A monstrous 8 voice polysynth from SCI! The T8 has a very fat Prophet-5-like tone. This synth adds many illustrious new features (for its time) such as full MIDI implementation, 76 full size weighted keys with velocity and aftertouch, split/layer double/unison keyboard modes, and a simple but useful real-time sequencer. The new keyboard features many dynamics enhancements, ie: aftertouch can affect pitch, level, filter or the LFO. It was Sequential's finest analog synthesizer. Digital control of analog sound with an extremely flexible, intuitive and beautiful design - right down to the wood panels!

Unfortunately the T8 suffered from the popularity of the much cheaper Yamaha DX7 back in 1983 when they were released. Although it still sounds great, the weighted keyboard is the T8's best feature making it the Rolls Royce of analog synthesizers. Generally these beasts are hard to find today and still very expensive. It has been used by Howard Jones, the Thompson Twins and Steve Levine.

joel

May 19, 2010 @ 4:49 pm

A glorious thing of beauty. The most musical synth in my studio.... sure, the envelopes don't come near the speed of a Prophet 5 but that misses out what really makes the T8 a king amongst keyboards. I love it, slouchy envelopes and all....

Neil Alexander

April 25, 2010 @ 8:42 am

This instrument was the "core" of Joe Zawinul's mighty synth rig from his last bunch of tours (The Syndicate stuff). In videos it seems to be trigging sax section samples, but who knows what other tricks Joe had up his sleeve?

The Dark Knight

November 11, 2009 @ 11:43 am

Ive owned one of these, i brought it over from newy york back in 2002 it was a very strange peice of gear and nothing like as powerful as a prophet 5. envelopes are software and laggy.
It hasnt got the same voice structure as a prophet 5, and it sounds more like a beefed up prophet 600, i swapped it for a vgc jupiter 8 and mint TR808 and never looked back. I wouldnt have another given to me. The keyboard made a lovely master controller though.
A rare synth, but seriously overated, The layering features are cool though and make it capable of some impressive pads and such like.

Andy McDuffie

August 5, 2009 @ 6:32 pm

Eddie Jobson recently returned to the world of Prog rock with a new band, UKZ. On their short inaugural US tour, Jobson's rig apparently consisted of two T8s being driven by a range of different softsynths from a laptop. The YouToob clips that were posted shortly after the dates demonstrated some superb Yamaha CS80, Hammond C3 and Grand Piano tones and the weighted keyboard gave the whole thing a very solid look and feel.

Dude

June 1, 2009 @ 4:34 pm

Keane's Tim Rice-Oxley also owns/uses a Prophet T8 as of the Perfect Symmetry record.

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