Sequential Circuits Prophet 2000

An early and affordable sampler synth. It's similar to the Emulators and old Ensoniqs. It is a low quality sampler with a tiny 256k (or 512k) memory and 12 bit sampling. However it has analog VCF's and VCA's which give you analog tweak-control over the sounds you sample. Though it does not even come close to modern day synth samplers like the Kurzweil K2000, it is an affordable classic that, with a little creativity is capable of some great and unusual lo-fi sounds. It has 8 voices of polyphony, the keyboard can be split into 8 layers, MIDI equipped, and there is an arpeggiator.

The Prophet 2000 was also released in a rackmount version called the Prophet 2002. These have been used by: Hardfloor, Depeche Mode, Ultravox, Information Society, Mark Isham, filmmaker/composer John Carpenter, and D:ream.

24 Visitor comments

Analogue Crazy

August 8, 2009 @ 4:35 pm

Depeche Mode used this on thier 80's masterpiece 'Black Celebration'. If you can get one cheap it's one of the best budget samplers you can buy, largely due to the quallity of it's filters and the nifty little arpeggiator: not too many samplers have arpeggio.

edsta

July 31, 2009 @ 8:20 pm

one of the best dogs i've ever bought without a doubt...
I have a rack version(2002).
Make sure you change the voltage to your region(110-220/240) to get the smoothest operation.
Wine County are slow to respond to advice on any problems you may have, but they get there in the end.
Curtis filters,stack, and the arpegiator are sublime, even with a 256k version.
try sampling a Moog, Oberheim or PPG and dropping each sample in as you go to record as opposed to getting self righteous and demanding milti timberal operation.
Wine county do a 512k expansion still to this day.
The only limitation is that you can only sample upto 256k at one time.
2 x 256k samples.
they do an 8 x output expander as well, although it requires some metal work and a tech to wire up the mods if your not able to do them yourself.
you also need a chip mod to enable the outputs.

contact Dave @ Wine county if you need info, he's a good lad.

Userfriend

June 21, 2009 @ 1:52 pm

More users worth mentioning are Covenant, who have used the Prophet 2000 on all their albums so far, and gigged with it around the world. They have four of them in their studio, (but three of them are broken ;)).

Pete Namlook has used it a lot as well.

Ade

April 12, 2009 @ 4:43 am

Allan, re: sounds, you don't need a working disk drive for a Prophet-2000 to make sounds as a set is loaded on start up....

Dan Wilson

January 18, 2009 @ 6:37 am

I'm afraid I have to agree with Moulin Noir on this one - don't think of the P2000/2 as a sampler but more as an analog synth that uses a 12 bit sample front end as the DCOs! It can only sample for 12 seconds in mono but the results are lovely and warm with analog resonant filters that will go into oscillation. It also has a brilliant built in midi sync'able arpeggiator and a huge stack function sending up to 8 of same sample, delayed and detuned to the outputs!