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During my early years I fell in love with electronic music (this was the late 60s and early 70s), and then fortune fell
my way when the high school I attended had a teacher with enough foresight to organize an electronic music class. This
was my first chance to play on these exciting instruments, first on the high school's early model ARP Odyssey, then later
on a Moog Mark II with extra modules at a local college. Since then electronic music has been part of my life, both
as a listener and a musician, although the latter on and off as the years went by.
I was lucky enough to receive and keep intact a demo record from Arp Synthesizers that I received when I asked for one
of their catalogues. It's both an interest slice of some of the electronic potential of those instruments back then,
and also an interesting view of the company as it was back then, quite viable and with a lion's share of the market.
Unfortunately, there was little warning about the internal power struggle that would melt the company to nothingness, and
of the coming of digital technology.
These files are 1 Mbyte or less in size except for Stinger which is over 2 Mbytes.
Click on the titles to download and play the files
| The ARP 2600, their best small synth |
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| (from the promotional brochure) |
click here to listen to the entire demo record
ARP Demo Record - Introduction
I'm still amazed and thrilled at the quality of this opening music.
I did make contact with Roger Powell in 2004. Then in 2006 Dave Fredericks, the son of the man behind many of
the songs on the demo record emailed me. Then recently (F 01-26-07) I received email from none other than Dr. Dave Fredericks
himself! All three were kind enough to give me some key facts concerning this recording, for which I express my heart-felt
sincere thanks to both for their time and patience with my questions !
Dr. Fredericks states that, in his opinion, this opening piece was done using an Arp 2500,
but he didn't provide more information. In particular, I asked both Dr. Fredericks an Roger Powell who did this, and
neither could remember. I'm particularly interested in how the string-like arpeggios were done.
ARP Demo - Peter Townsend
Well, this should add fuel to the fire of how Pete achieved the
sounds in Baba O'Reilly from Who's Next? ! Actually, he did use
a 2600 on other tracks, but what's this they're claiming here ?
ARP Demo - Roger Powell
A snippet from Powell's A Glowing, Far Horizon
ARP Demo - Roger Powell again
I recently learned that this tune, Ictus,
was released on Powell's album Cosmic Furnace, which was reissued on CD and is available now (F 042205).
ARP Demo - Education Use
ARP Demo - Composition use
ARP Demo - Home Use
ARP Demo - Conclusion Side A
Stinger - by Dave Fredericks
Probably my favorite piece from this demo record, and still a nice
way to show off the power of the ARP synthesizer. Dr. Fredericks says that a 2600 and Pro Soloist were used along with
an organ. He and his son also stated that no single version of this song exists apart from the demo record. Strangely,
the sound like a gunshot was NOT created on either synthesizer. Dr. Fredericks says that he wanted a whip cracking sound,
so Roger Powell used two 2x4 pieces of wood, then while he was playing the song, Powell smacked the pieces of wood together
and then ran it through filtering and reverberation.
Queene Enfineska - by Roger Powell
This and the next track are actually samples from Roger's Cosmic
Furnace album, re-issued on CD and available now. And all this time I thought these were short compositions
done for the demo record only.
Hermatic Enigma - by Roger Powell
Mockingbird Hill - by Dave Frederic
A bit of silliness to end the demo, but fun nevertheless !
Both Dave Fredericks, the father and son, state that he had done it by switching the voives while he was playing the tune
! Seems almost unbelievable considering how clean the switch of voices sounds !
Dr. Fredericks says that he achieved the closeness of the Soloist sounds to real instruments
by having Jeremy Hills adjust knobs while he played until he thought the sounds were as close as they could get, all the while
drinking beer and eating bananas (Jeremy was a vegetarian) !
Dr. Fredericks also wrote that he wanted to make a polyphonic Soloist, but the internal politics
that eventually derailed Arp also derailed this project. Pity, since very few synthesizers where really polyphonic at
the time in the way a piano is polyphonic, and if they succeeded in making such an instrument it would have been revolutionary.
Dr. Fredericks didn't keep any examples of Arp synthesizers. And unlike Robert Moog,
it seems that none of the top people involved in Arp have the capital and/or the desire to resurrect the product line.
A real pity, considering the interesting ideas Arp synthesizers demonstrated.
Sometime during my mid 20s and throughout my 30s I left music as a performer. In part this was due to career choices,
but in part because those horrible analog tools of the 70s left me without much hope of doing the type of pieces I had in
mind. Sound-on-sound overdubbed had technical difficulties, as well as the need for equipment that I couldn't afford.
Also, while analog synthesizers were improving, they were still pretty much out of my reach, and early digital synthesis was
something I couldn't wrap my heart around.
However, starting in 2000, my old interests emerged again, and I found that the tools were much better. All of
recording, processing, and burning CDs could be done on the computer. MIDI made it possible to record the performances
and then tweak them the way I wanted, and a return to analog style controls that started seveal years back had merged the
power of digital with the sounds and adjustments of analog.
The following pieces are my best efforts to date. All were performed by hand on a Roland XP-8000 synth except for
the Allegro where some of it was transcribed to Cakewalk's Home Studio 2004 and then played back on the XP-8000. Home
Studio was also used to tweak some of the other performances and act as a recording mixer. Final mixing was done using
Goldwave software.
I hope that the dear listener will enjoy my modest efforts.
Click on the music titles to download and play them.
Meditations on the Wind
This composition and "Solitude" are spiritually and to some extent
musically linked. They are both based on themes and motifs from a composition I did as a freshman at San Gabriel High
School in 1972. "Meditations on the Wind" is more of an evocation of that 1972 piece. The original from 1972 is
lost to time, as the only tape with a recording of it was stolen in 1973.
Allegro (2.6Mb)
From the first movement of the piano sonata #13 by good ol' Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart. My own interpretation, not really based on anyone. The only other version of this piece I've heard
was done by the Swingle Singers in the 60s !
The Enigma of Twilight (3.8Mb)
Promenade #1 by Moussorgski (1.5Mb)
No, not inspired by Isao Tomita's version done three decades ago.
When I don't know of a rendition of a piece that I'm fond of done the way I think it should, it's one motivation for me to
try my own hand at it.
Solitude (3.6Mb)
This is the closest I will get to recreating a composition I did
as a freshman at San Gabriel High School. The original was done using an ARP Odyssey synthesizer, an echoplex, and an
Ampex two-track tape deck. That tape was stolen from the high school in 1973.
This contains the major theme from that work as well as captures
the overall feeling. I had to re-compose the piece entirely from memory, and left off a second movement of the work,
linked continuously with the first you hear here, because after all these years it just didn't sound right being there with
the rest of the piece.
The Enigma of Emptiness (8.4Mb)
My last composition so far to make it to the final phase.
The original was structured as three linked movements, but I've decided the final movement didn't feel right with the other
two and edited it out except for a brief suggestion at the end.
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