Five of the Best Synths From Sequential: Complete the Circuit
Five of the best synthesizers ever made.
Everyone knows the Prophet-5 but it’s just one of the best synths from Sequential. Here are the company’s top five instruments.
Five of the Best Synths From Sequential
Few synthesizer companies can boast of a track record like Sequential. Founded by the late Dave Smith in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1974, the company would soon become world-famous thanks to its breakthrough product, the Prophet-5. Launched in 1978, the Prophet-5 would kick start five decades of synthesizer development, a legacy that continues to this day.
However, we’re not here today to talk about the history of Sequential. You can read about that here as well as on the company’s own site. No, today we’re trying to choose just five synths from the company’s catalog that we can call the best – a tough thing to do, given how many incredible instruments bear the Sequential name.
Here then is our attempt at a list of the five best synths from Sequential. Apologies if your favorite didn’t make the cut. Let us know your top five in the comments below.
Best Synths From Sequential: Prophet-5
The Prophet-5 arrived at a time when everyone was trying to make the perfect polyphonic synth. It needed to be properly polyphonic (with separate oscillators, filters, and envelopes for every voice), have patch memory, and sound good. The debut synthesizer from Sequential Circuits had all three of these things, a trifecta that made it the synth to own and use on all your hit records.
The original synth went through three revisions in its initial seven-year run, with changes in the chips made to improve stability. The Rev 4 model, which arrived in 2020, included all three original versions plus a 21st-century one, as well as a 10-voice model called the Prophet-10 (not to be confused with the dual-manual version from 1981). I’m including all four revs in this list, as they’re all iconic and all part of the legend that is the Prophet-5, one of the best synths from Sequential – if not the best.
There are many ways to get that Prophet-5 sound in 2025. You can get the Rev 4 in one of its many guises, pony up for an original vintage model, or go the software route, with enough options from competing developers to satisfy all budgets and production styles.
Best Synths From Sequential: Pro-One
Although the prevailing market wisdom in 1981 was that no one wanted a monosynth, both Roland and Sequential Circuits had hits that year with one. Roland’s was the SH-101, of course, and Sequential had the Pro-One. A single voice from the Prophet-5, it ended up being much better than that reductive description suggests – and bassier!
Arriving just in time for the world domination of synthpop, the Pro-One was a firm favorite of everyone from Soft Cell and Prince to Skinny Puppy and Vince Clarke, who used it to power pretty much everything on the first Yazoo album except the drums. It also featured an onboard sequencer, which was fairly unique at the time (don’t forget that Sequential’s first product was a sequencer) as well as an arpeggiator.
If you’re after a vintage model, be sure to get one with a new keybed or be ready to send it off to get a Fatar replacement, as the original keybeds are notoriously unreliable. If you’d like something new, Behringer’s Pro-1 is a popular desktop version. On the software side, you can’t beat u-he’s Repro-1, which comes bundled with the Prophet-5 emulation as part of the Repro package.
Best Synths From Sequential: Prophet VS
As often as Dave Smith was right on time with some instruments, capturing the zeitgeist, he was just as often ahead of the curve. Case in point is our next entry in this list of the best synths of Sequential: the Prophet VS, which employed a brand-new kind of synthesis, vector synthesis.
Released in 1986, the Prophet VS was a hybrid polyphonic synthesizer with digital oscillators and analog filter and envelopes. Those oscillators held single-cycle waveforms, with 96 preset ones and 32 user waveforms. Eight-voice polyphonic and two-part multitimbral, the synth allowed the user to crossfade between the four oscillators with a joystick. It also offered effects, with two chorus circuits and stereo panning of oscillators.
The Prophet VS was not a runaway hit and only stayed in production for a year, its run ending when the company did in 1987. Dave Smith brought his vector synthesis to Yamaha, which ended up as the SY22, and then Korg and the Wavestation, which really was a hit.
The Prophet VS is now lauded not only for its unique synthesis structure but also its deliciously digital sound, one that lives on in both hardware, like the Behringer Pro-VS MINI, and in software form, as with Arturia’s Prophet-VS V. The Wavestation, of course, continues in the Wavestate.
Best Synths From Sequential: Prophet Rev2
Originally released under the Dave Smith Instruments moniker in 2017, the Prophet Rev2 is not to be confused with the vintage Prophet-5 Rev 2. The Rev2 (one word) is the sequel to the Prophet ’08 and expands on that return to form in a number of ways.
Available in both eight-and 16-vice versions, Prophet Rev2 can be split into two layers and features two DCOs per voice with hard sync and a white noise generator, a switchable 2/4-pole Curtis lowpass filter, three envelope generators (one of which is loopable), four LFOs, and an eight-slot modulation matrix. It also sports a polyphonic step sequencer, an arpeggiator, and per-layer effects.
The Prophet Rev2 is often described as deep, and it is. It may not be as immediate as some other Sequential instruments, but its sheer variety of synthesis options – pulse width modulation of all waveforms, not just square, for example – makes this one of the best synths from Sequential.
Best Synths From Sequential: Pro 3
The final entry in our list of the best synths from Sequential is 2020’s Pro 3. Just as Dave went back to the polyphonic well for a number of Prophets over the years, he also kept up with monos inspired by the original Pro-One. Pro 3 continues that monophonic legacy with a powerhouse of a synth aimed at lead and bass players.
The fun starts with the three oscillators, two VCOs and a third digital wavetable one. In keeping with the number theme, it also offers three analog filters, one based on the Prophet-6, a classic ladder, and the two-pole SEM from the OB-6. It’s also got three LFOs, four envelopes (all loopable!), feedback and distortion, dual digital effects, and you can even play it in a three-voice paraphonic mode.
The Pro 3 is not only one of the best synths from Sequential, it’s a contender for the best mono on the market today.
More Information
- Sequential home page
- All about Sequential
- All about synthesizers
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