Arp Odyssey Mk 111 – Model 2821 synthesiser

As the legendary first compact studio synthesizer, the Minimoog, proved to be a runaway success, ARP responded with a compact user-friendly studio synthesizer of their own with the Odyssey. An almost equally legendary machine itself (the Odyssey was ARP’s highest selling synth), it essentially offers you a somewhat scaled-down & hard-wired ARP 2600 in a much smaller and more affordable package. The Odyssey is a 2-oscillator analog synth (with duo-phonic capability). It comes well equipped with all the features one would expect: resonant low pass filter, ADSR envelopes, sine or square wave LFO and even a sample-and-hold function. It also added a few new features such as a high pass filter in series with the low pass, oscillator-sync capability and pulse-width modulation. It is a very professional and expressive machine that can create nice analog basses, interesting leads and great effects and sweeping sounds or noises.

Odyssey III – Models 2820-2823 were produced from 1976-81 and featured the new Model 4075 filter design. In addition to its 1/4″ outputs, XLR outputs have been added. The rest of its specifications are virtually identical to the Odyssey Mk II except that the overall look and quality were further updated to with the orange & black color-scheme.

“I bought the ARP in the late 70s privately in London and it featured on quite a few of my pre-Mode recordings with various bands. I guess I always had a soft spot for the Minimoog but once you accepted that the Arp was never going to sound as ‘fat’ and realised that it could be used as a completely different kind of tool, then it came into its own. Midi upgrades were added later when I used the Arp on some of the earlier Recoil recordings such as ‘Hydrology’ and ‘Bloodline’. I can’t pretend I was ever a skilled operator (unlike Daniel Miller for example) but it is certainly a lot of fun to fiddle about with.”