The ARP Little Brother, produced from 1975 to 1977, is a keyboardless

monophonic Monaural or monophonic sound reproduction (often shortened to mono) is sound intended to be heard as if it were emanating from one position. This contrasts with stereophonic sound or ''stereo'', which uses two separate audio channels to reproduc ...

expander module, sold as an add-on for another ARP

synthesizer A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis ...

. It was controlled by connecting the control voltage (CV) output of an ARP synthesizer's keyboard to the Little Brother's CV input. The Little Brother had a single voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) with selectable waveforms, and a sub-octave divider that could produce up to three additional tones simultaneously at -1, -2 and -3 octave intervals. It also had an LFO, and a pitch bend/master tuning knob. However, it had no voltage controlled filter (VCF), voltage controlled amplifier (VCA) or envelope generator (EG or ADSR). When used with other ARP synths to "fatten up" their sounds, the Little Brother's audio output had to be patched into the external audio input of its companion synthesizer, essentially adding an extra VCO and LFO to the system. It was commonly sold with the

ARP Axxe ARP Instruments, Inc. was a Lexington, Massachusetts manufacturer of electronic musical instruments, founded by Alan R. Pearlman, Alan Robert Pearlman in 1969. It created a popular and commercially successful range of synthesizers throughout th ...

, and was given away for free with the purchase of an

ARP Odyssey The ARP Odyssey is an analog synthesizer introduced by ARP Instruments in 1972. History ARP developed the Odyssey as a direct competitor to the Moog Minimoog and an answer to the demand for more affordable, portable, and less complicated "per ...

during a summer 1976 promotion. However, it could be used with any analog synthesizer that had the necessary 1v/octave CV output and external audio input connections.

References

External links

ARP Little Brother
at VintageSynth.com

at SynthMuseum.com ARP synthesizers Monophonic synthesizers Analog synthesizers {{Electronic-musical-instrument-stub