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If I may: Dave Smith did not popularize the polyphonic analog synthesizer. That was Tom Oberheim, with his 4-voice and 8-voice SEM module systems (and there we

If I may: Dave Smith did not popularize the polyphonic analog synthesizer. That was Tom Oberheim, with his 4-voice and 8-voice SEM module systems (and there were earlier examples than that using voice division). What Dave Smith did with the Prophet-5 (not V) was something much more important. The Prophet-5 was the first significant synthesizer on the market with patch storage and recall, and this required for the first time RAM and a CPU in a synthesizer. Patch storage was absolutely revolutionary. It changed the entire synthesizer field. Realizing the potential of a CPU inside a synthesizer, Dave Smith then went on to propose what later became MIDI.

musicale 4y ago
It's silly to try to minimize the impact of the Prophet 5 in making analog polysynths mainstream (especially in popular music), or the general impact of towering figures like Dave Smith and Tom Oberheim. I think of the 4/8-voice as predecessors to later analog polysynths (including models from Sequential, Oberheim, etc.) because they were more like a collection of mono (SEM) modules that you could play polyphonically. The Korg Mono/Poly and even the DSI Tetra are a bit like that too (and kind of fun to play polyphonically in voice cycling mode where every voice is a bit different.) We are amazingly fortunate to have modern incarnations of Sequential and Oberheim making amazing instruments, from the Prophet 5 reissue (and affordable/portable Take 5) to the upcoming OB-X8.