Oberheim RX-11
Nobody set out to collect this drum machine, and that is why the record on it is such a mess.
Overview
The documented record for the Oberheim RX-11 is thin. A fair amount of what circulates under that name isn't Oberheim's at all. Collectors chasing a spec sheet will find the trail runs cold fast. This archive has no verified voice count, no pattern memory figure, no original price and no confirmed production years. Anyone quoting numbers with confidence should be asked where they came from.
What the archive can confirm is narrower. The RX-11 shows up in professional rooms, listed matter-of-factly alongside the gear those rooms were built around. Recording Engineer (June 1986, p.101) documented a studio build-out that ran the Oberheim DMX, a LinnDrum, the Yamaha RX-11 and four DX-7 sound modules together. That is a rig put together by people buying drum machines that sequenced reliably and stayed locked to everything else in the room. The DMX and the LinnDrum were the expensive, famous boxes, and the RX-11 sat in the list right next to them.
Here's the trap that catches almost everyone. A great deal of what gets filed under "RX-11" in old magazine pages is actually the Yamaha RX-11, a different machine entirely. Electronics & Music Maker ran a dealer ad describing the Yamaha RX11 as a 29-voice PCM drum machine with MIDI, separate outputs and a RAM port, priced against the RX15 and RX21 in Yamaha's own line. A working keyboardist quoted in the same publication regretted buying the cheaper Yamaha RX15 instead of the RX11. The RX11's MIDI implementation allowed pattern data to be uploaded and downloaded over MIDI, and the RX15 couldn't do that without the cassette interface. That is a Yamaha story, not an Oberheim one, and it has been bleeding into Oberheim RX-11 listings for decades. Check the badge on the back before you check the price.
What the Oberheim RX-11 actually sounds like, its voice architecture, its pattern memory and its feel under the fingers all remain undocumented here. This page cannot tell you how it sounds. Trace any spec claim to a manual before you spend money.
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