Vintage Synth Explorer

ARP • Solina String Ensemble

(click to enlarge)

The Solina String Ensemble is often thought of as THE String Machine of the late 1970's disco era. It's a multi-orchestral machine with violin, viola, trumpet, horn, cello and contrabass. Instead of attack and decay there are crescendo and sustain controls (which sound more orchestral but are the same thing). Apparently this synth really makes a great string sound, but that's all really... It has gate and trigger outs from the polyphonic keyboard. Completely cased in wood (or wood-like) panels with a clean and discrete layout. It's old, it's vintage, and it's been used by Air, The Eagles, Elton John, Pink Floyd, The Cure, Joy Division, OMD, Josh Wink, STYX, Tangerine Dream, Keane, Japan, and New Order.

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phil

Posted 450 days ago

Probably the most gorgeous sounding string synth there is(the arp omni and quadra string sections sound almost identical) , but you have to be careful which model you purchase. The best sounding is the very first early 70's version. It has no button for the chorus, and no gate jack sockets. Steer well away from the stereo 80's version, electronically they are totally different and the sound suffers greatly.
The spec on this page are also wrong, it is fully polyphonic(paraphonic).

gkeys409

Posted 460 days ago

I think the proof the that this was an excellent string machine is in the fact that folks like GForce has copied it with their software synth VSM. "Back in the day" I could manipulate the sliders while playing it (with just my left hand, it sat on top my C-3), so it was a very capable machine. A bit of reverb and you could almost hear the rosin on the bow!

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