Sequential – A legacy in Synthesizers

The synthesiser world of 1978 was about to be rocked, and have the sonic landscape changed forever. The worlds of music and electronics had been colliding for many decades, but, for the first time the digital boom of Silicon Valley would have an impact on the musical world in much the same way the steam engine kickstarted the industrial revolution. The Prophet-5 married the best of analogue audio with a digital keyboard and microprocessors for storing and recalling sounds, a first in the synthesiser world. The Prophet-5 aired for the first time at the 1978 NAMM show and was an instant hit, with some of the world’s leading musicians clamouring to own one, which at the time cost an eye watering $4000 (and no, that’s not adjusting for inflation!).

The most striking thing about the Prophet-5, when compared to what was available at the time, was how beautiful the synthesiser is. In its koa (now walnut) wood panelled housing and one knob per function layout, it made the Prophet-5 not only accessible, but it also made it something you could have looking good at home, in the studio or live. There were several groundbreaking features that made the Prophet-5 legendarily popular. There have been three revisions (four if you count the latest revision) of the first Prophet-5, each adding either a degree of stability, improvements of core features or key additions.

Some of the key elements that make the Prophet-5 great can get quite technical, originally using unique electronic components that had not been seen within a keyboard or synthesiser prior. Dave Smith was already an engineer working within Silicon Valley, and struck upon the idea of using solid state chips to simplify the circuitry and allow the ability to store and recall sound via 40 (REV 4 has 200 user and 200 factory patch memory slots, the original 40 patches are still available within the presets of REV 4) programmable banks, a first for synthesisers at the time. If you really want to go back through 40 years of tuning and stability improvements, you can dial in the original tuning instability of the REV 1 version of the Prophet-5 utilising a time travel option, or as it’s called on the Prophet-5, Vintage. The Vintage button allows you to move between the newest revision, REV 3, REV 2 and its earliest revision with some degrees of separation between each choice.

The two temperature compensated Curtis CEM3340 voltage-controlled oscillators (Osc A & Osc B) sit at the heart of each Prophet-5 voice. Allowing for ramp, pulse/square and triangle wave outputs as well as inputs for oscillator synchronisation. The chip is one volt per octave separated into 12 semitones per octave, and is the most stable, reliable chip for analogue/digital synthesis.

The Prophet-5 also offers genuine recreations of the four pole resonant low pass filters, creating the recognisable aggressive fat Prophet sound, each ably shaped and controlled by an exclusive four stage ADSR filter envelope.

The knob per function design of the Prophet-5 allows very simple live manipulation of audio while making routing, saving and recalling sounds for later very straightforward. The five-note polyphony can be expanded to ten voices via an expansion card. This then allows the BI-Timbral function to be used where two programmes can be played simultaneously by allocating five voices per programme.

With tons of modulation and the ability to start your sound shaping from an initial sawtooth, triangle or saw wave, you can create wild sonic soundscapes. The Prophet-5 comes packed with expected accompaniments such as USB and five pin MIDI in/out/thru, gate and CV ins/outs, external pedal inputs for volume, sustain and filter cutoff. The Fatar semi-weighted keyboard comes as five octaves, with velocity and after-touch rounding off an incredible step forward, whilst not forgetting its legendary roots.

The newest Prophet-5 is the perfect marriage of modern digital sound design with the original groundbreaking layout, housing and electronics that gave the synthesiser its recognisable aggressive tones and almost infinite sound shaping capabilities. With the addition of the Vintage knob the Prophet-5 adds a historic dimension to an epic piece of music history. For those who look to own a genuine piece of musical history, owning a Prophet-5 is a must for any synthesiser musician or collector.

View the Prophet-5 here >