ARP Odyssey, Contemporary Keyboard 1975

ARP Odyssey synthesizer ad from the back inside cover of Contemporary Keyboard magazine November / December 1975.

Looking back over my posts, I've noticed that with the exception of a few posts, I've been neglecting ARP. To help rectify this situation, I've gone back to my earliest magazines to see what I could dig up - and the first result is this ARP Odyssey ad.

This is one of the earliest ARP ads I can recall that drops names AND gives away free stuff - a tradition ARP continued in many of their later ads. And, its even unique in these two respects:

1. Free stuff - not only did you get a free anvil case, but it was customized with your name hand-lettered on the side.
2. Name dropping - this ad didn't just name-drop famous Odyssey users, but Odyssey users that lugged their gear around in Anvil road cases. And apparently, based on the name on the road case in the photo, The BlackByrds were one of them.
   

There is no real reference information in the ad, but you can find lots online, including:

• Vintage Synth Explorer
• Synth Museum
  
• Wikipedia
• The Ultimate ARP Odyssey resource page (ironically, many of the links I clicked on aren't working, making it not very 'ultimate' at the moment) has a good history of the Odyssey from Sound on Sound magazine
• History of ARP (reprinted from Keyboard magazine) from rhodeschroma.com
  

More ARP posts to come in the weeks ahead.