Arturia ARP 2600V

Frankenstein, Anyone?

The 70’s were a great time in the history of keyboard manufacturing. Analog synths started appearing on pop tunes (not to mention ground-breaking synthesizer recordings by the likes of Wendy Carlos and Isao Tomita), and soon the local music stores started carrying them. Moog and ARP were the main manufacturers of analog synthesizers in the early 70’s. They each had a characteristic sound, and were readily identifiable on various recordings. One very popular song, the instrumental Frankenstein (by the Edgar Winter Group) had a wailing synth solo and some interesting effects created on ARP’s flagship model, the 2600. Not to mention, Winter strutted around the stage wearing the 2600 keyboard with a guitar strap…wow! Fast forward 30 years, and we’ve seen many a group with remote keyboards, but in the early 70’s, that was a real eye-opener (Keith Emerson did the same thing back then with a Moog ribbon controller, but we’re talkin’ ARP here, friend…).

ARP (which is named after the 2600’s inventor, Alan R. Pearlman) also manufactured a modular synth, the 2500, but that was primarily used in the university scene. On the surface, the 2600 appeared to be modular, but could be operated without patch cords. The ARP 2600 was a patchable synth: it could be programmed with patch cords at a moments notice, but in actuality, had many of the routings pre-patched so the user could move some sliders and start rockin’.

Installation

The computer used for this review was a dual 1.25GHz Apple G4 with 2 gigs of ram. I ran the installer, typed in my license code, and was up and running in short order. I registered the product with Arturia on line, and got an email back with a password for downloading free sounds and tutorials very quickly. The Arturia site has a user forum for each of its products, and many helpful hints can be had. It has been my experience that emails to their support department are answered pretty quickly (remember, they are in France, so you may have to wait a day because of the time differential). The only task remaining was to select the audio card (in this case, the excellent MOTU 828mkII).

Arturia recommends PC users to have a minimum of a 1GHz PC with 256 megs of ram, and Windows 98SE/2000/XP. For the Mac side of things, a similar requirement: 1 GHz processor, 256 megs ram, OS10.2 or higher. The ARP 2600 V can be very CPU intensive in a sequencing situation, so if you are in the process of buying a music computer, the more power and memory the merrier!

Getting Started

Upon installing the ARP 2600 V, I was confronted by a very blue interface. The initial 2600s created were called “Blue Meanies”; only a few were made, and had a filter (the 4012) that strikingly resembled the Moog ladder filter. ARP (after some legal wrangling with Moog Music) changed the filter design (the newer model 4072), and released the 2600 in black, represented by Arturia with skin number 2. In 1978, ARP changed the look to black and orange, and used that color scheme with a number of products; Arturia’s skin number 3. According to Arturia, their filter design resembles the 4012 design closer (the 2600 V boots up with the blue skin). This could be a problem with ARP purists from “back in the day”, in that the majority of us (I owned an Odyssey with PPC) experienced only the 4072 filter. Given the original machine changed design somewhat through its existence, then, this does not perplex me. The end result: it sounds like an ARP; that is the goal.

The 2600 V has an extra goodie: a replication of the 1601 step sequencer. The original 2600 had a spring reverb, which is replicated here, and hiding behind what in the original were 2 speakers are a couple of new additions: a chorus and delay on the left and a tracking generator (you can do some neat modulation routings here) on the right. Both “modules” are capable of midi sync. Some other 21st century additions: the various parameters can be assigned MIDI control functions, the polyphony has gone from monophonic/duophonic up to 32 voices. There are some cosmetic niceties, such as the movement of the patch cables when moving the cursor near (this is like hitting the tab key in Reason and having the cables moving when the back of the rack is revealed). There is a keystroke that will stop the movement; sometimes those darn cables will move in front of potentiometer labels, and this helps to keep order.

Another radical difference in the old verses the new: presets. Arturia’s method of patch management is standard in each of their synths: bank (organized by programmer), sub-bank (leads, basses, EFX, etc.) and presets. Many programmers from around the world are involved, as diverse as the legendary Klaus Schulze and Kevin Lamb (programmer working with Chad Hugo of the Neptunes).

The Recreation Of An Icon…

I remember walking into our local music store in 1974 and seeing the 2600 for the first time; it was elevated, and inspired a sort of awe similar to seeing the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey. The ARP 2600 V booted up with a blue skin, and the attention to detail and 3D imaging looked gorgeous. I used to own an Odyssey in black and orange, so I’m enjoying skin number 3 on the 2660 V for the moment.

Looks are great, but we are making music, so how does it sound?…
wonderful; it is very punchy, very warm, very analog. I owned both the Odyssey and a Minimoog along the way; Arturia has captured the essence of both company’s filter designs. Their patented TAE (True Analog Emulation) does an excellent job of recreating authentic sounding oscillators and filters, and the result is borne out in products such as the Minimoog V and ARP 2600 V. I set up a sequence in Logic Pro 7, called up both the Arturia Minimoog V and ARP 2600 V, and started to A/B them, trying to create similar patches. The sound of the filters was unmistakable; the Moog sounded like a Moog, and the ARP…my wife even commented, “…that sounds like an ARP!” That girl knows her gear, and is beautiful to boot…

One of the cool things about the original 2600, was the amount of all the synthesis goodies. We have them here: 3 oscillators, a ring modulator (creates sum and difference tones of 2 waveforms, resulting in a very metallic sound), the ability to use oscillators 1, 2 and 3 as modulation sources, an envelope follower, a mixer…The original ARP filter was a 24 db/octave filter. The 2600 V has a replication of the original 24 db/octave filter, plus the 12db/octave low pass, high pass, band pass, and notch filters from the ARP 2500; how cool is that?! The voltage processor does many interesting things, including the ability to invert the keyboard: as you play up the keyboard, the scale descends, an effect Joe Zawinul was famous for while in Weather Report (he used to play his solos simultaneously on two 2600s, one keyboard inverted, one not!). There are 2 patches in the lead category that recreate his solo sound and tunings from the Weather Report album Black Market. The tracking generator (this is a 21st century addition) allows you create modulation scenarios using four curves that can be drawn. There is a lot of routing on this beast; all you need is time and creativity.

For the programming-challenged, there are over 400 presets that range from the simple to the uber-complex. A good way to learn the sequencer would be to examine the various patches involving this module. It is a basic 16 step (or 2x8 step) sequencer, with clock in and out, an extra LFO (in case you want to use oscillators 2 and 3 for audible waveforms), and even an A-440 switch (not on the original sequencer).

How Did It Sequence?

I set up a sequence in Logic Pro 7, put it in cycle mode, and started composing. I started with a bass track, and while it played, couldn’t resist running a patch cord from the extra LFO on the sequencer module to the filter, to create a slow sweep. Added another track, selected a preset from the Sequencer sub-bank (some tweaking had to follow, of course); a little editing to that in the 1601 module, and I was off looking for a pad. In the 70’s I don’t think we ever looked at a machine as a source for pad sounds. Come to think of it, the term “pad” probably didn’t come into play until after the Prophet 5, but I digress… Some analog hi hat and kick sounds, a lead sound, away I wrote, watching the CPU meter rise. When I started track 7, I noticed some degradation of sound. Logic has a track freeze parameter (it temporarily disables the audio instrument and converts its information to audio), so I froze the track, and kept writing. It seems that 6 tracks was the comfortable limit. I used fairly complex patches, and also created modulation routings with patch cords while in cycle mode. Not bad…with a freeze track parameter, no problem. In any case, if the load gets bad, you can take your audio instrument part, bounce it to disk, hit the bypass on the ARP 2600 V, and keep going.

Summary and Conclusion

There are many wildly inventive soft synth packages on the market today. These programs have in their ancestry the old beasts of yore, such as the ARP 2600. With the ARP 2600 V, Arturia has done an excellent job of resurrecting the myth, and in doing so, created a monster instrument for today. This synth takes the 2600 a few steps further with some modern enhancements, but the sound and layout is identical, and you will see the genius of Alan R. Pearlman translated to a new, remarkable instrument. “Back in the day,” synthesizers were very expensive; buying one took a huge chunk of income. For $229, you can own in software the synth that Joe Zawinul, Edgar Winter, Stevie Wonder, etc., used to create some of the most influential recordings of our time. Older 2600s pop up in many of the electronica offerings of today. Those machines are hard to find, and expensive when you do (repair-wise as well). With the ARP 2600 V, you can experience what those composers (from each generation) have experienced, with a much lighter load on the wallet (and back; this ARP doesn’t require an anvil case when touring). This program is now an essential part of my synth kit. Time to move some sliders and pull some patch cords!

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