ARP Brass Belt Buckle, 1977

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ARP Brass Belt Buckle from 1977.

Man, I've been having fun. I've been playing around in my studio, but I find myself more interested in the logistics of it all rather than actually using it to create some semblance of sound. Moving this synth over here. Swiveling in my chair to see how it looks. See if my arm can reach it easily. Then moving that synth over there. Then back again...

Clearly I've hit rock bottom in some kind of creative slump.

Anyways, the whole studio switcheroo has been taking up a fair bit of my attention, and will probably continue to into the near future. So, to help free up some time I thought I would post a quickie, but a goodie.

Back in August 2009, I uploaded a few photos of my Sequential Circuits belt buckle and mentioned that I also had an ARP buckle in my collection. Since then, I've had more than a handful of emails asking me to post some photos of it. "Angelo" even posted a request for it in the comments section of this SCI merchandise blog post.

So, I finally got my lazy butt away from my scanner and over to my camera.

The one thing you will notice right away is that this ARP buckle isn't in as good condition as the SCI buckle. But, that ARP logo is still gorgeous. And the buckle does have the date stamped clearly on the back. Nice. Like my SCI belt buckle photos, I've also included a photo of the buckle with my favorite ARP synthesizer (Odyssey) so you can get an idea of it's size. It measures just a hair under 6 centimeters, which is about a hair and a half under 2.5 inches. So, lets just call it 6 cm/2.5" even.

Aside: The Odyssey in the photo was found at a second-hand music store a long while back. Poor thing wasn't in bad shape, but my tech buddy at the time cleaned up its innards nicely. It's missing most of it's slider caps, and the ones that are there are in pretty bad condition. I was thinking of getting new slider caps off eBay or somewhere (seen them there a few times) but now I'm thinking I might just save up for this "Lumina illuminated slider" upgrade. That is beautiful.

One thing that I find interesting is that this belt buckle is NOT included in the ARP software and accessories catalog that I posted recently. Both are dated at around 1977, so if the buckle was available to the general public, chances are it would have made it into the catalog. Especially since that ARP director's chair got in there. :o)

The person that I got this buckle from (and a few others that became the start of the collection) said he received it at a trade show. So, maybe these buckles were only available to dealers and a few fortunate others.

Lucky them!