ARP founder Alan R. Pearlman has died | Hacker News Reader

ARP founder Alan R. Pearlman has died

synthtopia.com

93 pointsanigbrowl21 comments

Christmas 1976 my parents gave me an Arp Axxe, which was a simpler, less-expensive version of the much more famous Odyssey [1]. It was great for a kid to learn about electronic music because the controls were laid out to where you could visualize the signal flow. It also came with a great textbook. I learned a lot about sound and analog signal processing as well as had a lot of fun. May Mr. Pearlman rest in peace.

1: http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2014/02/17/korg-is-bringin...

The Axxe was almost my first synth. When I first got into synths in the mid 90's, I was looking for a starter synth. The music store had an Axxe for $150 and a Korg Poly 800 for $80. I ultimately went with the Poly 800, but looking back it would have been pretty cool to have the Axxe!

"less-expensive" as in still a hell of a christmas gift for almost anybody!

Yes, it was. I don't know what happened that year, if my dad got a promotion, won the lottery (just kidding, there was no lottery then), or what, but we hadn't had a Christmas like that before.

Awesome parents.

Yes they were. Thanks.

Huge synth head here. He will be missed. The Korg remakes of the Odyssey are great machines for those not wanting (or having the money) to dive into vintage madness. Now Korg should reissue the 2600 in his memory. For under $1500..

Former 2600 owner, and aspiring current owner (although Arturia is keeping the itch scratched for now), I think this would be viable for Korg. TTSH kits were around for a while. You could get one built for 3500, 1000 for parts. Korg purchasing could probably do way better.

Pretty sure Behringer are either already on it, or thinking seriously about it.

The MS-20m kit's sales were slow enough that they had a blowout at the end of production - not an encouraging sign for Korg, in terms of making a relatively inexpensive 2600 reissue.

Behringer, on the other hand, is likely on the case.

> The MS-20m kit's sales were slow enough that they had a blowout at the end of production

Really??? God how could I miss that :(

I don’t remember that at all. In fact I think in Europe they sold out really quickly as it is the ultimate model and although expensive, was still sought after.

I had my eye on it in a couple of places, but I was being very good about not buying another analog monosynth. Towards the end, you could buy a new-in-the-box kit for $899 (and you could probably call and get an additional 15% off). By comparison, when it was announced, list price was $1600, street price was $1200.

Double-checking my memory, Reverb listings from 2017 are showing it selling secondhand for $700-$900.

More recently, the last one that sold on eBay went for $1500+, and the one that's on Reverb now is listed, quite absurdly, for about $2500.

I was in the middle of some really expensive construction at the time, and just didn't have any room for non-essential spending.

I read the title as Address Resolution Protocol, then thought it was odd that they would call him the "founder" of a protocol.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2U0q4lZiFg

Éliane Radigue has used the ARP 2500 for decades and has only recently started composing for acoustic musicians playing traditional instruments. Just one small byway this technology enabled...

Peter Kirn has a more in-depth obituary over at CDM, including some of the most famous uses of 2500/2600s and Odysseys: http://cdm.link/2019/01/rip-alan-pearlman-arp/

Sad day.

Time to start working on restoring my 2600, which I've owned aincw 1979. Many shorted tantalum caps. I miss it!

ARP 2600s command some serious money now!

Did he sneaked his initials into protocol name? Or was it just a coincidence?

It's not the protocol. It's the ARP synthesizer.

It's not that kind of ARP, it's a synth. The article tells all.

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