Synth Glossary

Arpeggiator:: Many synths can only play one note at a time (they are monophonic). With the arpeggiator on, if more than one note is pressed at a time, the synth will alternate between the notes. They also often have a range control that allows the user to tell the ynth to play additional octaves - so if the range is set to two octaves the synth will play the keys that are held down in the octave that they are played and then in the next octave up/down....

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The Electrocomp 500 is a 2-VCO, monophonic, analog synthesizer with a 3 1/2-octave, 44-note (F-C) keyboard. It was designed to compete with the Minimoog and the ARP Odyssey. The 500 is more of a keyboard instrument, as opposed to its predesessor, the semi-modular 101, using switches and sliders as opposed to knobs and patch cords. Its voice structure is basically a simplified 101 design, with VCO1 outputting only a sawtooth or square wave. The 500 features a resonant multimode VCF (switchable between low-pass, band-pass, and high-pass) a single ADS envelope generator, sample-and-hold, ring modulation, a mic preamp, noise, and an LFO (with six available waveforms). The back panel featured both hi and low outputs, as well as a headphone jack, a pitch selector (switching between one octave above or one octave below normal), sustain pedal input, and interface connections (S1 and S2 sockets).