Tom Oberheim hints at new synth project at 90
Tom Oberheim, 90, is teasing a “little project,” and vintage-synth players are already looking for clues on OB parts, reissues, or a new take on classic architecture.
Tom Oberheim, now 90, is hinting at another project after telling MusicTech he could not talk about the “little project” keeping him busy. He was described as still working in the lab, and for people who track original Oberheim gear, that is the kind of comment that can move the conversation from nostalgia to practical expectations.
That matters because Oberheim is not just a logo on modern reissues. He is the designer behind the SEM and the wider Oberheim lineage, the hardware that helped define what a fat American poly could sound like in the first place. MusicTech had already framed his late-career pace in a feature titled “Tom Oberheim at 90: ‘I can never retire, first of all’,” which fits the picture here: not a retired icon, but an active builder with unfinished ideas.
The timing gives the tease more weight. In July 2025, Sound On Sound’s podcast on Oberheim’s life and work said he was celebrating his 50th year since the launch of the SEM, a milestone that underlined how long the design language has remained relevant. That is part of why any fresh project from Oberheim gets watched so closely. It is never just about another new synth. It is also about what happens to the old ones when the founder is still shaping the conversation around them.
Recent Oberheim activity has already shown how much appetite there is for that mix of legacy and forward motion. MusicTech described the TEO-5 as the most affordable Oberheim synth ever and called it “the culmination of a synth pioneer’s vision.” It also reported that Oberheim was collaborating with Sequential’s Dave Smith on something new, which gave players another reminder that his later work has not been confined to museum-piece remakes. When Oberheim re-enters the room, people start thinking about parts support, factory confidence, and whether a fresh design might borrow from the same SEM-era building blocks that made the originals worth chasing.
That is why the phrase “little project” lands like a larger signal than it sounds. Tom Oberheim has spent decades proving that the old architecture still has room to move, and at 90, he is still in the lab with enough pull to make the vintage-synth world stop and listen.
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