Old Crow's Synth Shop: The Synth-Tan Project: Prophet-5

The Prophet-5 was made by Sequential Circuits Inc. between 1977 and 1984, and was designed by Dave Smith, now of Dave Smith Instruments. It was first demonstrated in January 1978 and was on its release "the worlds leading polyphonic synthesizer" according to its manufacturer. It was really the first 'proper' polyphonic synthesizer, defining properties which are taken for granted in instruments today: it was voice-assignable, each voice with its own filter, amplifier and envelopes; it had memories (40 then later 120) for storing and recalling complete patches.

The Prophet-5 was a milestone partly because it was a true 'voice-assignable' synthesizer; each of the 5 voices had 2 oscillators and these 5 pairs were all equivalent and essentially 'independent'. The circuitry was developed by Dave Rossum's team at Solid State Microtechnologies (SSM) whose leader later founded EMU Systems, and the SSM2040 filter circuit has become renowned among synthesizer fans for its beautiful "so right" sound, which was essential to the Prophet's sonic versatility and appeal as a great-sounding instrument. Essentially, the Prophet was like 5 monophonic synthesizers in a single box, akin to 5 Minimoogs or 5 ARP Odysseys, but with its own voicing.

One of the people I "blame" for this hobby is my accidental mentor Michael Iceberg, who became famous as a live attraction one-man band at Walt Disney World: Michael Iceberg and the Iceberg Machine. At the top of his machine was his Prophet-5, which carried a great many lead and chord bed (we call them 'pads') sounds for his performances. Here he is from a 1983 performance, playing his Robot Revolt.

--Crow