The Arp Explorer offered an attractive combination of fixed settings and free programmability. It was used by Herbie Hancock, Hawkwind and Toyah Willcox, among others. Its predecessor was the Pro Soloist, which it resembles in appearance. In 1975, the Solina String Ensemble and the Explorer were combined to form the ARP String Synthesizer.
(Source: Sound and Recording, Love the Machines)
The Explorer has a three-octave, non-stroke-sensitive keyboard. It has no aftertouch. It has three sections for operation: four foot positions and the waveforms / presets, envelopes and filters as well as effects with portamento and LFO. The analog sound generation is monophonic and works with a single voltage-controlled oscillator with the waveforms sawtooth, square, pulse and pulse with modelable pulse width, which can be activated in parallel. It also has a noise generator. Waveforms and octaves can be combined. The low-pass filter works with 24 dB attenuation per octave and has controls for the intensity of LFO and ADSL. LFO has a delay function, can modulate cutoff and VCA and trigger the envelope.
