Until recently, polyphonic synthesizers were confined to the private stock of inventors, engineers and a few wellknown players who function as advisors to the electronic keyboard industry. This year the common man's version has been offered up for public consumption; one such manifestation of electronic wizardry is the ARP Omni.

Basically the Omni is a string synthesizer (bass, cello, viola and violin) which also has the capacity to produce very authentic brass, electric piano, bass and harpsichord in various combinations. The four octave keyboard is split at one and one-half octaves from the low end and will play monophonically on the low end when programmed for synthesizer bass, string bass, or cello. This helps keep the sound cleaner because an excess of bass frequencies tends to muddy the sound. The viola and violin settings are voiced so that the viola is mellower (has fewer high harmonics) than the violin. When played together, each voice is distinct, which gives the string section a very lush, rich-sounding total effect. The string sound of the Omni is even better than the old ARP string ensemble, which already far surpassed other string synthesizers on the market.