Sequential Circuits

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Sequential Circuits was an American synthesizer and sampler manufacturer.

The company was founded in the mid-1970s as a sideline for the computer engineer Dave Smith , who started building a sequencer for his Minimoog because he could n't afford the Moog sequencer. In the following years the company produced some of the best instruments in synthesizer history.

history

Synthesizer from Sequential Circuits

In 1978, Sequential Circuits surprised their competition with the Prophet 5, the first fully microprocessor-controlled polyphonic synthesizer. It had five voices, each with a Minimoog-like architecture, whose parameters were digitally controlled and stored for the first time. This made it possible to save the patches set on the controllers and to call them up again.

In 1980 the new Prophet 10 was introduced (the original Prophet 10 was a 10-voice prototype of Prophet 5, but half of the votes were removed due to temperature problems and the resulting voice instability); it was basically two Prophet 5s in one housing with two keyboards that could also play two different sounds. There were various modes with which the ten existing voices were distributed to the keyboards (including duo, layer, and unison mode). In addition, it was equipped with a polyphonic sequencer.

In 1981 the company released the monophonic Pro-One . It was controlled by a microprocessor and had a sequencer and an arpeggiator.

Around this time, Dave Smith played a key role in the development of the MIDI interface. The Prophet 600 (6 voices with sequencer and arpeggiator) released at the end of 1982 was the first synthesizer with a MIDI interface.

In 1983 the Prophet T8 came out (8 voices, with sequencer), which is still valued today for its wooden keyboard with hammer action, attack and release velocity and polyphonic aftertouch.

1984 appeared Drumtraks (a rhythm machine with digital drums samples similar to LinnDrum ) and the Six-Trak , the first multi-timbral synthesizer. The latter made it possible to produce six different sounds simultaneously with one keyboard. Together with the integrated, also multitimbral sequencer and the drum track, you had almost a complete workstation.

In 1985 the Prophet 2000 appeared, an 8-part sampler with analog filters for each voice.

Prophet VS , published in 1986, followed a newly developed concept, vector synthesis. The volume components of 4 oscillators could be mixed dynamically with a joystick called a vector stick. The real peculiarity, however, was in the oscillators: They were digital and - similar to the PPG Wave and Korg DW-8000 - generated not only the usual basic oscillations (square, sawtooth, sinusoidal waves etc.), but also more complex waveforms, e.g. Some of them were created from the recordings of acoustic instruments. The sound generated in this way could then be processed by the usual filter section and a modulation matrix.

The Prophet 3000 followed (a 16-bit stereo sampler with direct-to-disk stereo recording and analog filters per voice, way ahead of its time), but in December 1987 the company filed for bankruptcy and ceased production.

Dave Smith and his team were then taken over by Yamaha, where they developed the SY22 and TG33 vector synthesizers . Dave Smith later moved to Korg, where he was instrumental in the design of Wavestation , another vector synthesizer that also includes some of the waveforms from the Prophet VS.

In 1994 he moved to Seer Systems, where he was involved in the development of one of the first PC soft synthesizers. This software was later licensed by Creative Labs and is responsible for the 32 software voices of the Soundblaster AWE-64 .

The first software synthesizer Reality followed in 1997 .

From 2002 he developed hardware synthesizers again at his own company (Dave Smith Instruments), e.g. B. the Evolver and the Poly-Evolver. In 2008 he introduced the Prophet '08 and in January 2013 the Prophet 12.

On January 20, 2015, Smith announced that it would be releasing the Prophet-6 under the name Sequential after Yamaha had transferred the trademark rights to it. The Prophet-6 is the logical successor of the Prophet-5 and has a completely analogous structure.

From 2018 the company will operate under the name Sequential Circuits.

Some synthesizers have software emulations, e.g. B. from the Prophet 5 (Augur) and the Pro-53

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sequential is Back! In: sequential.com. Dave Smith, January 22, 2015, accessed August 7, 2020 .
  2. ↑ ABOUT SEQUENTIAL. Retrieved August 7, 2020 (English).
  3. ↑ Augur - Prophet 5 emulation. Youtube, accessed in 2020 .
  4. ↑ Test: Native Instruments Pro 53, Software Synthesizer. In: AMAZONA.de. October 27, 2004, accessed August 7, 2020 .

Web links

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