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MusicRadar
Entertainment
Roland Schmidt

"Out of the first 10 Prophets sold, one went to Rick Wakeman, one to David Bowie, and one to Joe Zawinul. It took off from there": The history of Sequential in 10 synths, sequencers and drum machines

Prophet-5 in a home studio.

SYNTH WEEK 2026: In the late ‘60s, music technology was expensive, unwieldy and mostly out of reach. Synths were the size of refrigerators and access was limited to well-funded studios and successful artists. But, all that began to change in the ‘80s, as companies like Moog began shrinking modular systems into practical, portable formats.

One of the central figures in that shift was Dave Smith, who founded Sequential Circuits in 1974.

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