ARP "Pete's ARP Opera" half page advertisement, Downbeat Magazine, 1975

ARP "Pete's ARP Opera" black and white advertisement from the June 5, 1975 issue of Downbeat magazine. 

I'm betting that Pete's face sold a lot of synths for ARP. 

If you were familiar with The Who... Pete Townshend... or ARP Instruments at the time, you definitely had come across this image in the media. It was everywhere - including this ARP advertisement in Downbeat. Prior to 1976 there weren't a lot of synth magazines to promote your synth products. So Rolling Stone and Downbeat were two magazines that managed to hoovered up more than a few advertising dollars from synth companies.

Let's face it, ARP loved using endorsements as a marketing tool, so when Pete sent promotional photos of himself with his ARP synths to them, it was a match made in heaven. Not sure I can call it serendipity... but it's something. 

According to ARP's own Arpeggio newsletter from April 1974, the original "outrageous self-portrait of Pete Townshend with his ARP 2600 has appeared in dozens of magazines, including Penthouse, Downbeat, Crawdaddy, Rolling Stone, Cream, and many others. Pete presented this photo to ARP about two years ago, and it has really made the rounds". 

No kidding. That quote also provides us with an estimated date the photo was taken - that issue of Arpeggio came out in April 1974... and two years earlier would have been around 1972. And that 1972 date is confirmed through other sources too.  Nice. 

And then three years later that photo showed up in this ad for ARP. That's a pretty good shelf life. 

Back in my early days, I was familiar with The Who mostly because a few of my friends considered themselves Mods during that culture blip in the 80s. It was one of those bands I listened to, but never really picked apart or dove too deep.  As a result I never really tuned into the fact that Townshend was such a synthhead. But as I got older and started hanging out in Usenet groups like rec.music.synth, I became aware just how synth-heavy the band was. Baba O'Riley. Who Are You. Won't Get Fooled Again. So many familiar songs.

I guess my point is... I want to squeeze the cheeks of this face. 

If you want to see a lot more of Pete and his synths, in particular his ARPs, check out the "The Electronic Music of Pete Townshend" page on Petetownshend.net.  Lots of great stuff there. 

Side note: the same site came out with a nice little post when Korg reissued the 2600 early in 2020 - it has some good bits about Pete and the use of the the ARP synths, including the Reverb feature video on the 2600 that came out at the time as well. Which of course includes a few of RetroSynthAd's ad and brochure scans!

ARP Literature Order Form, 1975

ARP three-page Literature Order Form from 1975.

I know its Friday afternoon - the time that company's put out news releases they don't want anyone to see and the place that blog posts go to die. Well, tough! There are still a few weeks left in ARP's 50th anniversary and there's stuff to be posted!

To many of you peeps, an order form ain't that glam, but for a collector... dat right dar is pur gold. 

It's a checklist for what is potentially out there... waiting... for me. It's a list of search terms to plug into Google and eBay. 

The thing that is so striking about this lit form are the prices. I get they are 1975 prices, but even for 1975, many of the items are cheap as borscht.

Mmmm... borscht.  Sorry, my blood sugar is getting low. 

I'm guessing those cheap prices are so dealers will buy 'em and pass them on to potential customers. 

Just look at 'em:

2500 manual - $3.60. 

2600 manual - $3.60. 

Odyssey manual - 90 cents! 

ARP Educator's brochure. Wut?!?!? Never come across that before.  12 cents! 

Odyssey cassette course. Never seen that either I don't think. $6.00. 

Now, let's flip to page two - and specifically "Dealer Materials". Boom! Promotion Kit! Musician's Workshop Invitations! Educator's Clinic Invitation! Decals! Tie tacks!  The list goes on and on. 

Let's flip to page three. Arrrrgh! 

Dummy plug? If someone knows what these are, contact me. Wait - never mind. Googled it. 

From an August 2012 post in one of the modular forums... someone going by the name Sempervirant had this to say... 

"A dummy plug is just a plug with no cable attached. I remember seeing one in Automatic Gainsay's videos on YouTube, where he was demonstrating the ARP 2600. Most of the internal connections on the 2600 are normalized (which is why it's considered a semi-modular). If you want to break one of those internal connections, but don't actually want to patch something else in, you just insert a dummy plug to bypass the normalized connection." 

And then, later on in the discussion, Sempervirant was nice enough to find that AG video - thank you very much! Go to 5m:58s to see him use one. Sweet. 

I have an ARP 2600, and many other semi-modulars and never knew dummy plugs existed.  Just goes to show you, we never stop learning. 

Now to find out if those ARP patch cords are branded at all. I gotta know. 

Now. 

ARP "The Arp Story" brochure, 1974

 

ARP "The ARP Story" 8-page colour brochure for the Pro Soloist, Odyssey, 2600 and 2500, including two extra colour inserts for the Axxe and Explorer. 

Okay, it's been a while since I've blogged. But it's ARP's 50th anniversary and I just gotta get a few more ARP posts in over the next week or so. So, if things go as planned, you will be sick of me. But lucky you, I'll be keeping these short. 

We are talking a colour brochure for six of Arp's kick-ass instruments, gorgeously designed and positioned. The instrument shot, those sexy flowing backgrounds, thin, yet chubby font, and those unique little white computer generated swirlies that appear somewhere on each product's page.  And, then to accompany each of those product page (except the 2500) is an accompanying page that includes some info on each instrument along with... yup... my fav...  

DIAGRAMS. 

Diagram. Line drawing. Whatever you want to call 'em. 

I call it... ART. 

Straight up, Boo. (I have no idea what I just said. But the kids will get it, I'm sure). 

Now, you will notice that ARP sacrificed a back page for the 2500 so it could, rightfully, include a little bit about ARP itself.  But even this page is very much art, with its colourful duotone photographs - one that includes, of course,  Alan R. Pearlman, and the other, double f course - Pete Townsend of The Who. More on him and his connection with ARP in a future post, I'm sure

Now, if there is one thing I like in my brochures, its when they talk about other marketing material I just have to get my hands on. And ARP punches me in the face by throwing a few teasers out...

"We offer an exclusive series of instructional programs, playing guide songbooks, and cassette tape packages designed specifically for ARP synthesizers."

Gak! Time to go down another rabbit hole. But first, let me finish...

All put together, the brochure and the extra leaflets, it all becomes one of the most gorgeous retro synth brochures in existence. Not just ARP brochures - of all synth brochures. Sure, there are few others on this level. But this is top five for sure. If not top three. ARP at it's finest. 

There is nothing more I can say that is not already included on those pages. I suggest you give ARP some of your time during their 50th anniversary and read 'em.   :)

ARP 2500 modular "The ARP electronic music synthesizer" brochure and mail-in insert, 1970/71

 

ARP 2500 "The ARP electronic music synthesizer" 8 page colour brochure and mail-in insert from approximately 1970/71.

Oooooh boy! Here's a doozy. Such a doozy that this post got rather long-winded. My apologies in advance. 

"What? What's so 'doozy' about this?!?!", I hear you say... "I've seen this brochure on tons of sites! BORING!!!!!" 

Well, yes. But no. 

Take a closer look at that front page. That's not ARP's treble clef logo!  And the company name and address is listed as... "Tonus Inc. 45 Kenneth Street, Newton Highlands, Massachusetts. 02162"

TONUS INC. 

Now go take a look at all those other ARP 2500 8-page brochures with a similar front page image. They all have "ARP Instruments, Inc. 320 Needham Street" as the company and street name. 

So, for example, the front page of this September 1972 "The ARP 2500 Electronic Music Synthesizer" brochure on the Internet Archive has the same image, but the title is slightly different, it includes the new more familiar treble clef ARP logo instead of the older Tonus/ARP logo, and it has the later Needham street address at the bottom (see image at right). 

Interestingly, it seems that this same set of September 1972 scans pops up on a few sites, including the ARP 2500 page on soundprograaming.net, but can be traced back to Tim Stinchcombe's awesome set of old synth brochure scans, including this 2500 brochure that was originally scanned by Ben Ward and sent to Tim for posting. Good work!

An even later version of this 2500 brochure dated September 1974 recently went up for auction last August on eBay and some photos can be found on the fabulous MATRIXSYNTH website. Although only six of the eight pages were photographed in the auction, I've managed to find a few differences between the 72 and 74 version. 

For one, in the 1972 brochure, there were five different keyboard models available for the 2500 - 3604, 3001, 3002 3212 and 3222, but in 1974, that list seems to have shrunk down to three models - 2604, 3002 and 3222. And this has lead to some small price differences on four of the six sample systems featured a few pages later. 

Another difference is on the back page where ARP does a little cross advertising of their other synths. In the 1972 brochure, the Odyssey, Pro Soloist, Soloist Mk II and 2600 are featured. But in the 1974 brochure, we see the 2600, Odyssey, Pro Soloist and Explorer. 

But I'm getting off topic... let's get back to *my* brochure.  Not only is the front page different, but so are guts. For example, there is no other instruments being promoted in this earlier brochure. And we definitely don't have as much pricing info scattered throughout. 

All in all, the biggest takeaway from this brochure has gotta be the design. Those lovely colours. That lovely fat font used for much of the titles. And of course those lovely graphics and close-ups of the modules.  I've never taken a closer look at that angel - did you ever notice the different wave forms coming out of the trumpet?!?! GAH!!!

Take my word for it - its worth going down the rabbit hole of the different iterations of this 2500 brochure  - ALL OF THEM!

I gotta say I was pretty proud of myself thinking I had *the earliest* version of this 8-page brochure. So proud I've been strutting down the street like the dude from Saturday Night Fever. But after doing the research, someone out there, of course, happens to have an EVEN EARLIER VERSION!!!!

This earlier version is dated 1969/1970 and I found it as a featured eBay auction from 2017 on MATRIXSYNTH! Unlike my 1970/71 brochure, the front page doesn't include any ARP logo on the front page. Even more cool, is that some of the modules on pages 4 and 5 don't even have photos yet! They are just white spaces with the name of the modules. 

Seriously, just how cool is that. 

And the last page is totally different as well. My version of the brochure has a lot more information about the modules available, and that cool map that we see in future iterations of the brochure as well.

As angry as I am that MAXTRIXSYNTH has outdone me AGAIN *shaking my fists at you!!!!*, I thought I'd return the favour by include two other scans in my post! I haven't seen the mail-in insert that was included in my brochure ANYWHERE else online (although I'm now afraid to look). Either way, its another two pages of cool ARP history. 

Well, that's the end of another blog pos... wait a second!!!

One last point I'd like to make has to do with that map on the back. The one of the left from my brochure (1970ish) has the Kenneth Street location. The one on the right (from the 1972 brochure) is the Needham Street location. 

 

The new location is literally just down the street - a ten minute walk! And in that 1972 map, they include the location of the "old ARP location" as a reference point. Sweet. 

Maybe more interestingly is looking these locations up on Google Maps. 

The Kenneth Street location looks to be still there, but there's a few differences from the map in the brochure. The house to the Northeast of Tonus Inc. has been replaced by Salon Fabio. And the Power'd Equp building is now the Loyal Companion pet store. But the Liquor store seems to have managed to stand the test of time!

The 1972 Needham Street location is definitely still there. There is even that notch in the south corner that is drawn into the building in the map from the brochure. Looks like its now Inflexxion - a business consulting business, among other things. 

Now, I'm not asking anyone to stalk these location, but the first people to send me a photo of themselves (preferably with an ARP synth) in front of the doors of either location - or inside getting your hair done at Salon Fabio - will get added to the blog post.  :)

This is exactly why I love historical documents such a these. Not just the location info, but having a date on the later document allows me to more accurately estimate print dates of other undated ARP brochures that came after it. 

Okay. I think I'm done now. Phew. 

E-mu Systems Inc. Vintage Keys "Classic Analog Keys" synthesizer brochure, 1993

E-mu Systems Inc. Vintage Keys "Classic Analog Keys" two page colour synthesizer brochure from 1993.

Hey... its been a while. Almost two months. Haven't been in the mood for much writing. But when the topic of the E-mu Vintage Keys came up with a group of friends recently, I remembered all those E-mu brochure scans that have been sitting in draft mode for an unusually long time - even for me. So, here's a short and sweet post to share with my friends. 

While the previous E-mu Morpheus sheet I posted last December is one of my favs in this marketing series from E-mu, I gotta say the Vintage Keys also brings a twinkle to my eye. And yes, the dude with the keytar on the front of the brochure is *definitely* part of that twinkle. 

As mentioned - the sheets for the Morpheus and Vintage Keys (along with the other four or five I have in the series) are from the same series, so it makes sense they all follow the same format. Large title and image up top. Propaganda below. And then on the back - more details. In the case of the Vintage Keys brochure, a good amount of that back page real estate is made up of the list of preset names. Because this machine is all about those presets. 

Let's face it, E-mu was ahead of its time with this module. Or maybe right on time, because most of my friends owned one (even those with original Moogs, Arps and Oberheims) and soon after the vintage synth craze really started to take off. Although I'm sure others will argue with me over that arguably arguable statement of the timing of the actual start of the vintage craze. 

The point being that this rack mount was in-arguably the cheapest way to cram the classic sounds of a Moog Modular, Minimoog and Taurus Pedals,  Fairlight, ARP 2600, Oberheim Matrix-12, Sequential Prophet 5 and many other amazing classic synths into 1 U of rack space.

Sure, 8 megs of sounds (expandable to 16!) doesn't sound like a lot by today's standards, but considering I was probably using less memory running Photoshop on Windows in 1993 in grad school, it packed a rompler of a wallop for it's time.  And did I mention 32 voices, 16 bit sound AND multi-timbral? Sweet.

There is a great review of the Vintage Keys in the May 1993 issue of Music Technology written by Peter Forrest - the always amazing Mu:zines has it online - and he admits that a lot of compromises had to be made to get that many great sounds into 8 MB, but states near the end that...

"Overall, one would have to say that Vintage Keys is an absolute must for any studio - possibly the most essential piece of equipment and the best value for money since... well, something like the SPX90, or the first DAT machines - and equally useful for any professional keyboard player, even if only as a high quality back-up for the real thing."

A great value for sure. 

During the write up, Peter also made a few other comments that I actually had never thought about until re-reading that review.

The first is that he notes that "perhaps the strangest omission is that of any Emulator sounds - or, come to think of it, of anything from the early E-mu modular systems, especially given the slight American bias to the selection."  

Interesting. 

Although I'm not surprised they didn't include E-mu modular samples (can you think of a famous E-mu modular sound?), its a good point about not including Emulator sounds. Of course, that may be because they knew that in a year or so they would be coming out with an expansion kit / Plus version that would, in fact, include some of those Emulator samples. But still, one or two wouldn't have hurt. 

The other more interesting comment - and one I should try to do a deep-dive on in the future, was this:

"The other rather puzzling thing is the question of copyright and trademarks, etc. For years, no manufacturer dared to call the clavinet imitation on their synth or sampler 'Clavinet' - presumably for fear of litigation. And yet here are E-mu apparently quite happy to name all the products exactly, and even have adverts with photos of the original keyboards plastered all over them. Maybe they agreed a royalty system with the trademark holders, or maybe there's no problem after all - I haven't been able to find out. The only concession to this possibly thorny question comes in the manual, which says "The names of the above-mentioned instruments may be trademarks of third parties"."

Dang. As soon as I read that, I immediately started to try to go through old synth and sampler presets in my head to see if/when companies started to include competitor brand names in their patch or sample names. Sure, I could buy patch sets from third party sound designers that would include names like "Moog Bass" to describe their carefully crafted Casio CZ patch.   But did Yamaha or Roland ever use "Moog" as a descriptor in any of their bass synth preset patch names? Or even more of a thorny question - if/when did one sampler's sounds make it into the factory presets of another sampler, or in a synth that used sampled waveforms? 

And if so, when did that start? That Kawai K1 Fairlight-sounding Aaaaah patch does come pretty close. Okay, not that close. But it could have if Kawai had the balls.  :) 

A deep dive for another time indeed.

Anways, back to the machine itself. For me, it's the Vintage Keys strings and choir samples that are especially nice - the actual samples that make up the patches. Like sample sound 57 - ARP Strings sampled from an ARP String Ensemble or sample sound 58 - AHHs from the Fairlight. Slap on some chorus or reverb and enjoy the ride.  

You can head on over to the E-mu Vintage Keys page on the Emu Mania website to hear the four factory demos.

Stay safe. And, in an unrelated note, if you have a few extra bucks, buy some electronic music from someone deserving. They will appreciate it.