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24-536: ARP Instruments, having developed the large and powerful ARP 2500 for studio work, released the Soloist as a light, portable, easy-to-use performance instrument that could be placed on top of an electric piano or electronic organ . In contrast to the flexible modular design of the 2500, the Soloist had no patch panels or cables. A set of toggle switches allowed the performer to quickly choose one of 18 preset monophonic patches that were not modifiable (note that "Voice"

48-623: A 2500 unit is used to communicate with aliens . Phil Dodds , ARP's Vice President of Engineering, was on set to install and manage the synthesizer; Steven Spielberg , liking his looks, cast him on the spot as an extra to play the 2500. The unit featured in the film consisted of a fully loaded main unit, two fully loaded wing cabinets and dual keyboards in a custom case. It has been used by artists such as Aphex Twin , David Bowie , Vince Clarke , Ekseption , Faust , John Frusciante , Jean Michel Jarre , Cevin Key , Kraftwerk , Jimmy Page , Vangelis and

72-495: A 64-step "staircase" waveform to emulate a sawtooth pattern. Pulse waves are generated at a very high frequency, seven or eight octaves higher than the pitch of the note being played. A digital code from the octave selector is combined with the key code and sent to a frequency divider , which outputs the correct sub-octave waveforms from the oscillator. The pulse oscillator provides pulse-width ratios of 1/14, 1/9, 1/64, and 2/11. A dynamic pulse width output adds harmonic expression to

96-521: A cable-free experience but at the price of greater cross-talk. Although the 2500 proved to be a reliable and user-friendly machine, it was not commercially successful, selling approximately 100 units. A collection of the 2500's most popular modules was packaged into a single, non-modular unit as the ARP 2600 , leaving out the matrix switching and more esoteric functions. John Kongos first used one at Trident Studios in 1971, then in 1973 he acquired his own - it

120-404: A serious synthesizer by most professional musicians. The limited set of voices, combined with tuning stability problems, kept it from wider use. Nevertheless, it found a place on recordings by such artists as Quincy Jones and Steely Dan . During the recording of Steely Dan's Countdown to Ecstasy (1973), Donald Fagen was so irritated with having to tune the Soloist so often, he threw it down

144-537: Is heavily built on the Pro Soloist), Anthony Phillips (whose 1977 album The Geese and the Ghost took its name from Phillips' nicknames for two sounds produced by the Pro Soloist), John Entwistle , and Steve Walsh of Kansas (particularly on the 1975 release Song for America ). Dennis DeYoung of Styx (used it through 1976 featured on the songs "Suite Madame Blue", "Crystal Ball" & "Man of Miracles"). Banks used

168-554: Is sheet metal with wooden side panels, and a fiberboard or Masonite bottom cover. The Pro Soloist was significant in using digital read-only memory (ROM) chips to program all of its internal signal paths. The Voice selection switches deliver unique digital codes to set the ROMs' digital outputs, setting the parameters required for each circuit to produce the sound of the selected voice. The expression controls, including aftertouch, remain under analog control. There are four slider pots to

192-511: The Explorer lacked the aftertouch feature that made the Soloist and Pro Soloist such expressive instruments. ARP 2500 The ARP 2500 is a monophonic analog modular synthesizer . It was the first product of ARP Instruments, Inc. , built from 1970 to 1981. It is equipped with a set of sliding matrix switches above each module; these switches are the primary method of interconnecting modules. There are rows of 1/8" miniphone jacks at

216-701: The Pro Soloist prominently on the Genesis albums Selling England by the Pound (1973) through to Seconds Out (1977). It was also used by Funk keyboardist like Junie Morrison on the Ohio Players song " Funky Worm " and by Bernie Worrell in the Parliament Mothership Connection (1975) album. Around the same time, the company released its ARP Odyssey synthesizer, a powerful duophonic instrument, as

240-504: The Soloist. A novel "digitized" tone generator eliminated tuning problems suffered by the Soloist. The voice selection tabs were now above the keyboard, instead of below as on the original Soloist. Although initially marketed to home organists, it found its way into the hands of such famous musicians as Tony Banks of Genesis , Josef Zawinul , Billy Preston , Vangelis , Tangerine Dream , Edgar Froese , Peter Baumann , Christopher Franke , Gary Numan (his 1980 number one album Telekon

264-618: The Who . The composer Éliane Radigue has worked almost exclusively with the 2500. ARP Pro-DGX The ARP Pro/DGX is a preset-based monophonic synthesizer manufactured by ARP Instruments , Inc. from 1977 until the company's demise in 1981. Like its predecessor, the Pro Soloist , it features 30 presets and aftertouch . In fact, it looks almost identical to the Explorer and Pro Soloist . However, there are some notable differences. The Pro/DGX

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288-478: The attack and decay phase of some voices. The output of the pulse and sawtooth waves can be directed through a saw/pulse mixer followed by a high-pass filter with four selectable settings. Additionally, the pulse output can be directed through one of three resonator banks. These banks (with 2, 3, and 5 settings respectively) can tailor the filtering of the waveform to suit specific voices (such as cello, violin, flute, or oboe). All of these settings are determined by

312-430: The end of each row of matrix switches, to interconnect rows of switches. The main 2500 cabinet can hold 15 modules, and optional wing cabinets can each hold 8. The matrix switch interconnection scheme allow any module's output to connect to any other module's input. Unlike the patch cords of competitive units from Moog and Buchla , which can obscure control knobs and associated markings, the matrix implementation enables

336-413: The factory programmed ROMs; they are not accessible by the user. Once the audio signal is routed through the mixer and resonators, it passes through a low-pass filter and amplifier each under the control of an attack-release (AR) or ADSR envelope generator, or both. The envelope settings, like all of the voice settings, are selected by the voice ROMs. The 24 dB/oct low-pass filter, ARP part no. 4034,

360-409: The flagship of its performance line. The Pro Soloist offered an easier-to-use alternative which appealed to professionals as well as home users. By the time the Pro Soloist caught on, many competitors such as Moog Music , Korg , Roland Corporation , and Farfisa had introduced similar keyboards, though, ironically, most of the competitors' clones had the voice selection tabs below the keyboard, like

384-444: The left of the keyboard to control volume, touch sensitivity, brilliance (VCF Cutoff), and portamento speed during live performance. A 3-position octave switch allows "normal" or plus or minus one octave transposition of the 3-octave keyboard to extend the range of the instrument to five playable octaves; the total range of instrument across all presets covers 8 octaves. There is also a rotary pot which serves double duty to control both

408-562: The movie version of Tommy . The ARP 2500 was extensively used by British producer David Hentschel on recordings such as " Funeral for a Friend " from Elton John 's 1973 album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road . Jeff Wayne's 1978 multi-platinum selling album War of the Worlds features the ARP 2500, including the sound of Martian speech. In the 1977 motion picture Close Encounters of the Third Kind ,

432-479: The original Soloist. The ARP Pro Soloist would eventually be reintroduced as the updated Pro-DGX featuring momentary digitally-latched push button voice selector switches with LED status indicators, rather than toggle switches. It would remain in production until the company's demise in 1981. The Pro Soloist is monophonic and features a multiple-trigger, low note priority, transposable 37-key three-octave keyboard with aftertouch (i.e., pressure) sensitivity. The case

456-449: The rate of Vibrato or Tremolo (dependent upon preset) and Repeat, which causes the LFO to retrigger the envelopes of any selected voice upon key depression. The Pro Soloist features a single oscillator , which generates simultaneously available pulse and sawtooth waveforms. The sawtooth wave is not a separate oscillator circuit, but instead is derived from the sum of 5 pulse waves, generating

480-417: The recording studio stairwell and jumped up and down on it. Shortly after, a producer joined in with some alcohol and they burned the ARP into a pile of melted plastic. In 1972, ARP introduced the Pro Soloist , a revised and enhanced version of the Soloist. Expanding the number of preset patches to 30, and incorporating digital electronics for preset memory and keyboard control, it was much more reliable than

504-417: Was ARP parlance for Preset, or Patch). This lack of programmability was compensated by giving the performer control over the voice expression, adding "growl", "wow", "brilliance", portamento , pitch bend , and/or vibrato to the timbre . A pressure-sensitive keyboard allowed players to use aftertouch to control all of these effects. While moderately successful in its niche, the Soloist was not regarded as

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528-462: Was housed in a new steel chassis, which was much sturdier than that of the Pro Soloist . Presets were now accessed via digitally latched momentary pushbuttons with LED indicators, as opposed to the more retro, flapper-style toggle switches used in the Pro Soloist. The first run of this synth looks very much like the Pro Soloist in layout and colour scheme, though subsequently, it was produced using ARP's late-1970s Orange and Black colour scheme, like

552-513: Was used extensively at his Tapestry Studio, on his own recordings as well as Def Leppard ( Pyromania ), Mutt Lange , Alain Chamfort , Tony Visconti , Ryan Ulyate and many others. In 1972 Pete Townshend of the Who used an ARP 2500 on the Who's Quadrophenia . Townshend built his own home studio to experiment and record, due to the enormous amount of time he spent creating his groundbreaking synthesizer orchestrations on both Quadrophenia, and

576-518: Was very similar to the Moog transistor-ladder filter, and was eventually replaced due to concerns around IP . The output of the voice circuitry is routed to high- and low-impedance outputs for amplification. A later instrument, the ARP Explorer (1974-1978), was similar to the Pro Soloist, but allowed basic modification of the voices beyond the presets programmed into the memory. Though much more flexible,

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