The Arp Omni is an analog synthesizer used by Prince from the Prince album to Parade.
Prince first acquired one in the late 1970s, replacing the older Arp String Ensemble. Prince used the Omni and Omni-2 models.
This record was so minimalist... I mean, "Dirty Mind": it's just the ARP Omni, a guitar part, the bass is handled by the ARP Omni and the main chords of the rhythm, and then you've got the guitar chunky-part going on, and the drums. And that was the whole song. And the vocals. Real simple layering of music.
It is a “string synthesizer”, meaning it could play preset orchestral sounds (violin, viola, cello and bass) with limited sound-shaping capabilities. Along with the Oberheim OB series, it became one of Prince’s main keyboards in the 1980s. It is the only keyboard on the song “Dirty Mind” and can be heard in the main riff to the song “1999”, mixed with the Oberheim OB-Xa.
The only other thing that really sticks out would be the ARP Omni. It had a kind of funny, nasal quality to it. But that’s the Dirty Mind sound. That one was written on the ARP Omni, and played by [Dr] Matt Fink. If you play those chords on that keyboard, you’ll swear you just put the album on. Those were very simple things. There wasn’t a lot of editing going on.
It was used live by Dr Fink and Lisa Coleman on the Dirty Mind, Controversy and 1999 tours, with Lisa using it on the Purple Rain tour as well. When the Revolution reunited, Lisa bought an Omni out of retirement for their first show.
References
Brown, Jake. (2010) Prince 'in the Studio' 1975 - 1995.
