Sequential Circuits Pro-One

Overall this synth is very easy to use. Some knowledge of subtractive synthesis is necessary to harness the machines full potential.

Although its monophonic, you can create some nice layered effects with the appregiator and a high clock rate, with lots of modulation. The keyboard action is, in most people's eyes, quite poor. However, as someone who has never played an actual piano I like the punch that the keyboard gives. Mine has some mods for accepting MIDI and some other minor mods, so I guess it is technically expandable.

Its a synth that does not use PCM, or any sampling whatsoever so if you want a good piano sound check out one of the new Yamahas. however, if you are into actually using the synthesizer correctly the sounds are great. Programming is a breeze and the tones are nice and thick.

I've had it for about a year now and it has never failed. I do take good care of it though and only gig it occassionally.

I have only heard stories about Wine Country...I just hope my synth never breaks.

If the synth was stolen I would cry one minute and tear after the thief with a baseball bat the next. He would not get away. It's a very good synth. Next to my Moog Prodigy I would definitely say the Pro-One is FAR superior in every way.

Very easy to use - you have total overview of the different blocks and those are in turn logically placed

This is a true mono(if You prefer a poly - go for a P-5 or P-10)and it's a good one too. The modulation capabilities is far beyond most other old monosynths and together with an arpeggiator and a simple (but very useful) sequencer you can make extraordinary drones, loops and rythmic sequences. A very good thing with the sequenser is that you're able to prolong (spare) every single step which makes it possible to make sequences in odd beats e.g. 3/4 - but this will quite fast use up the memory of the 40 notes (or 20/20 since you can make 2 independent sequences). Some pro1:s has been customized with an increased memory (240 notes i think) by a Swedish engineer (I think). It's unfair that this wonderful instrument has got such a bad keyboard

The Pro1 has got a very individual sound, identical to the bigger brothers; P-5 and P-10. The sawtooth's are thick and warm, the triangle is sweet and mellow and and the square's are rich but also very wide in modulation. The filter is nice and warm and together with the very responsive envelope, it bites back! - the pro1 is a unique instrument with it's own sound and expressiveness.

I've had some problems with the keyboard - tried to clean the contact parts but didn't notice any difference. I've also noticed some "fuzzy" sound sometimes (especially when using only the triangle wave), but can't realize what it is. I've used it on several performances and it has always been reliable. The overall feeling of the chassis is in some way a bit "plastic" - I would prefer to put it in a hardcase or build a woody chassis for it.

I just love it! - will never get rid of this little darling.......

"Easy to use" would be in the classified ad to sell this monophonic synth. If I showed you how to make it have output, you would have 20 great patches written down in an hour. It's great to have a little knowledge of subtractive synthesis before using, but not required.
I found a manual on the web 2 weeks ago, after having the synth for 10 years. It was instructive to know how to align the unit, but when I did the procedure, it was still right on.

Moniphony: Keyboard droning, high note priority, or last note priority. Good for fumble-finger step-time tune builder.
Easy to use filter: turn knob for depth and frequency. This is also an effect. Keyboard is plastic, light and cheap; synthetic, even. I count myself fortunate to have the wire switches. MIDI is a possibility, but I have no experience with any controllers.
The sound is really good.

GOOD, synthetic, very easy to use. NOT a sample player or realistic emulator of anything mechanical/wind/percussion. No velocity or aftertouch.

In a studio and at home: for sure. as much as any 20 year old piece of semi-pro electronic gear can be depended on. If I was touring with it, it would have a new power supply FIRST. Maybe consider making it MIDI interfaced and racking the unit for durabilty.

Be prepared to perform unaccompanied.

ZERO, they are gone. You are on your own with the local XXXX-tronix repair guy.

Horowitz and Hill wrote "The Art of Electronics" for you.

I repaired my own, just like when the Mackie board started humming at 61 months of a 5 year warrantee period. Practice soldering on obsolete PC mother boards until you get it right.

I'd try to find the next cool thing. The repackages of the Commodore 64 SID chip as synthsizers (HardSID Quatro?) might be it. I will never pay $90 for a Pro-One again, nor will I pay the $750 that they are selling for in Portland Oregon. I have a Micro-Moog, that suffers from much of the same monotonicity as the pro-one. Quicktime instruments suffer no crackly pots or unintended noises.....

Stupifyingly easy. Inability to make a decent sound with one of these
should be used as a disqualifier for people who shouldn't be involved
with electronic music. All parameters make perfect sense, do exactly
what you'd suspect, and so on. Modulation matrix makes easy work of
creating quick and weird mod routings. This is definitely one of those
synths you can set the manual aside on.

Definitely monophonic. Keyboard is in two different 'flavors', both
feel pretty bad. The desirable J-wire one tends to feel 'sticky', and
the membrane switch one just feels cheap...which it is. Has a
great hardware sequencer and arpeggiator, wonderful for live use.
Can be easily adapted to MIDI with an external CV converter, as
all important CV/gate/triggers are jacked on the back panel.

As monosynths go, I think this is the best. If you sat me down with
one of these and a Minimoog, I'd pay far less attention to the latter.
ANY analog-type sound you want can be scrounged up out of one of
these as long as you keep tweaking, I think.

Mine has even taken a few falls, and all that's ever happened to it
has been some damage to the power switch (the OEM is a cheap plastic
rocker type), which I replaced. I can depend on mine, yes...but one
warning should be made here to MAKE ABSOLUTELY SURE that you DO NOT
buy one of these if it has the bubble-membrane switch keyboard. This
only applies to the later runs of these; the first few thousand use
a J-wire keyboard switch arrangement that is dead-on reliable. The
bubble switches eventually short and fail, causing always-on behavior
by the synth. If you run across a Pro-One that acts like this, this
is almost certainly the cause...provided you haven't misprogrammed it
or left the DRONE switch on.

HAHAHAHAHA! If you buy anything made by Sequential, you will come to
know Wine Country...and loathe them. They are your only source for
Sequential-specific parts and tech items. Luckily, most average
techs who know analog gear can easily work on these w/o Wine Country's
support/intervention.

I think I can distill the opinion here down to one phrase: "Touch my
Pro-One, and you will die painfully". No? OK...well, if it hasn't
become clear from the other comments, I think this is perhaps THE
pinnacle of monosynth development. And that even includes present-day
units, some of which even try and _look_ like the Pro-One (see the
Korg MS2000 and its Pro-One-nicked wood endpieces, for example).
Despite the crappy keyboard found on the two versions of the Pro-One,
this is a truly great synthesizer in terms of what you can do with
it, even with minimal effort.

Everything is laid out for you. If you cant get a grip on this synth within a few minutes than you might try getting into something else.

Its pre-midi, you cannot expand it(traditionally), no built in effects, its monophonic. It does have a onboard sequencer which is cool considering this synth is 20 years old. Very simple sequencer, 40 note step sequencer.

Top of the line sound quality. This is what all the virtual stuff tries(uh um, i said tries) to capture. If you want analog sound this synth is right up there with the moogs, arps, x0x's, etc.

This synth is 20 years old and is made out of cheap parts. I wouldnt count on it out of the studio. I have never had problems with mine but have heard of people having major problems with theirs.

sequential went out of business years ago but wine country online gives great support for their products.

Its too bad sequential used cheap parts and keyboard on this. The only thing holding this synth back is that it is flimsy and feels like it will break anytime. I own a tr-606(only other old piece i have) and it is quality even for its age. if sequential made the pro-one with the quality of an x0x it would be amazing. the circuit board for the pro-one is small with few parts, im suprised someone hasnt recreated this synth in a rackmount quality form. i dont think it would be that expensive(1000 at the most).

Very good as soon as you learn the modulation part. Especially for live-interaction. You can choose from Direct-modulation to Wheel-modulation. Control it from a seqeuncer switch between the different modes and strange sounds will appear

Great inspirating sequencer that is very easy to use. No poly but if you tune the filter together with the oscs for chords. Audio in that is very useful. Try but a guitar in, tweek the resonance, Osc-B modulation on the filter and go nuts. Very good with external (V) filtercontrol-jack.

I've had som problems with mine because sometimes the keyboard stops to function on the upper octave. Otherwise I like the keybord. It bounce back in a nice way as you play. The sound are as fat as you want them. It's not as smooth as the moog but it's very hard and acidy but also special and genuin.

Yes
Yes. I had mine flown around on a tour for 1 month. It worked perfect (excpet the keyboard every 10th day). I didn't had to tune every night actually. It is very stable.

It's definitly worth every SEK.
It is one of the best synths i ever have tried. Its cool and unique and with the simple seq onboard you can create very direct and and beutiful sounds: OSC: triangle(high pitch)
VCF: high env-mod,resonance and low cutoff (short decay)
SEQ:Long sequence of random majorscale notes, portamento, ruin it thru a delay-unit and you are out there...

If you're already comfortable with ADSR analog stuff, then this thing shouldn't be too big a deal, but it's probably not for beginners or the easily confused. Otherwise, it's got lots of knobs everywhere, whee!

Monophonic, of course. The keyboard action is crap. It's the worst I've ever played. No effects, no expansion (I guess you can retrofit it for MIDI, but mine isn't), no MIDI, it's got a fun little on-board sequencer, but I don't use it. It's analog, whaddya want. I give it a ten for manipulative power (two oscillators, baby).

It's got a nice bite to it, and it's seriously flexible. I think it has a "sharper" (will that make sense to people? probably not) sound than the Mini, which is maybe a little warmer. I love it. I seem to use it mostly for basses. I know people are going to read this and look for Moog comparisons or something, but I think they sound sufficiently different that the hardcore analogist will want one of both. At least I do.

Um. Well, mine sits in my studio. I've never had to do anything more than calibrate and tune it. I don't think I'd gig with this, though in this day and age, if you want to gig with analogy stuff, get a Nord Lead or something, I guess. Watch out for those keys, I'd say.

I guess if it were lost or stolen, I might not get it again, but that is only because it would be an excuse to buy something different. If I lost it, I would cry for weeks. I'd miss it more than my left hand. It is easily worth what I paid, especially since a quick check on most lists seem to sell this for $150 more than I paid for it.

Well, it is , of course, monophonic, but it has highly elaborated cross-modulation possibilities that can make it sound like it had more voices, no joke! Twiddling the knobs till you get your favorite sounds is incomparible fun. Maybe the MS20 comes close to this, but the Pro One is not modular system orientated. Through the knobs on the front panel (and there are a lot of them, not mentioning the switches) you get acces to all parameters at once and nothing like plugging cables gets in your way while tweaking this tough little unit till your bass-chassis will pop out of your speakers.

VCO A has got saw or pulse. VCO B has the same but can also produce triangle. And there is a really harsh noise generator with an own knob. The LFO and the VCF section is like would expect. the VCA has also ADSR. On the left side of the front panel are three knobs: VCO B, the filter and LFO can modulate VCO A or B frequencies or pulse widths, and the VCF. These modualtions can be combined and controlled via the modulation wheel or directly put to the target you want to modulate. The keyboard action is soft, a little bit slow, but accurate. There is also a switch for first or last note priority. And there is an arpeggiator with a simple up and down mechanicism. But if you try it out combining it with the record option, it also as a 20 step sequencer onboard you will get unbelievable results. Maybe you will need more than ten fingers sometimes but thats your problem. The 20 step sequencer of course cannot be stored. I forgor to mention that this unit has none memory. If you play only 19 steps the data will be lost. If you play 21 notes the effect is the same, so you should refer to count while playing. No Midi but CV in for filter, so if you want to use it in a midi-chain you can get any Midi to CV converter (eg. Doepfer MCV 4) and can control the cutoff frequency from your masterkeyboard.

You can do punchy Moog Basses, weird 60ies SF-effects like UFO takeoffs or touchdowns. Acid is the second name of it but also creeping soft basses and bassdrum sounds are not strange to the Pro One. The Pro One impersonates exactly one voice of his big brother, the P5. I already heard Snare sounds, trumpets, whatever you like. If you are looking for a modular sounding bassmonster this is for you. It definitely plays in the same league like the Minimoog or SH 101.

If you let it warm up for at least one hour the VCOs will stay pretty stable, an exception for those old guys. You can take it out for a gig, sure, but I keep mine in the studio for it is a little treasure. It is one of Vince Clarkes favourits, enough said.

There is a small company here in Vienna which is specialised on repairing analogue gear, so this would be no problem. The company itself doesnt exist anymore, long gone but never forgotten.

I would buy it again and again and... If this would be my only synth I would hook it up with a drummachine and up we go. Indeed I did some tracks only with the Pro One and a HR 16B drummachine. If you like synthpop this setup enables you to compose not only basic tunes and harmonics, but build up a speedy trance and really whirling acid when you turn on the knobs while being triggered via midi. What more can you want?

Great analog monophonic synth. Lots of knobs for easy tweeking of sound. Switches a little on the clumsy side though.

One note polyphony. The keyboard sucks. It's action is like unlubricated penetration. No built in effects except a external in for another audio source. CV i/o and internal sequencer is handy. Works much like the sequencer for an Roland Sh101. If you have some old Roland drum machines like I do, you can use the trigger out from the DM and into the Pro One's trigger in and sync the sequencer to your midi clock via you drum machine.

Like almost any analog synth. It can be as expressive as the programmer can make the machine communicate his expressions. This thing is great for what ever types of creative music you do. No velocity or aftertouch on this thing. It's premidi baby!

Rely on it, thats a bad question. Mine blew up the other day. I have 4 friends with busted Pro Ones at the moment. Parts aren't easy to find on these puppies. I've found another machine to replace my broken unit but I'm keeping the broken one for parts. It's made out of wood and plastic.

They don't do jack these days...I have a local guy who fixes my shit.

It's a great sounding synth. Near one of a kind. Don't be suprised if it breaks on ya after you buy it. I love the thing but I'm kinda hating it right know cause it's useless to me till I can get a replacement. If you're buying analog remeber it's like buying a used car with possibly lots of miles on it. Inevitibly will need some fixin' at some point. Since it's broken and nearly unfixable and I love the box so much, Yes I am going to buy it again.

Very easy, very versatile. A joy to screw around with. All of the modulation switches can get a little tiresome and confusing, but that's minor.

Monophonic, no MIDI, no effects, the keyboard sucks. Great glide, arpeggiator and sequencer. Audio and CV in.

THe best. Short of a Mini Moog, this is THE one. Excellent sound, totally versatile.

The keyboard sucks and is constantly giving me problems at gigs, but otherwise, everything else is ok.

?

The best value for the money. I'd buy it again and again, but the prices are going up and up. Beats the heel out of a Moog Rogue.