Designed by Alan Pearlman, Dennis Colin and David Friend, the 2500 was advertised as having two major advantages over other synths: stable oscillators with “no audible drift” and matrix switches instead of patch cords which visually obscure modules.

The oscillators combined Alan Pearlman’s patented exponential converters with a dual core design, resulting in good tuning stability compared to competitors.

Unlike the patch cords found on the modular synths of competitors like Moog and Buchla, which can obscure control knobs and associated markings, the matrix implementation enables a cable-free experience.

[4] Townshend built his own home studio to experiment and record, due to the enormous amount of time he spent creating his groundbreaking synthesizer orchestrations on both Quadrophenia, and the movie version of Tommy.

The ARP 2500 was extensively used by British producer David Hentschel on recordings such as "Funeral for a Friend" from Elton John's 1973 album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.

Jeff Wayne's 1978 multi-platinum selling album War of the Worlds features the ARP 2500, including the sound of Martian speech.

Phil Dodds, ARP's Vice President of Engineering, was on set to install and manage the synthesizer; Steven Spielberg, liking his looks, cast him on the spot as an extra to play the 2500.

It has been used by artists such as Aphex Twin, David Bowie, Vince Clarke, Ekseption, Faust, John Frusciante, Jean Michel Jarre, Cevin Key,[6] Kraftwerk, Jimmy Page, Vangelis and the Who.