Sequential Circuits Prophet 600

Six_0_8 for the midi

Patch editing is a breeze, just twiddle and WOOOSH!

Don't have the manual, but they are available from Wine Country for about 25 bucks.

6 voice polyphony

No effects

No expansion (hey, it was 1983)

Full midi capabilities with the latest EPROM

Onboard sequencer is useless (why anyone would use it is beyond me)

Realistic sounds? Who wants to make those?

I make electronic music, so it is perfect. It really stands out against my Roland units, which sound so pretty and refined. This thing is harsh and dirty- i LOVE it. It will cut through a mix like no other i have used. I couldn't be happier! Think "The Terminator" (the first one). Remember when the T800 first arrived?

There are no onboard fx, unless you count the poly mod section, which adds many sonic possibilities. Buy outboard if you want fx.

If you midi into it (i use a JX-10 as a master) THEN it reacts to keystrokes and such..

I have a very early version, and it is rock solid so far. It will never leave the house though- it is too precious to risk!

Wine COuntry Rules! They are always friendly and attentive. They still have many parts for the unit in stock...

If it were lost or stolen, i would be deeply depressed. Let's not even entertain that thought.
I have been writing electronic music for about two years now, so I'm no "true musician", but i do have a true appreciation for the older analogs. In an age where folks use computers to sequence/record, it is nice to balance out the cold, brittle technology with some good ol' 80's warmth.
I love it's sound, it's interface, it's physical appearance, and it's presence. What a score... Of course i compare it to my other gear, it stands out like a red headed stepchild; the kind you LIKE having around. God bless this thing.

I had purchased one of these that had the original presets installed and I didnt like them. You dont really get good sounds out of an analog synth unless you tweak it out yourself. Extremely easy to use!

I'm not the kind of guy to play 10 fingered chords so the polyphony is just fine for me. No effects but you shouldnt expect any on something this old. It has enough features to get all the sounds you need. MIDI is alright. . .but I just use this one to play live.

I love SCI stuff. The sounds are completely beefy and I prefer them over the Moog stuff I've owned.

I have dropped this thing, spilled stuff on it, had it kicked. . .it just keeps on going. I usually play a couple synths (usually the SCI Six-Trak).

I've called Wine Country and they pick up the phone right away and answer questions like they know what they're talking about. No complaints there.

I killed mine when I was trying to replace the pitch wheel for no good reason. I have purchased another and I'm going to use the old one for parts. I will always have a Prophet 600 in my set up. The sounds are huge!

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.