ARP 2600 Arrived!!

One of the synthesizers that has been on my wish list for a very very long time is the ARP 2600. I have been bidding on E-bay on several, but often got sniped in the last minute or it turned out to be a scam. But a few weeks ago I found one in very good shape and after E-mailing back and forth with the owner I was convinced this was a good deal. But then again I got sniped. So I was quite dissapointed again, but I got an E-mail that the previous buyer didn't want it after all and if I still wanted it. Well yes I did :) So we closed the deal and then I had to wait impatiently for a long time.

It has been standing at the Dutch Customs for a long time. But last week it finally arrived. It was send over in two packages. First I got the keyboard. It looked very good, only a few keys seemed to be replaced with Roland keys since they have a different color. Then a few days later the Synthesizer module itself arrived. And it really looks MINT ! Amazing for such an old machine. I'm really happy with this one and I will use it a lot on my upcoming album for sure. It is from around the same time that the Apollo space missions took place so that is very appropriate I think :)

Later I heard that the original buyer didn't want it because it was not in tune and the slider were noisy. Well those sliders are 40 years old. What do you expect :) When I tried it out today it was actually not that bad. Just what happens with vintage gear. And I noticed as well that when I played the keyboard it wasn't in tune. But I spotted a small switch quickly to switch between fixed or variable tuning. And guess what? ;) Fixed tuning solved the problem right away. When I watched the news today I was also happy that I arranged the payment long time ago. The Euro is plunging against the dollar now. I guess by now it would have been much more expensive. Ah well tomorrow I will start making some sound effects on the ARP 2600 for my upcoming album. I will keep you posted on that later on. For now I'm going to enjoy a bass patch I just made on it :P