ARP

Alan R. Pearlman's synths shaped the sound of the seventies

ARP Instruments burned fast and bright, cramming more innovation into twelve years than most companies manage in fifty. If Moog invented the synthesizer, ARP made it playable, portable, and put it on every major stage of the 1970s. From Stevie Wonder to Herbie Hancock to The Who, ARP was the sound of a decade.

History

Alan Robert Pearlman — the A.R.P. himself — came to synthesizers from aerospace engineering. He'd worked on NASA projects at the dawn of the space age, designing precision amplifiers for satellite systems. When he pivoted to musical instruments in 1969, he brought that engineering rigor with him, along with a crucial insight that would differentiate his company from Moog: musicians needed instruments that were reliable, intuitive, and ready to perform straight out of the box.

The first ARP product, the ARP 2500, was an ambitious modular system that used a matrix switch instead of patch cables — elegant, clean, and very much an engineer's solution to the tangled cable problem that plagued Moog modulars. It was a brilliant instrument, famously used to create the alien communication sounds in Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but it was expensive and complex. The real breakthrough came with the ARP 2600.

Released in 1971, the ARP 2600 was a semi-modular masterpiece. It came pre-wired so you could flip it on and start playing immediately, but every connection point was also available via patch cables for deep customization. It was portable — well, portable by 1971 standards — and it sounded enormous. The 2600 became the educational standard at universities and music conservatories across America, training an entire generation of electronic musicians.

ARP's real commercial success came with the Odyssey, a two-oscillator duophonic synth released in 1972 that went head-to-head with the Minimoog. The Odyssey was arguably more versatile — it had two oscillators with hard sync, sample and hold, ring modulation, and a duophonic keyboard that could play two notes simultaneously. It was also more affordable. The battle between Moog and ARP defined the 1970s synthesizer market, and the competition made both companies better.

At their peak, ARP commanded around 40% of the synthesizer market. Their instruments were everywhere — on records by Stevie Wonder, Herbie Hancock, Pete Townshend, Joe Zawinul, and countless others. The Solina String Ensemble, while technically a string machine rather than a true synthesizer, became one of the most recorded keyboard instruments in history. Its lush, chorus-drenched string sound appeared on hundreds of hit records.

The end came swiftly and tragically. ARP overextended with the Avatar guitar synthesizer project in the late 1970s, a technologically ambitious instrument that arrived buggy, unreliable, and far too late. The costs of the Avatar program drained ARP's resources, and the company went bankrupt in 1981. Alan Pearlman lost everything. It remains one of the great tragedies of the synthesizer world — a company that was genuinely winning, destroyed by a single overambitious bet.

Notable Instruments

ARP 2600

The 2600 is the instrument that proved synthesis could be both powerful and accessible. Its genius was the normalled signal path — every module was pre-connected in a logical, musical way, so beginners could start making sounds immediately. But slide open the lid, grab some patch cables, and the 2600 became a modular system capable of sounds that would make a Buchla owner nod in respect. The three-oscillator architecture, the multimode filter, and the spring reverb gave it a character that ranged from fat bass to screaming leads to abstract noise.

The 2600's cultural fingerprints are everywhere. Ben Burtt used one to create R2-D2's voice in Star Wars — those chirps, beeps, and whistles are pure 2600 ribbon controller work. Stevie Wonder used it extensively on Innervisions and Songs in the Key of Life. Jean-Michel Jarre made it a centerpiece of Oxygene. Edgar Winter's "Frankenstein" showcased its lead capabilities to a rock audience. The 2600 is perhaps the most versatile analog synthesizer ever made.

ARP Odyssey

If the Minimoog was the Fender Stratocaster of synthesizers, the Odyssey was the Gibson Les Paul — a different character, a different feel, a loyal and passionate following, and an eternal debate about which was better. The Odyssey's two-oscillator design with hard sync could produce tearing, aggressive timbres that the warmer Minimoog couldn't touch. Its duophonic keyboard let you play two-note intervals, opening up harmonic possibilities that were impossible on the strictly monophonic Moog.

The Odyssey went through three revisions, each with its own character and fan base. The Mark I (white face) had the most aggressive filter. The Mark II (black and gold) is generally considered the sweet spot. The Mark III (black and orange) added pitch bend and performance controls. Herbie Hancock's solo on "Chameleon" — one of the most iconic synth performances in history — was played on an Odyssey. The instrument was also a favorite of new wave and post-punk artists; Gary Numan's early work leaned heavily on its biting, metallic tones.

Solina String Ensemble

The Solina wasn't a synthesizer in the traditional sense — it was a string machine, using divide-down oscillator technology to produce lush ensemble sounds. But its influence on recorded music was so enormous that it deserves mention alongside any synthesizer in history. The three-band chorus circuit that gave the Solina its distinctive shimmer has been cloned, sampled, and emulated more times than anyone can count. When you hear a warm, swelling string pad on a 1970s record — Joy Division's Closer, countless Philly soul productions, Jean-Michel Jarre's Equinoxe — there's a very good chance it's a Solina. Its sound defined an era's idea of what electronic strings should sound like, and that template persists to this day.

All Models in Archive (76)

None

• 1004p
• 1046
• 4015
• 4022
• 4027

Analog Synthesizers

• 16-Voice Electronic Piano
• 2810 - 1975-1976
• 2820 - 1978-1981
• 2823 - 1978-1981
• Explorer I - 1974
• Rhodes Chroma

Analog Synthesizers

• 2600C - 1978-1981
• 2600P - 1975-1978
• Avatar - 1979-1981
• Pro Soloist - 1972-1977
• Solus - 1975-1976

Modular Synthesizers

• ARP 2500 - 1970-1981

Sequencer

• 1601 - 1976

String Machines

• String Synthesizer - 1975

Synth

• 2600
• Axxe
• Odyssey
• Omni
• Solina String Ensemble