West Coast Synth Think Tank - 40 Years for the Prophet-5

I look back fondly at the time I spent at NAMM 2017 interviewing true legends of the synthesizer industry. 

Today I’m reminded of their genius again as the Sequential team celebrates the 40th anniversary of the first manufacture of the Prophet 5 polysynth. 

Sequential founder Dave Smith was joined at the the party by several of his synth design contemporaries: Tom Oberheim, Roger Linn, Dave Rossum and John Chowning. Simply put, together these men created most of my favourite sounds of the seventies, eighties and beyond. 

For those that don’t know, Dave Smith is the founder and lead at Sequential and has been responsible for countless industry firsts, including the development of MIDI, our (now) 35+ year old music networking standard.

Tom Obeheim first began manufacturing audio processors including phase shifters and ring modulators. Under the Oberheim brand, he’s probably best know for the SEM (synthesizer expander module), an expander originally targeted at APP and Moog modular and semi-modular users. He went on to develop his own line of polysynths, drum machines and samplers. Tom and Dave are still at the forefront today, having collaborated on the OB-6, a modern take on Tom’s historic synth circuits.

Roger Linn is probably best known from the eighties as the developer of the LM-1, Linn Drum, Linn 9000 and later in partnership with Akai, the initial line of MPC drum machines and sequencers. In the late 2000’s he collaborated with Dave on the Tempest analog drum machine. Today, Roger continues to inspire creative musicians with his LinnStrument, a unique midi controller that provides for very expressive musical performance.

In the eighties, perhaps Dave Rossum became best known for his EMU line of samplers: the Emulator 1, Emulator 2, Emax, and Emulator 3. Dave R. now develops modular synthesizer products ( a call back to his time building modules in the seventies) under the Rossum Elector-Music banner.

And John Chowning worked his ground breaking research on Frequency Modulation synthesis techniques to commercial markets with Yamaha under the line of DX digital FM synths. The Yamaha DX7, the original flagship of the line, sold well over 250,000 units in mid 1980’s.

Several of the original Sequential Circuits team were in attendance as well, including John Bowen, one the original Prophet 5 sound developers, who went on with Dave S. to develop the Korg Wavestation, and in recent years has been building a market for his John Bowen Designs Solaris digital synth, a top of the line music maker in its own right.

I’ve had the profound privilege to meet and interview four of these six industry giants and couldn’t be more pleased to see them celebrate Sequential’ landmark Prophet 5. I can’t wait to hear (see) what the future holders for this crew!

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