ARP Instruments : promotional EP

The ARP Family of Synthetizers

ARP Instruments
320 Needham St.
Newton, Mass. 02164

Promotional 33rpm EP
1973

A side -30761-

Music & Narration by Roger Powell (Music pieces by Dave Fredricks and Harry Coon)
(Also includes a bit of The Who "Teenage Wasteland")
Intro 1 :04

B side: -30762 -

1. Stinger - Dave Fredericks courtesy of Ad Rhythm Records
2. Queene Enfineska - Roger Powell from Atlantic Album Cosmic Furnace
3. Hermetic Enigma - Roger Powell from Atlantic Album Cosmic Furnace
4. Mockingbird Hill - Dave Fredricks

Alan Pearlman was an engineering student at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Massachusetts in 1948 when he foresaw the coming age of electronic music and synthesizers. He wrote:

"The electronic instrument's value is chiefly as a novelty. With greater attention on the part of the engineer to the needs of the musician, the day may not be too remote when the electronic instrument may take its place ... as a versatile, powerful, and expressive instrument."

Following 21 years of experience in electronic engineering and entrepreneurship, Pearlman founded ARP Instruments in 1969 with US$100,000 of personal funds and a matching amount from investors.

Throughout the 1970s, ARP was the main competitor to Moog Music in the field of musically useful synthesizers. There were two main camps — the Minimoog players and the ARP Odyssey/ARP 2600 players — with most proponents dedicated to their choice, although some players chose to pick and chose between the two for specific effect, as well as many who dabbled with products produced by other manufacturers. The ARP 2500 was featured in the famous movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The ARP technician sent to install the unit, Phil Dodds, was cast as the musician who plays the alien tones on the synthesizer.

The demise of ARP Instruments, Inc. was brought about by the ill-fated decision to invest a significant amount of money in the development of ARP Avatar, a synthesizer module closely resembling ARP Odyssey, but equipped with a guitar pickup and a pitch-to-voltage converter. Although an excellent instrument by all accounts, the Avatar failed to sell well. ARP Instruments was never able to recoup the research and development costs and ended in bankruptcy.

From Wikipedia article

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