Sequential Circuits Prophet~600 | By Design

Another synth demo, this time with the Sequential Circuits Prophet~600 buddied up with its siblings. This synth was the very first instrument released with midi (with Dave Smith of Sequential being the "father of midi"). He was later awarded a Grammy for its invention along with Ikutaro Kakehashi of Roland. It was famously hooked up to a Roland Jupiter-6 at the Winter NAMM of 1983 to demonstrate that a universal protocol had been achieved. The Prophet~600 was the third of this iconic series to be released after the Prophet~5 (1978) and Prophet~10 (1980). With their eye on affordable poly synths such as the Kory Polysix and Roland Juno-60, Sequential looked to create a cutdown version of their earlier Prophets and the 600 was the result. Around 6,000 of them were made between 1983 - 1985. It has 6-voice polyphony with two oscillators per voice and has mixable saw, triangle and pulse available on both of those oscillators. The VCOs are identical to those found in the Prophet~5 rev3, Pro~One and Prophet~10 but the other ICs are different. It has a resonant low pass filter, two envelopes, an LFO, poly mod, glide, oscillator sync, unison mode, patch memory, an arpeggiator and two sequencers. And here&where things get interesting: the 600 has digitally generated envelope, LFO and glide voltages as well as digital values for the switches and potentiometers. In order to keep the cost down, an 8-bit Z80 processor and DAC were used that didn&quite have the spec to perform these...