Moog Minimoog

Summary

Date: 1972
Type: Monophonic / Subtractive / Analogue 

The ARP Odyssey is a strong contender for most popular monosynth of the 1970s, perhaps of all time, giving the iconic Minimoog Model D a run for its money (and actually outselling it).

The highly versatile ARP Odyssey has featured on 1,000s of tracks over the years, and is still popular to this day with a re-release by Korg in 2016 (and the inevitable clone from Behringer later), as well as several software emulations now available.

This classic 37-note monosynth evolved over the duration of the 1970s:

Mk1 (2800) – White – 4023 2-pole filter
(later was made in black & gold like later versions – but otherwise the same)
Mk2 (2810-2815) – 4035 4-pole filter (possibly infringing Moog patents!) & CV/Gate connection
Mk3 (2820-2823) – 4075 filter (had much lower high frequency of only 12kHz, compared with the previous 35kHz). It also had different oscillators and the ‘proportional pitch control’ was introduced (some retrofitted to mk2)

Whichever version was used, the Odyssey has a huge and powerful sound anywhere in it’s range from the bottom octave to the top (“I still like to use the ARP Odyssey because it has the best window-shaking bottom end of any synth.” – Gary Numan). And the simplicity of use ensured it’s popularity and use by a huge number of musicians over the years.