OT-ish: Arp ProSoloist help

[orangefunk]

Yep, not strictly Moog related (though I suppose mine has the Moog filter )

Was wondering if anyone had expertise on solving a problem that has appeared on mine after not using it much for a year or so. Or perhaps they could point me in a direction regarding Arp users and so forth.

Anyway, my problem is that some of the voices tend to sustain indefinitely...

The voices that have this problem are:
Eng Horn, Cello, Violin, Fuzz Gtr 1 and 2, Buzz Bassoon, Sax, Space Reed, Noze, Harpsichord and Country Gtr

All the other voices are working perfectly.

I have calibrated the power supply, filter and the tuning according to the Service manual

It did seem kinda intermittent at first but now the problem is there all the time...

Anyway, sorry to post this but I had a look for Arp forums and nothing... if anyone knows of another site please let me know.

PS. The original idea of me playing the Arp was to copy the presets across to the Moog Voyager... Only a few patches in at the moment but I can´t believe how good the Voyager is at capturing the essence of the Arp.

[synthguy1]

Have you tried re-seating all the ribbon cables? Sounds like a dirt/connection problem.
Hope this helps.

[Kevin Lightner]

If there's also no delayed vibrato, it might be Z5 on board B.
Otherwise, could be anything... including custom roms and chips.

[orangefunk]

Thanks Kevin,

Vibrato still works for the broken sounds. Just sounds like the VCA is always open on those sounds. Tried going through every one of the broken sounds (as well as a few "good" ones) and seeing which components were being commonly used but that did´t help. I am wondering if it might be simply a case of the connections getting corroded in place as that seems a common problem I see a lot.

Many thanks again!

[orangefunk]

Synthguy, sorry I missed your post! My thoughts exactly... I plan to take the whole thing apart and give it a good cleaning...

There was a hell of a lot of weird digitalish noises going on the other day...

[orangefunk]

Solved! Turned out to be a connector on the Envelope Generator Board (Board B).

Now sounding as good as new... I reckon that I´ve probably had problems with that connector since I got the board 3 years ago.

[synthguy1]

Check out this Pro Soloist...

Believe it or not, it actually functioned, although it needed a lot of work.
I actually started to refurb it; did the keyboard, but kind of got discouraged every time I walked by the case...

Cheers

[Kenneth]

Solved! Turned out to be a connector on the Envelope Generator Board (Board B).

Now sounding as good as new... I reckon that I´ve probably had problems with that connector since I got the board 3 years ago.

Glad you gt it up and running! Now, let's hear some music! I've never heard a Pro Soloist in a recording before.

[Kevin Lightner]

Ken,

I'm not sure if this music is your cup of tea, but it's certainly a good showcase for the Arp Pro-Soloist.
Solos start at 1:29

Genesis cover band extraordinaire - The Musical Box - performing "Cinema Show."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujnWVmeCIRM

[orangefunk]

Hey Synthguy, seems that Arp has been out in the rain! Hope you get her back to normal soon!

My Arp is a bit scratched on top and some of the rocker switches have snapped but all in all she is in pretty good shape!



What I am realising is that those connectors are corroding because some of the background noise has come back.. but at least I know what to do now... thanks again!

Kenneth, I love lots of the 70s jazz fusion that had the Arp Prosoloist... Johnny Hammond´s main axes were Rhodes, Hammond and Arp Prosoloist... my fav Arp track is Lost on 23rd Street which has a long Arp solo over some great breezy chord changes... but its not on youtube unfortunately... I was gonna make a little video of me playing over a loop of that track but I got sidetracked.

This is though..

http://youtu.be/bsAdY4q5JkQ?t=1m30s

[Kenneth]

Ken,

I'm not sure if this music is your cup of tea, but it's certainly a good showcase for the Arp Pro-Soloist.
Solos start at 1:29...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujnWVmeCIRM

Kevin, thanks for the link. I thoroughly enjoyed that. Genesis is most certainly not my cup of tea- more like my double shot of Ethiopian espresso. Something I don't listen to a lot, but when I do it's always an awakening experience.

[Kenneth]

Kenneth, I love lots of the 70s jazz fusion that had the Arp Prosoloist... Johnny Hammond´s main axes were Rhodes, Hammond and Arp Prosoloist... my fav Arp track is Lost on 23rd Street which has a long Arp solo over some great breezy chord changes... but its not on youtube unfortunately... I was gonna make a little video of me playing over a loop of that track but I got sidetracked.

This is though..

http://youtu.be/bsAdY4q5JkQ?t=1m30s

Thanks for the link, Orange. I'll be sure to check it out when I get home tonight (no speakers at work). Jazz fusion is something I've been wanting to get into a little bit. Jazz has always been intimidating to me in a way, but I feel like because synthesizers play such a major role in fusion, I will be able to relate to it and maybe understand it a bit better than other forms.

I always thought the Pro Soloist looked slick, but one thing I've never liked about ARP designs is that the keys hang off the front of the board. It seems like a huge risk to be taking, things getting caught underneath like sleeves/knees/cords/cats and dislodging the synthesizer or damaging the keyboard. I dunno, maybe it's not really an issue? What do you think?

[MC]

Regarding keys sticking out past the case, the ProSoloist isn't nearly as bad as MKIII Odyssey/Axxe, Omni II, or Quadra.

For a preset synth, the ProSoloist is a pretty good sounding beast.

[orangefunk]

From what I understand the presets were derived upon from the ARP2600 and then stored in the ProSoloist ROM.

You can actually tell from a lot of the patches which have a very Stevie Wonder feel to them at times... The flute and french horn especially sound great with the right filter setting.

[MC]

More likely they were derived from the 2500 not 2600.

The ProSoloist and 2500 have multiple filters, the 2600 doesn't.

The ProSoloist architecture is actually quite interesting. Sawtooth/variable pulse VCO through filter system through VCA, and the keyboard aftertouch has some interesting routings which makes it very expressive. The filter system has a 24dB lowpass VCF and several fixed bandpass filters, and they can be routed parallel or series. Dirt simple LFO but some presets include delayed LFO mod. There are AR and ADSR generators and they can be routed to PWM, VCF, and/or VCA. The VCO is a radical departure from standard designs - it is a voltage controlled high frequency clock and the ramp/pulse waveforms are additive from the clock, with the final waveform at 1/64 the frequency of the HFC.

All this configuration was under TTL logic control, with the preset ROMs controlling everything. Either they enabled/disabled routing or the ROM outputs shorted out fixed variations such as filter cutoff or ADSR transient times. Too bad ARP never designed a derivative with front panel knobs and switches (it wasn't the Explorer).

ARP had some real maverick designers back then.