ARP 2500 modular sequence

[baward]

Check out Elton John's LP records from 1972-74 (Don't Shoot Me, Honky Chateau, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Caribou); the synth stuff on there is Arp 2500, operated by Gus Dudgeon's engineer, David Hentshel.

[fishybishbash]

splendid - nice up

[jill9ify]

and I thought the minimoog had lots of knobs...

[SernoMusic]

cool man



[stripes5150]

This video just blew my computer bass speaker....you owe me!!!

JK....great video. lol

[Neuronaluniverse]

Very nice machine!!!!! Welcome to neuronaluniverse

[setuda3]

Verry cool!

this synth is vintage,but its sound is progressive!

[oxiigen]

looks like a command board in a cockpit of some electric train from 70's.. :)

[reallifegonow]

lo strumento e affascinante, per cio che riguarda la musica il presunto musicista ha passi infiniti da fare , per rendere questi rumori musica

[sephardimm]

I know you will hate me for this, although I'm a great fan of analog gear, this thing sound like crap...

[kellyssa3]

too short :) but it's really good. thanks for posting ;)

[PragueFanity]

How many know that Eddie Jobson used a 2500 for many of the sequenced bit on the debut UK album?

[elmotpoopie]

it reminds me of the old operators

[grunger77]

ояебу

[nekrozone]

WHAT A MOONSTER MAN

[iloverush123]

Looks more like a computer than a synthesizer.

[gubark]

pas mal, pas mal ... : P

[momatt]

Jeez. This machine needs more knobs!

[mojorisen74]

If you don't already know you should check out Roger Powell(Todd Rundgren's Utopia) 1st Solo album entitled "Cosmic Furnace". It was recorded almost entirely with ARP synthesizers(Except for Piano) It came out in 1973 and was issued on CD a few years ago on Wounded Bird Records. He uses the ARP 2500, Soloist, 2600 and Odysseys on the record. The record was marketed as an ARP demostration record I beleive.

[Biyoung]

its a arp 2500 playing the sound i close encounters actully its on from the arp companey

[azeribagan]

what?

[LF0]

yes it was a special prototype model that was never released, but the sound did come from the synth

[jaybe52000]

No, it's not a special protoype. Actually it's the stock 2500 series as seen in this video put into "special cabinets" for the movie. The man playing the ARP 2500 in Close Encounters" is Phil Dodds, who worked at ARP, as an engineer as well as service manager at one point. (I knew him, and had been to the ARP factory in Newton Highlands, MA back in the 1970's)

The sounds that were used in the film were NOT coming from the ARP, they were actually orchestral instruments, written by John Williams

[renegadesoundwaves]

Correct me if I'm wrong...but this beast is extremely rare? I would love to have a tweak, probably take me a few months to get my head around it by the looks of things though!:)

[Biyoung]

yeah arp made abourt 100 total but think abourt the money that you wouldt have too keep the beast running puha its make my sweat a lot just too thing abourt it. ;)

[PHAEDRIDER]

yay arp!!!!

[MuzakConcrete]

If I ever get to play with one of these, I'll fucking cream myself before I even touch it.

[pussytrooper]

dude this is the fairest comment i`ve seen concerning these amazing instruments...

[paramind]

I like what you're playing. it's nice to see when owner's can actually make music that does the machine justice. you can make some nice music with it. thanks.

[armalyte]

YOU CAN HEAR THE MP3 CODEC BEIGN SMAHSED TO BITS cause you better beleive it, analog synths with 24db lpf's can smash things to pieces. My system 100 blew a pair of gale refs out eventually cuase the osciallators can go all the way down to 10hz. But analog sound generation is inherantly louder and more gutsier due to the undulations of voltages going thru not very energy efficent circuit paths. VA'S have their uses, analog blows the pants off them . Witness the recent surges in price are proof.

[fatherfocus]

esto es a lo mas que el hombre ha llegado en sonido

[armalyte]

this is a neat demo, which although only uses a couple of oscillators ( the 2500 has 5 vcos), is still varied and great sounding. Nice one!

[TheRealLawnMowerMan]

How much did you pay for that thing?

[snevelin]

Honestly, who gives a fuck?

[myleftnutts]

If ever u hear "MultiTimbral Polyphony" u would!

[discothief]

Hi Myleftnutts. I am talking analogue only here. If you're talking digital then fair enough there is a massive range of notes and sound stacking capabilities.

[myleftnutts]

Look "DT" u have never heard "MultiTimbral Polyphony" so u don't know,what i'm talking about. listen if ever u get a

opportunity to hear a fully functional "Oberheim 8 Voice

Modular" on u tube Give it a listen,and then u will Know.

[discothief]

MYLEFTNUTTS. Sorry but you are wrong there. I have a lot of analogue polyphonic synths and some are only five note (Prophet 5) and so on.

[myleftnutts]

"IF" it is a keyboard synth "Polyphony" is defined as at least

"8 notes" at a time".

[Tibbon]

Huh? Where in the world do you get that from? If I can play 3 notes or 4 notes at a time independantly... that's definitely polyphony there. Take your head out of your ass. 4 notes allows for so much stuff.

[myleftnutts]

and of course this is what "U Call Polyphony"? this is interesting,tell me tibb are u playing a hardware machine or a virtual one. and if it's hardware what model are u playing?. and no tibb 3 or 4 notes is not polyphonic from

"Keyboard" viewpoint.

[pigeonfamily]

Strictly speaking, from an English, or more accurately a Latin aspect, mono means one and poly means more than one. Therefore, a keyboard, wether it be a synth or not cannot be considered monophonic if it can play more than one note at a time.

The people who developed these instruments were scientists who wouldn't make such an error in language.

[sleestack]

I love that raspy scraping sound. What is that? What kind of filter?

[squamam]

keep control ;-) gooood sound !!

[armalyte]

THESE ARE NOW SO RARE, THAT EVEN 2500'S IN CRAP CONDITION ARE GOING FOR OVER £10000, which is shocking.

[landmcgreggor2008]

How do you get one of these...can you buy them off internet?.

[polyvoks]

bought it many years ago in England , yes it's possible to find it sometime on ebay , perhaps one time a year , hold on !

[theBUZer]

@landmcgreggor2008 There's one on ebay right now.

[JohnLRice]

@landmcgreggor2008 There is one currently for sale in the Netherlands! Do a Google search on 'weisma ARP 2500'

Best of luck!

[rodolphesimon]

You can create almost any sound imagiable with this kind of synth, bear in mind many people don't have the patience for extensive programming. You can also play polyphonic on the 2500.

[teroniusmonk]

I have always wondered if you can play something decent with these ARPs? Although it has ordinary piano-like keys. Everything I have heard is just bleebing and twiddling the knobs. No one uses the keyboard... Pete Townshend played an organ through it to get a chord. Is it the only way?

[polyvoks]

no , I't's possible to do all kind of "musical" sound , I'll do some others vids playing the keyboard soon .

stay tuned

[teroniusmonk]

I will.

[Jauly]

@polyvoks really? ;)

[myleftnutts]

no it's not really polyphonic! "Arp" had a 4 voice keyboard

for it even though the keyboard was analog.however it "IS" a awesome modular analog. end of pt1.

[myleftnutts]

pt.2 hardly worth 10,000 pounds. the matrix switches are

prone to cross talk.the modules circuits are sealed in epoxy

if it needs servicing that's it. on could make it fully polyphonic,by adding midi to it,and connecting a "USB MIDI

keyboard.

[myleftnutts]

PT.3 one could also avoid the "Vintage Price Ransom" by

simply building a "CLONE" . this is what the "Moog" modular crowd is doing. these are only "Old Analog Electonic Circuits" they are not "Acoustic Instruments".

[RMoribayashi]

@teroniusmonk I hate these YouTube videos of ARP's beeping and farting. For the real thing listen to all of Quadrophenia (In Love Reign O'er me it's both the strings and the rain sound) or Elton John's "Funeral for a Friend" both are the 2500 at it's best. For ARP 2600's, Edgar Winter's "Frankenstein" or Stevie Wonder's "I Wish" and the incredible bass line of "Boogie On Reggae Woman". Search YouTube for "stevie wonder papa was a rolling stone" to see a 2600 played through a talkbox live.

[TomZentra]

@RMoribayashi The truth is that's what came out of ARPs in the early days for the most part. Musicians found these instruments notoriously difficult to understand and program. They didn't just visit a local music store, pay $50,000 for an ARP, and crank out a hit song that night. Getting early synths to do anything worthwhile took months of sporadic effort. There were no books and videos to learn from.

[RMoribayashi]

@TomZentra That is a myth. The ARP 2600 Owners Manual was an excellent book on analog synthesis. Written by Jim Michmerhuizen, it explained analog synthesis in clear and simple terms that could be applied to nearly any contemporary instrument. I learned on a 2600 and was able to operate a Moog modular in less than an hour despite their radical differences. Yes, plenty of musicians bought synths thinking they were "Plug and Play" and your average rocker was not known for reading the manual.

[TomZentra]

@RMoribayashi A manual covering analog synthesis will not teach one how to program a synth in a short period nor tell the owner how to apply knowledge of synthesis to make music.

1970's synth manuals were written for engineers. The level of technical detail, sometimes down to the circuit level, was overwhelming. A similar style of writing is in the original ARP manuals online. You could not buy a do-it-all book, "Make Music On The 2600" or any synth back then.

[RMoribayashi]

@TomZentra I'm no engineer, but I borrowed the 2600 Owners Manual from a friend when I was a senior in HS because the local science museum had an electronic music exhibit full of ARP gear. After going over it a few times I was able to operate a 2600 cold, having never touched one before. Two months later I was working at the museum and on-call to that friend to demo the ARP lineup at the music store where he worked. That's when I switched from playing guitar to keyboards.

[RMoribayashi]

@TomZentra BTW The going rate for a new 2600 in the 1970's was around $1700 and could often be found for much less.

[TomZentra]

@RMoribayashi They weren't worth it then -- when the average annual salary was about $10,000 annually in the mid 70's -- and they aren't worth it now when annual salaries are several times that amount.

[MrCamelneck]

@teroniusmonk

Townshend used an organ on "Won't Get Fooled Again" because he was playing chords (on the record, he actually used an EMS VCS3 to process the sound because he didn't have his ARP yet.) The ARP 2500's keyboard was duophonic (not polyphonic) and would only allow you to play 2 keys at a time.

Perhaps the best example of a recording that features the ARP 2500 is the intro to the Elton John song "Funeral for a Friend" from the "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" album. Check it out!

[bostich1]

fantastico!!

[wetdragoon]

Superbe ! Merci Olivier :) @+

[Novaheart1998]

surely the 2500 can do something else but these bleeps?

[sonicksyn]

huh ? sounds are pretty sophisticated for being bleeps--- i was under the impression that bleeps were something that came off my cell phone--- be pretty awesome if ARP 2500 came out of my cell phone as a bleep

[Novaheart1998]

bleep.

[layzer80]

obviously you are listening to this over a pair of 5 dollar computer speakers. the bass from these old machines anhialate anything virtual "wanna be" analog synths of the present.

[snevelin]

Just because it's analogue doesn't mean it'll have head exploding bass you know.

[layzer80]

stfu, no one said its louder. The output signal from real analog synths is not compressed and stale like its virtual counterparts. Now run along and post something, somewhere that you know something about.

[snevelin]

I never said it's louder either. Software/VAs have their uses, if they sound crap to you then you don't know how to program synths in general I'm afraid.

It's odd how people think once a digital synth does subtractive synthesis, it's instantly a "crap analogue emulator". It's NEVER meant to be "analogue", just shares the same soundshaping technique that isn't exclusive to analogues. They can hold their own well with their analogue counterparts, owning both analogue and digital synths myself.

[Biyoung]

if you have too blow stuff use dynamit its better ;)

[synthesizerman]

sounds sweet!

[juno6]

Awesome!