Somebody. Buy. Me. This.

Currently for sale via ebay here: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150442279122

A lot of synth gear shows up on ebay, naturally. But every once in a while one of the Big Guns of analog synths shows up on there and sells for some ungodly amount. I think I read about a Jupiter 8 selling for $8,000 or something. A CS-80 even showed up on there just a few months back, and the guy had to make half the post about the shipping plans (basically, it's a boat). Normally I wouldn't post a peep about some gear-lust I have due to something on ebay. Everything, after all, shows up on ebay at one point or another.

But.

This is the Arp 2600. This is the analog synth that I want more than any analog synth. Why? Well. I could say, because it's a "smaller" sized synth (e.g. not a veritable wall of synth, like the Moog Modular or the preceding Arp 2500) but offers a semi-modular, patch-based design, whereas a synth like the Minimoog, as revolutionary as it was, nonetheless was quite limited in its routing (though it's worth noting that the hard-wired signal path it sported became THE standard routing for basically every subtractive synth that followed, and remains so today). So the 2600 was like a pre-wired mini-synth but also a modular synth, shrunk-down. It even comes packaged in a funky little half-suitcase, complete with handle.

I could tell you all that....but the truth is, what makes a given synth a "favorite" is fundamentally a personal, subjective, unquantifiable kind of thing. Something idiosyncratic about the UI, or a childhood memory from a classic song you first heard it in, or, most likely of course, that special extra-something about the sound that sets it apart, at least for your ears, from everything else. In any case, the ARP 2600 has that retro-nostalgia perfection for me. I don't really know why. I don't even own a single truly-analog synth. But if I did, this would be it (well, this or a Prophet 5, anyway...)

Oh and the current bid is a mere $4,100.00