The Sequential Prophet 5, a true legendary iconic piece of music history, the world's first programmable polyphonic analogue synthesizer, reissued for 2020 after being absent from the market for almost thirty five years.

Dave Smith created the original Prophet-5 REV1 back in 1978 after combining his knowledge of microprocessor controllers with this passion for synthesizers, thus creating the world's first programmable polysynth. Using the now legendary SSM and CEM chipsets, Dave was able to build a machine that not only delivered sonic excellence, but also provided preset storage which was unheard of at the time.

Between 1978 and 1984 there were three revisions of the Prophet5 developed, each with very small tweaks to help with manufacturing speed, the instrument's performance and synthesis capabilities. About 6000 units in total were built during this time and demand for this incredible instrument has never waned.

The Prophet 5 and the later Prophet 10 went on to be used by countless musicians, producers and performers throughout the world and has been heard on countless hit records and is still considered the be the finest polysynth by many synth enthusiasts to this very day.

For 2020, two years after officially getting the Sequential brand name back Dave and the Sequential team have reissued the Prophet-5 and the Prophet-10 keyboards, dubbed the REV4 this reissue perfect captures the magic of the original vintage units, whilst adding a couple of mod cons you’d expect on the fourth revision of such an iconic synth.

Prophet 5 REV4 contains the best of the whole Prophet 5 lineage, with both filter revisions from the Curtis analogue filters and a Rossum designed 2140 filter, giving you all the filter flavour from the REV1 and REV2/3. But that’s all, the vintage knob on the front panel of the 2020 reissue let’s you choose the character of the prophet, with 4 offering the most stable reliable instance, through to 1 which gives you the sonic characteristics of the original rev1 prophet 5.

The core of the Prophet 5 remains unchanged from the original, with 5 voices comprising of two oscillators each, two LFO’s an ADSR amp envelope and an ADSR filter envelope, plus Sequentials iconic Poly mod, just like original, modulation sources are VCF Envelope and Oscillator B, destinations include Oscillator A frequency, Oscillator A pulse width, and low-pass filter. This was one of the most identifiable parts of the Prophet 5 unique sonic character.

The 2020 reissues also include a foray of modern additions to bring them up to date, including MIDI(!), CV and gate connectivity, USB MIDI and is built to an incredibly high standard using black walnut as the casing wood.

A synth icon refreshed for 2020, straight from 1978.