Description
The Prophet 6 signals the return of the Sequential Circuits brand, originally founded by Dave Smith himself in the early 1970's, pioneering the development of modern music technology as it is today. Sequential's first synthesizer was in fact the Prophet 5, but in 1987, the brand was unfortunately sold to Yamaha.
For years, Dave Smith has been continuing to make simply breathtaking instruments using his brand Dave Smith Instruments, and the sequential name sat gathering dust. But in an exciting announcement at the NAMM 2015 show, the rights to use the Sequential brand name were returned and the New Prophet 6 bears the name and heritage of this great brand proudly on it's case.
Vintage AND Modern
The Prophet 6 pays tribute to the poly-synth that started it all; the Sequential Prophet 5. But instead of just recreating that great vintage classic, Dave Smith takes it one step further and creates, in his words "the most awesome-sounding, modern analogue poly synth possible".
The result is a synth that takes all the best qualities of the original, Including true voltage-controlled oscillators, filters and amplifiers and then adds modern enhancements like studio quality effects, a polyphonic step sequencer, an arpeggiator and other great tools that allow you to make the most of the awesome prophet sound.
Classic Warm Vibe
The unmistakable warm and punchy sound in the prophet 6 is in the most part thanks to the newly-designed, discrete voltage-controlled oscillators that create each voice. Add to this the Knob-per-function front panel that many digital synths seem to lack these days; Instead of trawling through menus on an LCD, all the features are right there at your fingertips for intuitive control.
The Keyboard feels great to play too, with a 4 octave, semi-weighted keybed with velocity and channel aftertouch, allowing you to fully take control of your patches with musical performances and interesting effects.
Prophet-6 Specifications
OSCILLATORS
- Two newly designed, discrete VCOs per voice
- Continuously variable wave shape (triangle, sawtooth, pulse, square) per oscillator
- Pulse width per oscillator
- Hard sync: oscillator 1 syncs to oscillator 2
- Triangle sub-octave generator (oscillator 1) per voice
- Low frequency mode (oscillator 2)
- Keyboard tracking on/off (oscillator 2)
- Oscillator slop amount for increased tuning instability, from subtle to extreme
MIXER
- Oscillator 1 amount
- Oscillator 1 sub-octave amount
- Oscillator 2 amount
- White noise amount
HIGH-PASS FILTER
- Two-pole, resonant, high-pass filter per voice
- Bi-polar filter envelope amount
- Velocity modulation of envelope amount
- Keyboard tracking: off, half, full
LOW-PASS FILTER
- Four-pole, resonant, low-pass filter per voice, inspired by the original Prophet 5 filter
- Filter can be driven into self-oscillation with the Resonance control
- Bi-polar filter envelope amount
- Velocity modulation of envelope amount
- Keyboard tracking: off, half, full
FILTER ENVELOPE
- Four-stage (ADSR) envelope generator
AMPLIFIER ENVELOPE
- Four-stage (ADSR) envelope generator
- Velocity modulation of envelope amount
LOW FREQUENCY OSCILLATOR
- Five wave shapes: triangle, sawtooth, reverse sawtooth, square, and random (sample and hold)
- Clock sync (internal or external MIDI clock)
- Initial amount
- Mod destinations: oscillator 1 frequency, oscillator 2 frequency, oscillator 1 and 2 pulse width, low-pass filter cutoff, high-pass filter cutoff
POLY MOD
- Sources: filter envelope (bi-polar) and oscillator 2 (bi-polar)
- Destinations: oscillator 1 frequency, oscillator 1 shape, oscillator 1 pulse width, low-pass filter cutoff, high-pass filter cutoff
AFTERTOUCH
- Source: channel (mono) aftertouch with bi-polar amount
- Destinations: oscillator 1 frequency, oscillator 2 frequency, LFO amount, amplifier envelope amount, low-pass filter envelope amount, high-pass filter envelope amount
CLOCK
- Master clock with tap tempo
- BPM control and display
- MIDI clock sync
ARPEGGIATOR
- Selectable note value: 16th note, 8th note triplet, 8th note, dotted 8th note, quarter note
- One, two, or three octave range
- Up, down, up/down, random, and assign modes
SEQUENCER
- Polyphonic step sequencer with up to 64 steps and rests
EFFECTS
- Stereo analog distortion
- Dual, 24-bit, 48 kHz digital effects, including: reverb (room, hall, plate, spring), delay (full bandwidth digital delay and emulated bucket brigade and tape delays), chorus, and phase shifter
- Delay sync
- True bypass maintains fully analog signal path when digital effects are off
PERFORMANCE CONTROLS
- Full-sized, semi-weighted, 4-octave keyboard with velocity and aftertouch
- Backlit pitch and mod wheels
- Spring-loaded pitch wheel with selectable range per program (1 to 12 semitones up and down)
- Transpose controls for an 8-octave range
- Hold switch latches held notes on
- Polyphonic glide (portamento)
- Unison (monophonic) mode with configurable voice count, from one to all six voices, and key modes
- Preset switch: when off, the front panel is live; what you see is what you hear
PATCH MEMORY
- 500 user and 500 factory programs in 10 banks of 100 programs each
- Direct program access, including Prophet 5-style single-button access to the current set of 10 programs
IN/OUT
- Left/mono and right audio outputs (2 x 1/4” phone jack)
- Headphone output (stereo, 1/4” phone jack)
- MIDI in, out, and thru ports
- USB for bidirectional MIDI communication
- Low-pass filter cutoff expression pedal input
- Volume expression pedal input
- Sustain footswitch input
- Sequencer start/stop footswitch input
POWER
- IEC AC power inlet for internal power supply
- Operates worldwide on voltages between 100 and 240 volts at 50 to 60 Hz; 30 watts maximum power consumption
PHYSICAL SPECS
- 32” L x 12.7” W x 4.6 H (81.3 cm x 32.3 cm x 11.7 cm)
- 20.0 lbs (9.5 kg)
- Walnut end panels and trim
