Sequential Circuits Prophet 600

As E-Z as analog synthesis gets...

Midi is basic but quite acceptible.

Excellent, CLASSIC Sequential sounds. Total disagreement with JKM, below, more in line with other reviews that will correctly tell you that this is an excellent value. Sequential pads/leads/bass...no problem. Prophet 600 bass kix ass, i know this after hearing it on several urban 80s cuts, slammin'..Doesn't have the attack of a '5, but so what? Cuts through a mix like all the Sequential keys, most of the time there's no way of knowing whether it's a '5 or a 600. Top notch, like a lot of unhearalded, unhyped synths that aren't stars..

Not a problem in apt./studio. For gigging bring the Nord/Waldorf..

Excellent value, as is the Max and 6-Trak, and until recently, the Pro-One, for THAT classic-era sound. A notch above most other manufacturers like Roland.

If you know about analog synthesis it is a piece of cake. If not, you will be pretty lost. I rate it as incredibly simplistic but I know what I'm doing. The rating I'm giving it is based a bit more objectively though.

Decent features, but the MIDI is primitive. What more do you expect from the first MIDI synth? All around pretty decent.

Someone below me says that the P600 excels at bass sounds. Maybe bassy pads, but not bass sounds in general. For one the software envelopes are incredibly sluggish without any zing to them--UNLIKE the Prophet 5 which has possibly the fastest envelopes on any analog synthesizer ever created. Without these fast hardware envelopes you can forget about punchy bass.

Secondly, the sound quality on the P600 is in the same league as the Prophet 5, but not the same ball park. Don't try to kid yourself--I've owned both the P600 and Prophet 5 and I'd say that the P600 is maybe 40% of a Prophet 5. Can they do a few similar things... sure, can they sound a little alike? Yeah. Is this a Prophet 5? Not even close, bub.

Knob quantinization is POOR--probably the biggest weakness of the Prophet 600. Zipper noise is clear on the filter if you hand tweak it... in fact, all the controls zipper to some extent. Not good. Realistically, the filter cutoff sounds like it has about 16-20 cutoff areas--it is NOT continuosly variable like the P5 is.

However, for dark pad sounds the P600 is good... strings too. It's not a bad synth on its own merits if you can get it for 300-350 dollars, but anything more and you should just save up for the real thing.

I got mine because I couldn't afford a Prophet 5 at the time. I traded it about a year later. It was okay, but the trade was irresistable. At one time I had a SCI Pro-One, P600, SCI TOM and SCI Drumtraks as my primary setup. It was sort of crazy all that Sequential gear. I've had my Prophet 5 rev 3.2 for a number of years now and don't miss the P600 at all.

If the Prophet 5 is a 10 (which it is) then the P600 is a 4.

No replacements for the membrane panel which controls much of the digital storage, rudimentary sequencer, MIDI controls and so on. If that goes, you are screwed. Overall hardware and chassis are a few rungs significantly underneath the Prophet 5. Power supply is another area that tends to suck for most SCI gear... be very wary of it. In fact, I recommend replacing it.

About 30 days after I sold my P600 the power supply blew on the new owner. It was easily replaced, but he wasn't too happy about it. Lucky for me HE initiated the trade and not me; I wasn't even looking to get rid of it--he just wanted something new.

SCI has been out of it for awhile.

A more featured synth than a Juno series Roland--but also less character and weaker sounds. True Prophet fans will not be placated by this offering. There are some upsides to the P600--a lot as a matter of fact, but this is no substitute for a Prophet 5... and take it from me as one of the biggest fans of the Prophet 5 and SCI equipment in general... the P600 is a few stone throws away from a Prophet 5.

However, if the price is right this is a worthy addition to a rig... if not particularly spectacular.

Highly underrated. A Beetle with a Porche motor.
The P600 is not a P5, but the P5 is not a P600 either.
The P5 is more wanted because it?s older, has been used on more recordings and looks nicer. Both Prophets sound equally as good, but they both have different qualities.

The P600 does not sound as versatile as the P5, but tends to sound a bit more aggressive with a sharper edge and more bottom end. Bass sounds is probably the P-600?s best quality. Pad-sounds tend to sound a bit thin. Those typical Prophet Brass sounds you?ll find just as good on the P600.
House and Techno lovers will probably be disappointed by the P600. It will suit Acid Jazz and R&B freaks better. Where the Juno-106 sounds cooked and juicy, the P600 sounds dry and raw.

Midi works really well on the P-600 and for being the first Synth with Midi, nothing wrong can be said about its midi-specs.
It?s got 100 memory locations, but the touch-pad with which to select each program is not that practical. It takes time to get used to it and it doesn?t always respond the way you wish it would. Unlike the P5, you select the number of the program instead of selecting a bank first.

It?s got a Sequencer, which is absolutely useless, as it can not be synced to external clocks and it doesn?t quantise the notes in 16th notes like on the Pro-One. A real pity Sequential Circuits hasn?t used the same sequencer on the P600.
The P600 has an Arpegiator too, but same thing, can?t be synced and only runs Up, Down and Up/Down. It can run them sort of randomly, when the notes are pressed in a particular order.

A very big down side to the P-600 is without a doubt its keyboard. It?s noisy because the springs under the keys are too rigid, which makes it sound like an old typewriter.

Another great miss on the P-600 is the noice-generator and in general you can The oscillators (12 of them) are very stable, once the P600 has been on for 10-minutes and the Auto-Tune button has been pressed about four-times.
The envelopes sound accurate and tight and of course, those famous Prophet Filters are warm and razor sharp. Its resonance filter will make everything else in the room resonate as well.

A great feature on the P-600 is the possibility to hold a chord and switch on the Unison mode, which will allow you to play that chord on every key. This is interesting for old Jazz-Fusion lovers who want to create those typical chromatic chord changes.

Theoretically I?m the second owner of this P600, but have been using it since my father bought it new in 1983 (Model No.237). I was 15-years old when my father bought the P600 and because I musically grew up with the little bugger, I would never be able to part with it. Officially I'm the owner since two years, when I migrated to Australia and took the Prophet with me from the Netherlands. This one is in absolute mint condition and in these past 18-years not ever has it shown any hick ups. Prophet 5?s I?ve seen plenty at dealers here in Sydney, but Prophet-600?s seem to be more rare.
One also doesn?t have to be afraid of P600?s sounding different from each other, as is strongly the case with the P5?s.

Well, as it's been so reliable, we never had to take it to a dealer.
The distributor for the Benelux was based in Holland and they had to shut their doors somewhere in the mid 80's. They were cool people and enthousiastic about their product. This type of enthusiasm is completely extinct these days.

Bad timing, a high price and having to meet its predecessor?s reputation, caused the P600 to become less successful than other analog synthesisers, even today.
The P-600 came out in a time where one-oscillator Poly-synths ruled the market and were more in demand because of their affordability (juno-60/Poly-Six/DX7). The P-600?s price swung in between the heavyweights (Jupiter-8/Prophet-5/OB-XA /Memorymoog) and the low budged synths, so not many were sold.

One of the biggest motives for purchasing a P-600 today, is because it has Midi, it sounds incredibly fat and analog and looks as vintage as its bigger brother, the P5. If you can buy one for a reasonable price, don?t hesitate, you?re gonna love it. In size and features it is probably not among the list of the Big Poly Synths, but when it comes to sound, it is definitely a sheep in wolves clothing.
It?s more a synth for the player. It can produce some very interesting effects and odd synth noises, but if you want the more Roland type of filter effects, forget about the P600.
It?s the real thing and no faking here like all the new virtual-analogs, so if you can buy one, get this classic beast as it will cost you only a fraction of what the polished imitators cost these days.

Even though I am the original owner of serial number 475, I had the latest software mod fitted in the early '80's. The factory presets are good and show off both the full pads and the wierder poly-mod stuff that they unit is capable of. Patch editing is simple; spin an knob or two and WHOOSH!. The manual is well-written, but you only need it to understand the theory behind the front panel controls.

One feature of this keyboard that many people don't use too much is the fact that you can make it a 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, or 12 oscillator synth using 1 or 6-note polyphony. How do you do this? Use the UNISON TRACK feature. Put the MIX control all the way over to OSC A, hold down one note, and then flip the UNISON switch up. Voila! You now have a Pro-One synth in single oscillator mode. Move the MIX control to the center, hold down a key, flip the UNISON button and BOOM. A two-oscillator synth. Want 4 oscillators in unison mode. Hold down an octave, flip the Unison switch. The unison switch will now assign one two-oscillator voice to each key in the octave "chord" and track them as you play. This makes the Pro-600 one of the sweetest lead synths around. The on-board appegiator and sequencer are basic yet functional.

The string pads sound great. Horns can range from synthy to believable. Putting the synth in mono mode with a single oscillator enables some very sweet sounds that can be played quite expressively. This syth is a great prog/modern/dance/rock synth, not so great in jazz environments. Shredding leads can be accomplished by holding down multiple octaves and putting the unit into UNISON mode. You haven't heard anything until you've heard a Pro-600 running leads in 6 octave mode!!

I toured with mine for 10 solid years. It was rock solid.

SCI is gone (sniff). When they were around, they were quote good. I have not needed service in 13 years.

I love my 600. It has a great sound, is very playable, and has a personality. I enjoy it more than my Kurzweil K2000 simply because of the immediacy of the controls on the front panel. I love the solo modes and the oscillating filter sweeps and the BALLS that this thing has.

The presets are quite good, though I bought this 2nd hand so I don't know if they're the originals. Patch editing is very easy, there are enough front panel controls to keep things interesting but not too many to get lost with. The manual doesn't tell you much that you wouldn't have known already, and has some particularly silly entries, I think one is along the lines of 'Filter Cutoff Knob - This controls the filter cutoff'. Not a synth where a manual is really necessary.

6 voice polyphonic, made early 80's so obviously monotimbral. No effects but there is an on board real time sequencer. Good fun though very frustrating when you discover that the playback is about 1bpm out, so difficult to sequence against a drum machine. The keyboard is a little crude and slightly noise, no velocity sensitivity and the MIDI out from the mod wheel is oddly quantised.

The sounds are this instruments redeeming feature. It's difficult to get sounds that aren't warm, bouncy and often downright filthy. The curtis chips seem to have a characteristic 'fizz' to them that I haven't heard on other machines. Good for organ, string, brass and electric piano sounds, though the attack is a little soft, so perhaps not suited to very tight percussion.

The front panel is scanned by a 8 bit microprocessor which gives many of the controls and mod routings a quantised quality. Some may not like this, others may regard it as a feature. The Prophet 600 is certainly not a subtle synth in terms of patch settings, the upside is that the quantising lets you produce some sounds that would be impossible to get out of other synths, like stepped frequency/sync sweeps. Overall good in this category.

Has a bad habit of going out of tune for the first half hour of play, after that it is reliable. A retune button is build in but can take upto 10 seconds. Might be a nice complement to use live against the sharpness of a digital piano.

I've never dealt with Wine County (ex-Sequential) directly. There seem to be quite a few websites offering help and advice for the Prophet 600, particularly regarding it's odd system for selecting MIDI chanels.

For it's rough edges, it is a very fun synth to use with a gloriously rough and interestingly characteristic sound. It might fall down if compared to some of its more distinguished contemparies (eg Roland Jupiter), but is available second hand for a lot less.

If it was stolen I probably wouldn't replace it as there are better analogue synths available, but I don't think that I'd get rid of it in a hurry either.

You really dont need a manual, other than setting the MIDI channel.
The manual is OK, but not more. Editing patches is a breeze. The
presets suck, big times, but you will only load them out of curiosity.
You can load and dump the patches to a computer with a program out
there, very easy to use. No need for a patch editor, just twist the
knobs! Remember to warm it up before playing, and press the tune button.

Keyboard action is OK. Polyphony 6, 1 in unison(no shit...). Two VCOs
per voice. The POLY-MOD section screams! I wish it was possible to
sync the arpeggiator to MIDI. The MIDI capabilities are not so
good, but it is possible to make sysex dumps, phew, what a relief!
no expansion capabilities whatsoever. The onboard sequenser is useless.

No velocity, no aftertouch. No realistic sounds, well, it makes a
hell of a realistic synth sound! Thats why you bought it, wasnt it?

No gigging for me, I am to lousy, but the P-600 is sturdy. It has a
metal case with wooden sides. The only flaw is the tendency for
locking notes if fed with to much MIDI signals. I use a separate
output from my sequencer(MC-50) for the P-600, my other equipment, ca
15 units, share the other...

Nope, no such thing.

I chose the P-600 because of all its knobs, and I couldnt afford
a JP-8. I would definitely by it again, it is in its own class!

Very. Much easier then the new synths which need a graduate degree to program.

Great sounds, but could have used an extra vco which could be put into LFO mode

Just make sure with any old synth that you go and purchase a APC power supply so your local
electric company wont blow the power source with a spike or major dip!

Good, but trails the memorymoog in sound production, but more stable as a whole.

This instrument is very user friendly. It makes using modern synths seem like you need a programming degree from MIT. At this point I probably don't have any factory presets left on mine, but if you are an analog synth user then you can create sounds on first use with no problem. Saving presets is obvious. You push "Save."

"Unison track" is a feature not found on many analog synths. You hold down a chord voicing and push the switch and then you can play that voicing using one finger and it move it in real parrelel motion. Most of the time I want to use it I am using both hands for the chord so I have to move the switch with my nose. It is a primative MIDI instrument. By todays standards the use of on board sequencing is nearly useless with the exeption of playing a loop to play along with.

It is all up to the player.

Mine was the demo model on the floor of Manny's in New York before I purchased it from them in 1985. My MIDI in does not work and sometimes I have lost some presets, but If you understand analog synthesis making them again is just a matter of seconds. I could probably get it fixed but it does what I want it to do as is.

NA

If I could find another I would buy it again without thinking twice. I have three other analog synths. Two are totally patchable and one is hard-wired. Between the Prophet 600 and my Aries 300 I can get just about any analog synth sound that I can conceive and some more on top of that.

Software version is .08, the latest available, as of the end of SCI. The presets mostly sound awesome. I was pretty surprised at the breadth of available presets, considering that this is an analogue synth. I mostly enjoy the big warm atmospheric pads. These are great for creating just that right touch of analog atmosphere. Of course, there are more than enough really wacked-out presets to satisfy anyone who wants to make odd freaky noises. Editing the patches is the easiset thing in the world. Twiddle some knobs and flip some switches. It helps to have the manual handy, as the manual shows what the actual position of the knobs and switches is in each preset. This is helpful, because of course the knobs only become active for a preset once you turn one, so waht you see on the board physically never really inddicates your preset. No automated recall of settings, we're talking 1982 here. The manual is decent, though it was written in 1982 and that really shows. The MIDI info is scarcem you'll need to experiment to get it working the way you want to with your sequencer. Also, you'll want to consult some outside explanations of analog synthesis, the ones in the manual are severely lacking. But it lists all the presets... which helps, and if you buy a manual from Wine Country (winecountrysequential.com) they include some newer info on the MIDI updates.

6-note polyphony, unless you're in Unison mode, which makes everything much fatter. Keyboard feels somewhat expensive, large, easy-to-use keys, and it's a hefty instrument. No velocity, aftertouch, etc., remember 1982? I was 9 years old, and Reagan was president. Arpeggiator is cool, and the manual helpfully puts a * next to sounds that are good for use with it. You get two arpeggiator modes. One is Arpeg Assign, where the keys arpeggiate in whatever order you play them. This can create very weird random effects, and it's sometimes cool to change notes while the arpeggiator is going, akthough you have to be a much better player than I to get the arpeggiation to play the way you want it to at high speeds. Oh yeah, speed is controlled by a knob, no syncing the arpeggiator to your MIDI beat clock here... but arpeggiated notes record into MIDI as single notes, which makes it easy to manipulate afterwards in a sequencer. The other Arpeggiator mode is Up-Down, which plays all the notes you are holding up, then back down, to infinity. pretty simple really, and cool at high speeds. One note, the only time I have crashed this keyboard is when doing stupid arpeggiator things like holding my arm down over fifty keys for arpeggiator action, then it just freezes and dies. No built-in effects. Who needs 'em? If you want an effect, spin the Resonance, Cut-Off, or Envelope Amount knob while holding down a key, and you can scare all of your pets/friends. Throw a little reverb on it if you want, but what you really want is that classy analog sound, and that's what you get. Thanks to the Poly-Mod section and the VCOs, many presets sound thick, syrupy, chorusy... you probably don't want to add chorus, flanger, or phaser. As far as expansion capabilities, it really has none. You can load and save programs from and to--don't laugh--cassette tape, or sysex them in and out using MIDI, and some adventurous folks on the web have written sysex programs to let you modify programs on your computer. But I look at all those big fat knobs and all I want to do is tweak them til the sun comes up. You can "augment" the beast with new operating systems if you want, see wine Country again, though probably most of the 600s floating around out there nowadays have the newest version. It has an onboard sequencer that you really don't want to use, unless you want to use, something like 1200 notes, should get you 35 seconds into a good jungle tune. Use an outboard sequencer, then twiddle the knobs while playing back!
I am really shamed to be giving this thing an 8 in this category, I'm sure in '82 or '83 it was a 10. But it's not a brand new, shiny Korg or Kurzweil, and you pay for the sounds with this baby.

As I said before, I was somewhat surprised with the realism of the sounds. There were especially some very usable organs. While they don't sound like a rich, stereo-sampled Hammond B-3, they sound thick, and they've got some nice little accoutrements to them, very prog-rocky. Also, some good string-type pads, although they really sound more like a good film than any intrument you've ever heard. I think the sounds (which according to the preset list are mostly designed to sound liek things like strings, basses, clavinets, harmonicas, etc.) are really just good jumping off points. For instance in the middle of a recording session a band member and I sat down and tried to work one of the organ sounds into something a little more bitey, juicy, but mellow. Took a little while, but the sound was perfect. Like others, I do think it doesn't quite have the tight fast bass you hear in Gap commercials, but I don't care, because I'm not making that kind of music. If you want that sound, every new-school digital/analog simu-keyboard is making it, so get one of those. The Prophet provides a little more expressive joy ewith its simplicity. I was actually most wowed by the big lush warm pads, which sound just alien enough that you know they're not actual audio of real instruments, but they're so warm you swear they come from nature. The sounds you can urge out of the Prophet 600 range from heavenly to downright frightening. Thick or thin, mostly on the thicker side, and everything tends to sound pretty warm. I really prefer the fatter, sustaining sounds and the polyphonic ones,but the great thing about the short little thin tones is that they can be coazed to do insane things with the arpeggiator. This keyboard probably works best for dance, techno type stuff, but I'm using it for prog-rock/metal/mayhem/weird music, and it's perfect. Actually a very good compositional instrument, you can twiddle for a minute on the knobs and come up with a song idea. It's very inspirational, as compared to a modern keyboard where you would simply dial up the sound you wanted for a song. No velocity, aftertouch, anything, but because of the ADSR envelopes, you do have some control over the attack and decay of a sound. So it can feel like it's sweelinh in or aftertouching, even though it's really not, and you don't need it do.

I rely on it because I have to. Some people may own one working and one for parts, or two workingm but they're a little hard to find, and it's really hard to justify buying two at around 500 a pop. I figure since mine works pretty much perfectly, and it's 17 years old, I'm not gonna have many problems with it. Yes, would and have used it without a backup.

Wine Country is mostly guys left over from SCI, and they will fix anything, but not for free. I jsut wish they would hire someone to write down what this thing can really do in an easy-to-use manual. Mine came upgraded, and it seems from the instructions that it is a very easy upgrade, just remove a ROM and replace it.

I would buy it again, and again, and again. It sounds fat. No other word for it. It's definitely not Modern, but it's fun to tweak knobs, ask any guitar player. I have been playing keyboards on and off, mostly off, for a few years, but I really use the Prophet 600 as a compositional tool, an idea factory, and an unending source of amusement when my guitar bores me. I love the sick filter sweeps, the insanely grainy sounds, the lovely wood paneling. I sometimes wish it was stereo, but what would I need that for? I bought the Prophet because i had played one before, and it's an instrument you can really enjoy. There is nothing imposing about it, unless you count the deviant nature of anaolog synthesis itself. If you want a fat, warm, analog synth, or weird other-worldly (but not digital) sounds, pick one up. it's well worth the 450 I paid and more. I most wish that the filters were controllable via MIDI. You can control the MOD wheel via MIDI, but that doesn't really do exactly what you want. This is really an audio instrument, but it's great to sequence a song with it, then tweak the knobs while recording it, you can really get some human sounds, plus you can make this thing scream like an animal.

Editing sounds is easy. There is a knob or a switch for every parameter. But because the CPU scans them, especially the switches are sometimes annoying to use. And you can't "see" the sound if you look the knobs.
I don't know about factory presets. The manual is quite good.

The architecture is basic analog synth configuration. Two VCOs, one lowpass VCF with a resonance, one VCA, one LFO and two ADSRs. The VCOs can produce triangle, sawtooth and pulse/square and any combination of them, which is a nice feature. The LFO is very simple, only square and triangle waveforms and no delay.
Now comes the best part: one of the oscillators can modulate the filter or the other oscillator's frequency. Voila! Now you understand the importance of getting many waveforms concurrently from the oscillator.
The polyphony is six voices. There is a unison mode which fattens the sound. The keyboard has five octaves, but don't recognize velocity or aftertouch. MIDI is poorly implemented, but this was the first US MIDI synth. It is in ONMI mode when powered up.
No effects, but a very simple sequencer. There are 100 patch locations. The memory contents can be dumped to a tape or as a sys-ex packet via MIDI OUT.

The raw sound is rather thin for an analog synth, but it's great for strings. Basses lack punch because of slow attack of envelopes. So nothing special so far.
The real joy begins when you discover the POLY-MOD section and start to modulate the filter or the A oscillator by the B oscillator with different waveforms. I immediately fell in love with this synth when I did this first time. I heard DX-7 type sounds, even white noise (there is no noise generator inside) and many odd sounds I have never heard before, because I don't have any modular synths.

The membrane buttons may cause some trouble, so push them gently. Also the potentiometers don't always work.

The Prophet 600 is great for creating unusual analog timbres, noises and effects. Also the strings are nice. But don't think to use it for tight synth basses. If you need just basic analog sounds, you should think buying a JX-8P instead. But if you want to explore new "modular" sounds, this is a cheap ticket, because this thing doesn't cost much, it has MIDI and patch memories.
I have more than 10 synths, but this little baby of the Prophet 5 can do things my other gear doesn't. (I am still talking about the modulation routings I mentioned under the "Features" topic). Remember to tweak the POLY-MOD knobs if you happen to see this in the store, so your opinion of this synth may change drastically.