Dave Smith Instruments has introduced the Prophet-6, a 6-voice polyphonic analog synthesizer.
The Prophet-6 is Dave Smith’s tribute to the poly synth that started it all—the Sequential Prophet-5.
But it’s not simply a reissue of a classic. Rather, as Dave puts it, “It’s the result of our effort to build the most awesome-sounding, modern analog poly synth possible.” The Prophet-6 takes the best qualities of the original Prophet-5—true voltage-controlled oscillators, filters, and amplifiers—and adds enhancements such as studio-quality effects, a polyphonic step sequencer, an arpeggiator, and more.
The result is pure, unadulterated analog tone with the stability and reliability of a state-of-the-art modern synth.
Prophet-6 features
- Oscillators
- 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
- 2-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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Sequencer
- Polyphonic step sequencer with up to 64 steps and rests.
- 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.
- 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.
More information: Sequential
