Sequential Circuits Model 800 (1976)
The little digital sequencer that paid for a synthesizer empire - and gave owners a headache in the process.
As Mix (November 1980, p.25) noted, Sequential Circuits produced the Prophet 5 - the instrument that took the industry by surprise - before following it with the Prophet 10.
Overview
Before the Prophet-5 made Dave Smith a household name in keyboard circles, there was the Model 800. It was a monophonic digital sequencer, and according to Electronics & Music Maker, it did what its predecessor the Model 600 could not: it started bringing in real money. The Model 800 arrived in 1976 as an updated take on Smith's original 1974 sequencer design. The revenue was enough for him to leave his day job at Diablo Systems and commit to Sequential Circuits full time.
The core capability is simple. It sequences up to 256 notes monophonically, and it stores and reproduces up to 16 different sequences exactly as programmed from a synthesizer keyboard. For a 1976 product, that was a serious spec.
The spec sheet doesn't say how it feels to use. A period reviewer, writing about the Prophet-10's own onboard sequencer, confessed that both the cassette interface and the sequencer were "very confusing to use," and that only after losing a few sequences did confidence arrive. That reviewer noted the difficulty came from the facilities themselves. Whether the standalone Model 800 shares that exact interface is not something the documentation spells out.
The Model 800 let a Prophet-5 rig - or, per the studio inventory published in Recording Engineer/Producer, a Prophet 5 Mark III - become a programmable, repeatable instrument. Suzanne Ciani's personal-use New York studio listed a Model 800 Sequencer sitting alongside her Prophet 5 Mark III.
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