In fact -- and strangely enough -- the ARP 2600 and the CS80 can sound very similar. I don´t know why that is as they are both completely different in terms of architecture and performance but there´s something equally organic about the sound quality of the ARP. I was mixing some new music recently where I had used the 2600 for a three-oscillator bass drone, and within the mix you could very easily mistake it for a CS80 bass. There´s some acoustic quality to both instrument which I find lacking with many other synthesisers.
The 2600 can sound hard and very electronic but so can the CS80... hey, I even used it for some more percussive tones as well (but never recorded these as my timing was too weak). There was a CS60 demo on the "Synthesizer von Gestern" CDs by Matthias Becker which used the 60 for a variety of electronic percussion tones which all sounded ∗very∗ convincing.
Stephen
----- Original Message -----
From: Synth80s
To: yamahacs80@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, July 20, 2010 10:56 PM
Subject: RE: [yamahacs80] My new crazy project: The CS80 historic patch sheet
Oops!
You know what's interesting about this (for me, anyhow)? Listening to your favorite albums and knowing what synths they used, you can get a mental picture of what a given synth sounds like in typical situations (i.e. the sounds that make a synth famous lik a hard-synced P5 lead), but it's not as easy to picture the same synths being used in less typical applications. As a guy who previously owned a CS-80, I have a good feeling for what it sounds like generally, but I've never touched an ARP 2600. So, in my brain, a 2600 sounds like all the hard, pulsing, filter-chomping noises and analog percussion one hears on Depeche Mode records (and I love those sounds, BTW) and maybe a little Zawinul from Weather Report, but it never occured to me that Music For Airports could be a 2600. Of course I know it's possible and that's what makes ownership of a classic synth different than casual listening, but the 2600 wouldn't have been my 1st (or 4th or 5th) guess. Hopefully that makes sense...
I can't imagine someone making analog percussion loops out of a CS-80, for example, because a CS-80 is all Vangelis leads, lush pads and crazy ring mod, don't you know. ;-) Then again, I'm sure someobody's done it!
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It´s most definitely not Music for Airports as I´ve got this album. Eno used the ARP 2600 a lot on it ("lovely sound", as he said).
Stephen
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