I'm really impressed by the ARP 1047

[Joachim Verghese]

Don wrote:

> I've been researching some VCFs lately, and I'm blown away by how cool
> the ARP 1047 Multimode Filter/Resonator is.  

> Unfortunately I've never had a chance to hear or use one.  Does
> anybody here have any experience with it?

There was an interview with Dave Rossum in E&MM magazine back in 1983
in which he talked about synth engineering and E-mu's formative years.

Apparently, Rossum used the 1047 specs as reference for the early
E-mu filters, only to find later on that the ARP product didn't come
near those specs (Q=500 at 20 kHz).

I've uploaded a scan of the article at the URL below. A rather big
file (548K), but should make for interesting reading.

http://www.netcontrol.fi/~jocke/temp/rossum.pdf

The 1047 does indeed seem like a very interesting filter -- never
had the opportunity to fiddle with one myself. I guess this was
the first VC state variable for synth use.

-joachim