Vintage Synth Explorer

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.

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Userfriend

Posted 153 days ago

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

Posted 223 days ago

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....

Patrick

Posted 284 days ago

Allan - Did you ever get your P2000 working? If not, I may be able to assist you. Patrick [pburyk@goes.com]

Dan Wilson

Posted 307 days ago

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!

Userfriend

Posted 324 days ago

Together with Isham and Carpenter we can add Danny Elfman to the list of professional film music composers who have used the Prophet 2000/2002.

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