Vintage Synth Explorer

Sequential Circuits • ProphetVS

(click to enlarge)

Here's a very cool keyboard from Sequential. Notice the joystick for controlling your sound modelling. The Prophet VS uses Vector Synthesis as its revolutionary new means of sound creation. It uses a total of four oscillators per voice with 127 waveforms (32 user) and dynamic waveform crossfading via the joystick. This was Sequential's first digital synth, and it was also their final synth unfortunately. But after Sequential was gone, Vector Synthesis technology went into the popular Korg Wavestation and Yamaha's SY-22 and TG-33.

Pictured above is the common rackmount version of the PVS. The ProphetVS is still a very sought after instrument because it has an incredible range of sounds! Its only problem is that there's practically nobody left that can fix it if something went wrong. It is used by Brian Eno, Trent Reznor, Apollo 440, Depeche Mode, Vince Clarke, Kraftwerk, Vangelis, Erasure and filmmaker/composer John Carpenter.

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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.

 

shawn rudiman

Posted 132 days ago

the vs is awesome. its capable of things that not much else but the ppg 2.2-2-3 is. maybe then not even them. it can be brittle, cold, warm, cutting, round, smooth, gritty (unlike any grit you can imagine). its fantastic. it also allows you to import your own single cycle waves (via midi sample dump standard). which is old but useful. despite the lack of cem 5530 sample and hold chips out there and the custom sequential chips, this machine is fantastic. its not easy at first to program, but its worth every minute you put into it to learn. hands down one of my favourite machines to use. not too mention the wicked arppegiator/sequencer of sorts that it has. full out beast of a synthesizer.

Michael

Posted 148 days ago

Hello,
We just released the Mackie Control C4 templates for Sequential Circuits, Inc. Prophet VS (144 parameters on 14 Pages).

The VS is so sonically capable, but so hard to program with its small 2 lines LCD and 1 data entry slider... that makes it a headache to deal with.

Now with this template you will have access to all VS parameters in a user-friendly and workflow-efficient way on the large LCDs the C4 offers and can unleash the synth potential or even discover new sonic possibilities with realtime recording of VS parameters in your DAW....

Check the VS template screenshots and the VS sound samples we did using the C4!

http://mapage.noos.fr/michael.rosner/ C4DESIGN/index.html

Enjoy the music...
Michael

Chris Faur

Posted 170 days ago

I'm surprised I'm the first one to post on this one. Is it really that rare?...it must be..hehe... anyways...this synth is very classy and nice. Built from metal, weights quite a few pounds but in the studio it looks nice and it sounds incredible. It has its own soul.....you can check out a pad I made on my music page at http://www.waterdropmusic.com ... you can also see pics of mine on my studio page at www.moonzone.com. I own other synths too but this will always be my favorite. I will never sell it..... oh btw did I mention that I bought it directly from Scott Peer who worked for SCI along with Dave Smith and Chris, and who was the engineer behind the Prophet 3000 Sampler. He also gave me all the schematics so if you have one in need of repairs and needs some blue prints...gimmie a hollar...Take care.

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