ARP 2600 with WHITE lettering (TONUS Logo), 1971/72.Keyboard: 3604C (monophonic, tuning / portamento beneath the keyboard) Gray Meanie / ARP 2600C (TONUS Logo), 1971.Keyboard: 3604 (monophonic, tuning / portamento beneath the keyboard) Blue Marvin / Blue Meanie (TONUS Logo), 1971.During its 10 years of production, it experienced several internal modifications and technical improvements, which is why an ARP 2600 is by no means like an ARP 2600 … The ARP 2600 appeared in many different versions. The magic of the ARP 2600 is still alive, even today. This instrument has climbed into the TOP 3 of portable, analog synthesizers – side by side with the Minimoog and the EMS AKS (VCS3). It was built from 1971 up to the demise of ARP in 1981.Īlthough the ARP 2600 ceased production in the early 1980s, a quick glance at its user-base reveals a Who’s Who of contemporary music. No wonder the ARP 2600 turned out to be one of the company’s most successful products. Other famous endorsers were Edgar Winter, Pete Townshend, Stevie Wonder and Herbie Hancock. (Mark Vail / Bob Moog in “ARP 2600 Most Popular Modular Synth” in: Vintage Synthesizers, page 125) Now tell me, how do you make it stop?’ But he kept it and became one of the 2600’s leading musical innovators.” After Joe had the instrument for a week or so, he called and said, ‘Hey, man, the sound is fantastic. If the output came from the VCF, the sound would always be on. For instance, the 2600 lets you route the output either through the VCA or directly from the VCF. It took him a little time to pick up on some of its features. “Powell remembers Joe Zawinul’s early experience: “Joe came up to Boston to play at the Jazz Workshop. Joe Zawinul (an Austrian jazz musician who emigrated to the USA in the 1950s) was one of ARP’s prominent artist endorsers. However, ARP and Moog were lucky, because their synthesizers were also intensively used by famous musicians. (Mark Vail / Bob Moog in “ARP 2600 Most Popular Modular Synth” in: Vintage Synthesizers, page 124) They gave us credibility among retailers, and exposed our instruments to all the musicians in New York.” The turning point was when Sam Ash decided to take on the 2600, late in 1971. For most musicians of that time, the instrument was hard to use. We tried to sell the 2600 in hi-fi outlets as well as music stores. Powell (who left ARP to become a synthesist with Todd Rundgren ) recalls, “David and I travelled all over the place in a red Chevy van. David Friend and Roger Powell toured the United States, putting on demos and talking to musicians and dealers. “… the key to promoting the 2600 was to show musicians and retailers what could be done with the instrument. These new, weird and strange instruments necessitated Bob Moog and other company representatives travelling straight through the USA to gain popularity for their instruments among the general public). (In the early 1970s, music shops often had very little interest in synthesizers. The instrument’s target group was “schools” and “synthesizer beginners” … Pearlman believed that especially schools with small or medium-sized music departments would be the main market for the ARP 2600. It was intended to be an “educational instrument” – hence the clear layout, the graphics on the front panel and the self-sufficient concept (with loudspeakers and spring reverb). The ARP 2600 was presented for the first time in the autumn of 1970 as the successor to the huge studio-system 2500. These considerations are all the more important since KORG has just released the “new” ARP Odyssey, and the “new” ARP 2600 … and since the booming Eurorack modular market has reached a remarkable peak. What about the original ARP Odyssey, and the new 2600? What about the TTSH (Two Thousand Six Hundred) 2600-clone or a small Eurorack’s modular system with the possibilities of an ARP 2600? Wouldn’t these instruments be great-sounding, cost-effective substitutes for the “Holy Grail of Analog”? Finally we’ll debate about whether an ARP 2600 is worth its currently astronomically high price or not, leading to the question of whether other instruments might serve as adequate substitutes. However, one ARP 2600 is by no means like another ARP 2600 …īesides taking a closer look at the different ARP 2600 versions, we will also discuss their individual musical strengths. Only a few synthesizers exude this sense of exclusivity and magic, only a few instruments generate such a desire for doing spontaneous musical performance and sound design. The ARP 2600 has fascinated the electronic music world for 50 years.
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