ARP Quartet

49 note Piano, strings, brass and organ machine. Voices can be layered, e.g. brass and strings, delay the attack on the brass to get a superb combi that stands up against any modern digital synth.

Uses an organ chip with frequency division for the raw waveforms so is fully polyphonic. No effects, MIDI or anthing else - just great analog sounds.

Great Brass and strings, weedy but still useable organ/piano. The 10 is for the strings & brass.

Absolutely bullet proof, mine survived an airport carousel AFTER coming out of its box.

Zero, but should be easy to fix - mostly basic chips.

Bought new in 1980, sold to mate in 1987, borrowed frequently ever since but he won't sell it back !!!

10 Very simple and intuitive, you could find manuals on the web for this synth or for his brother SIEL ORCHESTRA

It comes from 1978, do what he can
You can push buttons and raise levels in any manner, nothin bad appens

Sounds so... 80's!

Inside & outside, mine is a perfect 27-years old exemplar, so i think it's a very strong machine

it's out of production from a long time, but circuits are not so complicated or critical, you can eventually try to repair it

I've find it in a perfect state for a ridicolous price (30 Eur), it works, it's great!

easy to combine tones with great results

polyphony of 6 notes
great action
awesome vibrato tones on brass

great for analogue synth sounds and soloing

very reliable! sturdy and strong

ARP is no longer, but they're cake to fix, very simple
ciruitry

A must have for any synth enthusiast

A breeze to use. Sliders and buttons. Buttons select between Brass/Stings/Organ/Piano patches. Press two patch buttons to combine sounds, sliders turn the patches on/off.

A paraphonic keyboard from the 70s. Not true polyphony so to speak, the way notes react when you change keys can be a little strange, but u just have to get used to the touch of the keys. No midi, no CSV to Midi possibilities either. It's a pure analog synth!

The strings are the best of the bunch. Nice around the top end, good to "float" into a mix. It's synthy sounding though, I suppose that it suits electronic music more than anything. Similar to the Solina it's been said. Massive Attack have used it! Brass can be nice in an analogue-ish kind of way, but please don't expect realism from this machine! Organs are sort of useless, so are the pianos. Pretty unplayable, though the lo-fi piano sound can be rather nice by just playing single notes. Chords are too muddy. Overall, this unit needs a bit of external reverb/chorus to liven it up. Drown those strings in cathedral reverb!

Seems pretty solid. Wouldn't risk movin it around too much though...it's pretty old!

They don't exist anymore. Shame!

A nice machine to have in your arsenal, but it is pretty limited. In a world of digital samples and synthesizers, it's a kinduva refreshing sound. Use it tastefully and sparingly, it's real good for laying on that cushion of trebly strings under a nice, deep, dubby backbeat. That's what I think anyway! Good luck!