1/16/2024 0 Comments Sequential circuits prophet 6![]() ![]() Since it was announced, DSI said that the Prophet-6 has stirred up considerable interest, not surprising that it’s a sort of modernized successor to the -5. Regardless, the Prophet ’08 was (and still is) a highly regarded synthesizer reflective of Smith’s life’s work and commitment to music and the people who make it.īut the Prophet-6, announced at the ’15 Winter NAMM and finally available this past summer, is perhaps a more faithful (and fitting) tribute to the fabled Prophet-5 and the earlier Prophet family. Purists, however, would point to the use of DCOs (digitally controlled oscillators) instead of VCOs (voltage-controlled oscillators) as evidence of that deviation, and Smith readily stated that the instrument was a celebration of the past-not a reproduction of it. Smith deviated somewhat from the Prophet-5 template, using digital controls against an otherwise analog signal path. ![]() Something Old, Something Newīack in 2007, DSI introduced the Prophet ’08, billed at the time as a tribute to the Prophet-5 on its 30th anniversary. ![]() While it’s still not a huge market compared to slab keyboards, I think it’s here to stay this time.” I, for one, am sure hoping so. Now everyone knows there’s an analog renaissance. “After the M-1 came out, for 25 years it was all about digital workstation romplers and soft synths. “We’ve emerged from the synth dark ages in the last few years,” he said. I asked Smith what’s changed that’s allowed DSI to prosper, where Sequential, in the end, did not. And, thanks to a gesture of goodwill from Yamaha (who purchased Sequential’s assets out of bankruptcy back in ’87), it bears the Sequential name, the first new instrument to do so in nearly three decades. And now, after nearly outliving its predecessor company (in terms of years in business), DSI has revisited the past somewhat in the creation and release earlier this year of the new Prophet-6. Like Sequential before it, DSI has been creating and producing an expanding line of synthesizers that are renowned in their own right. While Smith spent time at Yamaha and Korg, among other outfits, after Sequential closed its doors, he eventually returned to running his own company, founding Dave Smith Instruments (DSI) in 2002. (For more about Sequential, see the sidebar that accompanies this review.) The founder of Sequential, Dave Smith, was also the co-inventor of MIDI, creating a legacy that lives on today-a rare technical standard that hasn’t been supplanted by technological evolution, despite occasional grumbling that perhaps it should be. Sequential Circuits, the company behind the Prophet-5, operated from 1974 until 1987 (when it was sold to Yamaha Corp.), succumbing to changing market conditions and other factors, but not before generating a long line of noteworthy instruments. ![]() As the first practical, commercially successful polyphonic music synthesizer, the Prophet-5 holds a special place in music history-so much so that what remains of the 7,000 or so produced in total between 19 are sought-after collectors’ items when found in good, working condition. While there are a number of revered instruments in the history of music synthesizers, few are as iconic or as celebrated as the Sequential Circuits Prophet-5.įrom epochal New Wave-era artists like Depeche Mode, Eurythmics, Thompson Twins, and Duran Duran, to songs from mainstream staples like The Cars, Laura Branigan and Genesis, to anthemic rock groups like Pink Floyd, the Prophet-5 is widely credited with helping define the sound of a generation of music. For students of modern music and musicians of a certain age (this is where I cough innocently, I think), the name “Prophet-5” conjures-up a wide range of memories. ![]()
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