User Manual

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Welcome Back, Old Friend
Sequential
Welcome Back, Old Friend
It’s not often you get to revisit your past with the accumulated knowledge and
experience of the intervening years. Even rarer is the opportunity to retrieve some
of the magic of those days and give it new life.
I was 28 when I created the original Prophet-5. Silicon Valley was just taking
shape and I had the notion that these new-ish things called microprocessors
might be useful in designing an electronic instrument — a fully programmable
polyphonic synthesizer — the rst of its kind.
It turned out I was right. The Prophet-5 changed many things: the basic concept
of the polyphonic synth, how musicians used them, and even the sound of music
back then.
Fast forward to 2020. I’ve just turned 70, and after contemplating the how and
why, decided the time was right to welcome an old friend back to the musical
stage. So let me present, once again, the Prophet-5. Or as we call it around here,
the Prophet-5 Rev4.
Without going into a lot of technical details, I’ll tell you that we designed the new
Prophet-5 with the original, genuine Curtis VCOs and lters used in the Prophet-5
Rev3, and the new, Dave Rossum- designed SSI 2140 lter, which is the modern
counterpart of the original SSM 2040 Dave designed in the Prophet-5 Rev1 and
Rev2.
This is why you’ll nd a “Rev” switch to choose your preferred lter and a
“Vintage” knob that will loosen up the oscillators and envelopes just like they
were in the good old days. It lets you dial in progressively more vintage character
as you go from a stable 4 (as in Prophet-5 Rev4) all the way to 1 (as in Prophet-5
Rev1, the rarest and most temperamental of all Prophet-5s).
We’ve even included the original factory sounds. (Listen to programs 511-558.)
It’s been a labor of love. So grab those knobs and make some analog magic.
Cheers,