Well, one more has arrived and it’s a beauty! I randomly checked the Spaceman music website on the weekend and noticed they had an Arp Quartet. Now granted, I had just finished recapping the voice cards on the Elka Rhapsody 490 that I bought from them a few years ago that very same day but…. I had to have it! And here it is!
It sounds fantastic. It definitely has that 70s fat synthesizer sound that I love and can’t seem to find on newer synths. It has that midrange punch and a sort of random spiky sound that really bites and blows away anything newer.
One thing of note is that although it has a fantastically fat brass sound, it only has one envelope, much like the SK-20 so if you hold a note down, you don’t get the attack on any other notes you play. Not a big problem though.
The ensemble sound on the strings isn’t as pronounced as my other string synths but although it’s a but more subdued it does the job really well. The Yamaha SK-20 has a softer string sound, but it can be made much brighter by mixing in the synth setting an octave higher. The Quartet is in between those two.
So, once again, I can’t wait to finish mixing these songs so I can get back to recording and put these guys to use!