I managed to lay my hands on a secondhand Behringer 2600 ‘Gray Meanie’. I’ve never been fortunate enough to have a go on an original ARP . . . any original ARP . . . but from what I’ve seen and heard this seems to be sonically quite close to the original, but smaller, 19″ rackmountable, and even when new, significantly cheaper than any of the older or more recent clones of the ARP 2600. And it has some extra features. So they are perhaps becoming popular.
There are more reviews and videos of the different versions of this than I can count; so many that I’d never get time to play the thing if I watched them all. So I’m not going to cover the detail, just note a few things that come up and see how it works out.
First of these is that it seems nicely produced. This one’s in good secondhand condition. That said, I wonder a little about some of the component choices. I’ve heard the criticism that some Behringer products have unexpected slide potentiometer action, and this seems to be the case here — many of the sliders concentrate their effect at one end, making fine adjustment difficult. I don’t know how that compares to the original.
The extra features compared to the ARP seem to be:
- MIDI, obviously, accessible via DIN-5-180° in and thru, and USB. (USB doesn’t do audio here, but it can provide power out to a controller.)
- The performance controls from the 3620 keyboard are on the unit. (Not including the pitch bend pot and octave transposition switch. The interval latch and portamento footswitch inputs are on the back/top panel.) This makes sense as it doesn’t come with its own keyboard. There is also a mono/duophonic switch which wasn’t on the 3620. (I’m not sure whether this function was somehow automated or unnecessary there?)
- The design seems to be a little different in some ways. As far as I know the ARP has CV/Gate/Trigger inputs in a bespoke keyboard cable and outputs for Key CV (left of panel) and Gate & Trigger (AR section). Here the outputs are at the left of the panel by the performance controls (including an Upper Voice output and a Mono/Duophonic switch) and the gate and trigger inputs are under the AR section (so these sockets have the opposite function, which could be confusing). There is no separate CV input as this can be done anywhere.
- The oscillators are a bit more full-featured:
- The third CV input on VCO1 is normalised to the LFO rather than VCO2. VCO1 also has a pulse width control (but no modulation input).
- VCO2 can be synced (hard sync?) to VCO1.
- VCO3 can be synced to VCO1 (not VCO2 as you might expect from the layout). VCO3 also has a PWM control and CV input, like VCO2. (Normalised to ADSR.)
- The VCF has two filter circuits which can be switched between, the early 4012 and the later 4072 type filters which featured on different generations of the ARP. It also has a slide pot for the Keyboard CV input.
- The ADSR transient generator can be gated (but not triggered) separately from the AR. Both transient generators have time factor switches which did not feature on the ARP. Nevertheless the maximum time seems quite short compared to many other synths and I’m not sure how this compares to the ARP. (Update: Apparently it was quite short. Upgrades to extend the times have been a common mod.)
- There are no speakers or speaker volume controls here. (Unnecessary expense.) However, the headphones socket has its own volume control, which function is fulfilled by the speaker volume controls in the ARP.
- The input preamp uses a slide pot rather than rotary.
- LEDs on the A & B jacks of the Electronic Switch.
- LEDs on all the sliders. The LFO and S&H rate sliders stay at full brightness, as do the switch A&B, but there’s a dimmer control on the back/top of the case for the others. (At night that’s a bit too bright; it would be nice to have a separate control as the flashing can be a bit much.)
With everything turned up, neither the VCF nor VCA seem to saturate as much as I’d expect. But the final line output can saturate a recording device so you just have to keep the level down a bit and maybe turn the headphones up.
Once past the first hump or two of working out which things have to be turned up to make sounds, this synth seems to have lots of things waiting to be found. Still, after a couple of days with it, I’m a little disappointed to have not found more. Compared to other synths . . . but that doesn’t mean there’s no more there; it’s just how to get at it. In particular the Ring Mod is surprisingly uninteresting compared to others I’ve used; but maybe there’s more options I haven’t tried. The combination of the three VCOs synced is very interesting though. I also find that it’s capable of making some very nice bass tones which don’t reproduce well on small speakers. For which reason, this first sample video I’m doing is best listened to with good headphones or perhaps a PA.
Comment or Question about this page? write
Article text ©2024 Electropict .
Click images for individual licences.