Alan Howarth plays Escape From New York soundtrack live at Unsound Festival NYC 4-8-11
SEQUENTIAL CIRCUITS PROPHET-5
Released: 1978
Original price: $4495
A polyphonic synthesizer that was as easy to manipulate (and carry) as the hugely popular Minimoog, Sequential Circuits’ Prophet-5 quickly became an industry standard. What gave the Prophet a boost was that it included a patch memory – something sorely lacking from direct competitor the Yamaha CS-80 – allowing users to store their sounds rather than relying on preset settings or writing down the positions of each switch and knob on supplied printed sheets. It spawned a bigger brother in the Prophet-10, but what that machine gained in polyphony it lost in reliability, and the machine was notorious for overheating and conking out mid-session. Far more popular was the Prophet-5’s little brother, the cheeky and popular Pro-One.
Sadly Dave Smith’s company Sequential Circuits shut down in the late ’80s as digital synthesizers started to dominate, but the legend of the Prophet-5 continued to grow. Smith rebooted his line establishing Dave Smith Instruments in 2002, and he celebrated its 30th anniversary of the Prophet-5 in 2007 with an acclaimed new version, the celebrated Prophet ‘08.
It’s not surprising that the Prophet-5 became so widely used on movie soundtracks, as the spooky analogue textures were perfect for the kind of unsettling chords that backed horror and sci-fi films in the early ’80s. It wasn’t just a functional workhorse like the CS-80 though – the Prophet could also be coaxed into making bellowing experimental sweeps and rumbles thanks to its innovative Poly Mod feature, which allowed modular-style routing of its various generators and oscillators.
Like the Minimoog before it, the Prophet-5 was a market leader and its hefty price tag didn’t prevent it from being extremely widely used. Film composers quickly picked up on the synthesizer, probably because it was possible to achieve so much with a single piece of equipment. John Harrison used only a Prophet-5 and a piano to record his acclaimed score to 1982’s horror anthology Creepshow, and John Carpenter quickly fell in love with the synthesizer after being introduced to it by Alan Howarth while working on Escape From New York.
Pop music loved the Prophet too – it was all over Michael Jackson’s Thriller, and a few years later could be found on Madonna’s self-titled debut and its follow-up Like A Virgin. The fact that it became such a studio staple no doubt led to the Prophet’s use on early West Coast rap records – Dr. Dre was a fan, and Too $hort used the Prophet (along with a Roland TR-808 drum machine) to put together his stark, influential debut album Born To Mack.
