Learning the ARP 2600 with Original Patches Part 1 (PUBLIC)

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Welcome to my series about the iconic synth ARP 2600. And don´t worry, I´m not going to talk about how important a synth it was – or still is – and how many famous musicians – and who – used it in their work. There are enough videos about this matter on YouTube.

I´m rather going to analyse patches. Certain patches. The patches drafted in ARP´s “2600 Patch Book” released in the early 1970s, and reissued as a PDF file by Korg in 2020. And by doing so, I take you on a journey not only through the whole synth, but also through the history of electronic music.

“Trumpet and French Horn”, that´s the name of the first patch I´m going to talk about. It´s patch number 2 in the patch book. There´s only 1 single patch cable needed, and I´m going to make even this single patch cable redundant in the route of the analysis.

The idea of the patch is mixing the sound of a trumpet with the sound of a french horn by adjusting the influence of the ADSR envelope generator on the filter, the VCF. Adding a bit of reverb to the patch emphasises those frequencies in the spectrum, which are more typical for french horns, than for trumpets. OK, so far the idea, now for the practical part.....

The next patch to analyse here is called "Prancing Raindrops". It´s patch 76 in the original ARP 2600 patchbook. We need the Ring modulator as well as the Sample and Hold unit in this patch, and as not all of you may be familiar with these units, some short explanations first....