me. Its more 80's futuristic. (Is 'futuristically' even a word?!?)

Plus, the 'echo' design effect used around '360' at the top of the ad also kinda dates the ad a bit.

My 2 cents.

Oberheim OB-1 AND 360 System Slavedriver, Synapse 1978

Oberheim OB-1 synthesizer and 360 System Slavedriver guitar synthesizer interface advertisement from page 15 of Synapse Magazine January/February 1978.

Okay, I'll admit it. Now that you see this advertisement, you have probably figured out my last two posts were both part of a set up (I'll get back onto the Steiner-Parker roll in a few more posts). But, I figured I'd better catch up on each piece of gear separately by covering what were at the time the current OB-1 and Slavedriver's individual advertisements, before jumping into the deep end with this awesome piece of advertising history.

In fact, Oberheim's OB-1 advertisement (linked above) appeared in prime real estate in this same issue of Synapse - page 3 across from the Letters section.

Now lets take a closer look at this ad - what can you say except WOW!

You didn't see too many companies pairing up in those days. "The two most respected names in electronic music offer the finest guitar synthesizer system available today".

But Oberheim and 360 Systems knew they could hit a totally new market by combining their individual products. And since both companies were based in Santa Monica, it was probably very easy for them to get together and chat. Cooperation and all that stuff. Very Sesame Street. Very cool.

In fact, it was so unusual to see companies at the time pair up like this that Synapse even commented on it in the previous issue's What's Happening section when they got the news:

"If petty competition has got you down, take heart. A new advertising tact is being taken by 360 Systems and Oberheim Electronics. The OB-1 and the Slavedriver, a programmable synthesizer and a guitar/synthesizer interface, respectively, are being advertised as a package and may represent a first in synthesizer marketing."

And what better synthesizer to plug into your Slavedriver than Oberheim's awesome OB-1 synthesizer? It was one of their newest, less-costly models, had great sound, and could recall all those great sounds you needed instant access to on stage while strutting your stuff with your axe. Synapse's summer 1978 issue spoke of the OB-1 fondly in the What's Happening section:

"Although Oberheim is known by some as the "Rolls Royce of synthesizers", this time they have come out with the economy item model including the luxury options. The OB-1 is a completely programmable lead synthesizer. Parameters that are programmable include VCO tuning, waveform, VCF center frequency, VCF "Q", filter/keyboard tracking, envelopes, sync, noise, cross modulation, and volume. The system includes a switchable 12 or 24 db filter and an 8 patch memory. The $1895.00 synthesizer is available from Oberheim Electronics."

The pairing of these two companies isn't the only thing historically significant about this ad. Take a close look at the photo of the OB-1. The model used in the ad must have been a prototype. Compare it to this product model photo from synthesizers.de.

A few of the differences I can make out include:

• The prototype has that awesome Oberheim logo above the program section. In the production model, the programmer section was above the logo.
  
• The prototype has the 'write' and 'manual' touch-switches in the Program section beside each other. In the production model the switches are in separate top corners.
• The prototype is missing the freq-wave selector switches below the modulation dials of VCO 1 and 2.
• VCF section in the prototype is arranged differently than in the production model.
  
• The switches in the Keyboard section on the left hand side of theOB-1 is arranged slightly differently.
  

If the historic pairing itself and the OB-1 prototype don't make this ad awesome enough for you, I'll add one more.

The logos!

Look at them - almost total opposites in style but yet both still standing the test of time and worthy of a tatoo. A big chubby Oberheim logo standing next to that skinny 360 Systems logo.

Almost as if Oberheim's swingin' arms want to go over there and give 360 Systems a big bear hug.

I know I would.

360 Sysytems Slavedriver, Synapse 1977

360 Systems Slavedriver guitar synthesizer advertisement from page 2 of Synapse Magazine May/June 1977.

The Slavedriver was part of the first wave of guitar/synthesizer systems that allowed guitars to control synthesizers. I never really got into them, probably because I didn't have the talent or time required to learn to play a guitar. But I don't want to turn this blog post into a therapy session...

I really like this advertisement for a number of reasons. The first and second of which are the logos.

The '360 Systems' logo itself stands the test of time. It is a shame they still don't use that logo today. But then again, they are pretty much a totally different company today too.

And I have a love-hate relationship with the 'Slavedriver' logo (tipping towards the love side). Maybe I'm a bit sensitive about the stylized 'whip' that runs across the top of the logo - it's a bit too literal for me, but the Battlestar Galactica-like font used for the logo is fantastically futuristic.

I also really like the way the 'Slavedriver' logo blends in with another funky-font-tag-line that is cheeky enough to tell the bulk of the readers of this electronic music magazine (ie. keyboard players) to 'move over!'. Seriously - wouldn't most of the readers of this magazine be synthesizer fanatics? I'm sure many would have a synthesizer lying around, but also a guitar? Is this a good strategy in a Synapse ad?

The ad copy underneath the tag-line also directs a lot its attention towards guitarists. There are a few places where they kinda give equal billing to that smaller segment of readers that may own both synthesizers and guitars, but the copy as a whole should really have squarely targeted keyboard players. Or am I just reading into it because of my disgust at not learning to play guitar? This very well may be turning into a therapy session.

Could the logic of placing this ad in Synapse have been that synthesizers cost more than guitars, so it would be easier to make the case for a keyboard player to buy a relatively inexpensive guitar in order to get out to the front of the stage? But then why direct this ad at guitarists?

It also makes me wonder if 70s guitar magazines also had guitar-synth ads? I'd think so.

Sorry, I'm starting to ramble...

Pushing the audience argument aside, the ad-copy itself may be a bit crowded but the way it curves around the photo of the Slavedriver hardware really adds to the design and style of the ad.

Back in March I blogged about a brochure from another of the guitar-synths trying to make its way in the world. The ARP Avatar. The ARP Avatar brochure directed its attention towards guitar playerst too, and it too made a fatal error. It tried to tell egocentric rock-god guitar players that they could get more performance potential with synthesizer sounds. Probably the last thing a rock-god guitar player wants to hear.

So therein lies the problem. How do you market a guitar synthesizer back in the 70s when the majority of guitarists and synthesists may have been entrenched in two totally separate camps at the time? That's a tough sell. To me it's like bring matter and anti-matter together. Kaboom!

And maybe that is why Tom Mulhern's Web site includes a great article entitled 'The History of Guitar Synthesizers: Four Revolutions, No Clear Winner'. And he should know - he spent more than a decade at Guitar Player magazine.

Maybe I should contact him to ask about guitar-synthesizer ads in Guitar Player... hmm...