“No collaboration and no discussions": Tom Oberheim responds to Behringer's UB-Xa statements

Earlier this week, Behringer made a number of statements on Facebook concerning its UB-Xa synth, an instrument that takes inspiration from the Oberheim OB-X. 

Under a post celebrating the news that the UB-Xa is now the "best-selling synthesizer" according to sales stats from German retailer Thomann, Behringer claimed in a now-deleted comment that it "discussed the UB-Xa with Tom Oberheim and got his consent" in developing the instrument.

This morning, Tom Oberheim, founder of Oberheim Electronics and designer of the OB-X, clearly keen to distinguish his firm's product from Behringer's offerings, shared a statement appearing to refute Behringer's claim.

"You may have seen the recent stories online where Behringer is claiming that they have my ‘consent’ to make UB-XA, and that I ‘know their plans’", Oberheim wrote.

"There is, of course, no collaboration between us and no discussions of their plans for synths or anything else.

"They do have limited rights to use the name UB-XA," he continued, "but not the Oberheim name. So they have permission under certain conditions to release a product using the UB-XA name, but that’s all.

"I hope this doesn’t cause any confusion about the real Oberheim products like OB-X8 and TEO-5 and the others we plan to release!"

• Read more: "This isn't just a synth, it's Tom Oberheim's dream, realized": The TEO-5 gives you the classic Oberheim sound at an affordable price point