ARP Arpeggio newsletter, June 1980

 

ARP Arpeggio newsletter from June 1980.

I've been posting ARP's newsletters a little too infrequently since late 2009. This is only my forth one after these three (click to go to the blog posts and see all the pages).

      

Usually I scan them over time, and then save them for when I don't have time to really blog. Figure all those pages make up for a small word count.  And that is exactly the case this time too.

But, before I sign off I just wanted to point out a few interesting things.

First, I gotta say - dang I love that Arpeggio logo. In black and white and in colour.  Both are gorgeous. Almost as good as the ARP logo itself.

The second thing is the fact that there is no Volume/# label like on the others earlier newsletters I've posted. This is only distinguished as "June 1980".  That's it.  This leads me to believe that over time these newsletters became less and less frequent. Although my Arpeggio newsletter collection isn't complete, so I can't say for sure.

Another interesting thing is the page on the Chroma. According to Wikipedia and other sources, the Chroma was developed by ARP just before the company tanked in 1981. So, its cool from a historical perspective to see the machine promoted back in mid-1980 by ARP itself. Yeah. Totally cool.

Finally - on that last page is something most awesome. Sure, ARP at NAMM '80 is some kind of awesome, but the one thing in particular on this page that raises this whole newsletter to a totally new level of awesomeness...

Yup. At NAMM '80, Mike Post and Pete Carpenter played the Theme from the Rockford Files.

Jackpot!

ARP Soloist promo/datasheet, early 70s

ARP Soloist one page two-sided promo/datasheet from the early 70s,

I don't usually come across promo/datasheets in such good condition. Usually at least the edges are tattered and torn a bit, and there is at least one Corn Flakes stain splattered by a musician that picked up the sheet from their local instrument store to use as a place mat to eat their breakfast on.

Data sheets get no respect.

But this one is clean. Like new. And I love it.

It is an interesting piece for a number of reasons - mostly because of the colouring. Just looking at the scans you might think they are two totally separate pages. But it is in fact one piece. Red on the front (well... what I decided to designate the front) and white on the back. The paper stock is thicker than normal paper too. It has a construction paper weight to it - and you can see the roughness of the paper in the red scan. And double it because its two pieces of construction paper stuck together.

At first I thought the two pieces of paper may have been stuck together by the local store. Like, maybe they got the white datasheet from ARP and decided to add something to the back. But the work is professional. It must have been done by the paper maker/printer.

Then I thought that maybe the other side of the white data sheet had some old info on it, so ARP decided to cover it up with a promo sheet. And using a dark red colour would help keep the original info from the other side of the white data sheet from showing through. But holding it up to the light reveals that there doesn't seem to be any other info hidden there.

Another reason this piece is interesting is because it confused me at first. The "title" on the red side, if you can call it a title, reads:

"Turn your organ into the 1975 model with an ARP Soloist electronic Music Synthesizer"

1975? The Soloist?

The Soloist was the first in a string of ARP instruments that included the Soloist MkII, Pro-Soloist and Pro-DGX. My understanding, blogged about in this Soloist MK II dealer ad sheet, and from the awesome info contributed by friend of the blog Micke in the comments section, was that the Pro-Soloist was released in 1973 - meaning its predecessors, and especially the original Soloist, were prolly not getting that much 1975-love.

If that's the case, then ARP was playing the "futuristic" marketing card. Kinda like Roland did in their 1983 advertisement "Roland presents its product line for 1987". The only other explanation was that it was 1975 and ARP had a wack of Soloists lying around that they need to push out the door still. Either way, it makes it a nightmare for historians (or bloggers) to pin down a creation date on sheets like this when there isn't a "printed on" date listed anywhere.

The actual data sheet (the white side) is pretty nice. You will notice it has a lot in common with the Soloist MKII data sheet. Makes me happy.

But there was one thing that my new role as copy-editor in my day job immediately focused on: the text right at the top of the page: "Smoked Plexiglass Music Rack". You can see that "Rack" was originally typed with a small "r", and then typed over with a capital "R".

I don't know why I like finding those things.

I just do.

ARP Omni-2 "We're a rock and roll orchestra... / Kerry Livgren" ad, Contemporary Keyboard 1978

ARP Omni-2 "We're a rock and roll orchestra... / Kerry Livgren" black and white and orange full page advertisement from page five in the November 1978 issue of Contemporary Keyboard.

It's Halloween night! And I've already had a recycling container and a spider monkey come to my door! They both got extra candy. Every year I get the 90 or 120 packs of mini bars and twizzlers - and every year only about forty kids show up.

But this year, even with all this candy hanging around, I've still been able to hold out and not eat a single treat. And I'm not just talking about tonight. I have yet to eat even one mini chocolate bar this year. Bam!

[kids coming to my door - ballerina in a parka, Woody (toy, not pecker), ninja, and ????]

And to celebrate, here is the second and last Omni-2 "Halloween"-themed ad, and the third in the full ARP series as far as I can tell.. Unfortunately, ARP decided to move on after this ad last appeared in January 1979. I think the theme could have easily lasted another three months, changing up the performers every two or three months. But hey, always leave 'em wanting more. Right?

[more kids - two cowboys, a princess, and Thing 1 and Thing 2!]

So, here they are all in a nice little row.

In that first one we had spooky Tom Coster, in the second happy frankenstein-like Allan Zavod, and now ghostly Kevin Livgren. A trifecta!

[kids - ghost, smurf, guy in just a hat (booo!) and a three year old batman]

There is something to be said for continuity from top to bottom - large image of musician, main quote in larger font, small more recognizable photo of musician face, three columns of ad-copy, logo, large ad-title, slogan, other musicians.

[more kids - Mick Jagger (apparently), a boat, and three girls in pajamas]

They moved around a few small bits, but overall pretty much stayed constant throughout.

[Hulk, bumble bee (insect, not robot), and a pirate]

Okay...

[small child with the label Spiderman pinned to his red outfit, cheesehead, another batman]

Kids starting to come a bit faster...

[robot, cat and mouse, pikachu!]

So much yelling...

[another ninja, thing from the movie Scream (mask is off because it is "sweating her face"), another kid in parka]

I think this might be a record. I'm not gonna get anything else written.

Blogging done for tonight.

ARP Omni-2 "Big polyphonic synthesizer sounds.../Allan Zavod" ad, Contemporary Keyboard 1978

ARP Omni-2 "Big polyphonic synthesizer sounds.../Allan Zavod" black and white and orange full page advertisement from page 41 in the September 1978 issue of Contemporary Keyboard Magazine.

Halloween is getting closer and closer, and I think I'm finally getting into the spirit. Pumpkin is ready to be carved and boxes of candy have been bought. Even more surprisingly, I still haven't opened any of that candy stash. Usually I'd be on box #2 by now.

That *is* a first. But there is still three nights to go. Let's not get too optimistic. My insulin levels are already rising in anticipation of a will-power breakdown.

Anyways, Just like I'm prep'd for Halloween, ARP was locked and loaded with the new look of their synth front panels - what I have been referring to as their Halloween colours or theme. Usually this term has been used when referring to one of the three colour palettes of the Rhodes Chroma's panel that used orange, red and yellow colouring. But, since it was Philip Dodds, VP of Engineering at ARP and product manager for the Chroma at CBS/Fender, that came up with the term, I'm going to say its okay to use with other ARPs as well.    :D

The first ARP ad that used the new colours was an Odyssey advertisement that featured Tom Coster of Santana fame.

The following month, ARP decided to give the same kind of make-over to their Omni-2 ads. And readers of Keyboard would have had the opportunity to come across both of these ads in the September and October 1978 issues of Keyboard. Nice. The more I look at these ads, the more I like 'em (could be all the talk of sugar too).

Now, if like me you found Coster had a spooky jack-o-lantern kinda look to him in that Odyssey ad, you may also have found that Allan Zavod superficially resembled a very happy Frankenstein in this Omni-2 ad.

I'd be a very happy looking person too if I was surrounded not just by Omnis, but those other ARP synths as well. Look to be 2600s to me.

I don't have 2600s surrounding me at the moment (I haven't checked my lotto ticket yet), but thanks to Allan Zavod and this ad, I am still quite happy because of all this ad-copy. Well, actually, just that last paragraph.

"Thanks to Allan Zavod, and more than five thousand other great musicians around the world, the ARP Omni has become the most popular synthesizer in music history..."

 Unless you are Apple Computers or Nintendo and your quarterly earnings are through the roof, its often quite hard to get a company to cough up real production numbers. Usually companies will try and keep those numbers confidential for as long as possible.

So, after almost a year of ARP bragging that more Omni's have been sold than any other synthesizer, we finally have a number from ARP (over 5000) to back up that claim. 5000 doesn't seem like a lot now, but back in 1978 synths were still falling slowly towards affordability. But it wouldn't be long after that new technologies would make both the power of synths skyrocket while bringing prices to the lowest they have ever been.

The result? Well, after the DX7 was released approximately four years after this ad appeared in CK, it apparently sold over 160,000 units according to Wikipedia. The M1 came out in 1988 and sold 250,000 units. Interestingly, each of these machines sold for $2,000 - more or less.

Of course, you have to take into account inflation. One online inflation calculator tells me that $2000 in 1978 had the same buying power as $3,143.32 in 1983 and $3,717 in 1988. So, costs down, but technology in those machines definitely skyrocketing.

If only I could same for the Halloween mini Mars and Snickers bars where although prices for a box of 90 seem to go down every year, so is the size of the little bars in each little package. I have to eat something like ten now just to get a full chocolate bar fix.

Or at least it seems like it.

ARP Odyssey "You cannot duplicate the sound of the ARP Odyssey..." ad, Contemporary Keyboard 1978

ARP Odyssey "You cannot duplicate the sound of the ARP Odyssey..." black and white and orange full page advertisement from page 41 in the August 1978 issue of Contemporary Keyboard.

Oooooh - Halloween is approaching and I think I'm finally getting into the spirit of the season. My gothy/industrial-influenced teen-age years give me a natural affinity for skulls. Even earlier, as a child, a glowing skull is one of the few things I brought back from Disney. No mouse ears for this young pirate.

If you haven't seen the trend yet in these blog posts as of late, ARP has also been approaching full-on Halloween-ess in their ads. 

And so here we have ARP going full-on jack-o-lantern in this new Odyssey advertisement. It makes sense that this ad first appeared in the August 1978 issue of CK and then continued to run monthly through September and into spooky October as well.

I really like that the designer of the ad took the next logical next step and incorporated the new synthesizer panel colour scheme ARP first introduced on their gear last March into the actual ad itself.

And speaking of spooky, doesn't Tom Coster look just a little bit spooky in that black and white ad photo. I'm not saying I don't like that image. Its actually quite awesome because if you look closely, I'm pretty sure that's a maple leaf on Tom Coster's shirt. Go Canada!

In fact, it kinda looks like an NHL Maple Leafs jersey, no? But, if Google images is any indication, it doesn't really look like a 1978-style jersey. Not really a hockey fan anyways. But still get a kick out of the idea.

I checked his Wikipedia page and did a few quick Google searches to see if I could confirm he is/was a hockey fan, but nothing came up. But Wikipedia does tell me he was born in the hockey-town of Detroit (although raised in San Francisco).

Like the ad in Monday's ARP post, this ad has a lot of text running across the page. But this time at least a large portion of it is quotes from Tom - makes the ad more personal. And, this time the ad copy isn't running all over the imagery. Let's face it, that last ARP Omni-2 ad was a bit of a dog's breakfast.

For comparison, I've put them side by side above.

We still have a lot happening in this new Odyssey ad, but just that little bit of extra white space (er.... black space) makes it a much more visually balanced ad. The eye has places to focus on. Even the ad-title at the bottom of the page that is in such close proximity to the ad-copy looks good. And those oange accents on the name of the synth and the ARP logo also give this ad a nice kick.

So, yeah... ad itself, less spooky on the readability front. More spooky on the Halloween front.

Just the way I like it.