Sequential's MultiTrak had everything - for its time - and to this day, it still sounds great! During the era of the Roland Juno synths, Sequential overhauled their programmable little SixTrak analog sequencer synthesizer and came up with the MultiTrak. It's a six voice analog synth with sophisticated filters, envelopes, modulation capabilities and built-in sequencing.

As was the developing trend around this time in the mid-eighties, programming was being streamlined into using the buttons on the matrix keypad to assign parameters to a rotary knob. (The only dedicated knobs are for sequencer volume and speed, chorus depth and rate, master tune and volume.) There are 99 memory patches for your analog sound creations. It also features a nice arpeggiator with hold and transpose functions. But lying at its heart is a sophisticated (for 1985) onboard sequencer. It could store up to four polyphonic sequences with a metronome, 1600 note memory, an overdubbing mode and quantizing (autocorrect) functions, individual track volume and speed controls. Sequences could be chained together and patches could be changed on the fly. Sequences are recorded in real-time (no step-time modes here).

Additional features include MIDI in/out, six separate audio ouptuts (one for each voice) and a stereo output, built-in stereo chorus effect and a 5-octave keyboard with velocity sensitivity and split/layer modes (layer up to six different patch sounds onto one note). With an original list price of about $1,500, these days they can be found closer to $300 - a great bargain for classic Sequential sounds with onboard sequencing and patch memory.

Connor

May 8, 2013 @ 1:38 am

Just checked this out and I'm pretty impressed, this seems like a sophisticated machine. Drum machine, sequencer, fully analog with a very nice and rich sound. I may have to pick one of these up... if I ever find one.

SynthMaschine

December 17, 2012 @ 8:22 pm

Possibly the most imaginative synths of the mid 80's, basically an analog workstation. Sounds like the typical Sequential boards. Not as huge as say the Prophet 5, but as good as the 600 with just one VCO.

My favorite Sequential piece, next to the P5 and the VS

inorganic

December 16, 2012 @ 6:25 pm

the multitrak does still sound great, i use one all the time

Jonathan

December 14, 2012 @ 10:23 am

VintageSynth database makes me laugh all the time :-)
Especially comments like that: "and to this day, it still sounds great!"

My opinion is that they need to reconsider reviewing their articles !!

Rafael Marfil

November 22, 2012 @ 1:44 pm

MAX, SixTrak, MultiTrak and Split-8, all use the exact same chip for VCO-VCF-VCA. It is called CEM3394. The SixTrak does NOT share the VCF chip with the Prophet 5.

<4321>

 

Post Comment!

Your Name: (Required.)

Email Address: (Required, not published.)

Image verification: (required)

Message:

 

Posting Rules:
Please keep your comments relevant! Do not post requests for help, do not use for sales, do not post unless you have something interesting to say about this instrument, or we may delete your post.

I have read and understand the posting rules.