Sequential Circuits
Prophet VS (1986)

A special analog-digital hybrid version of the famous Prophet 5 with vector joystick.

KEYBOARD 61 velocity keys with rudimentary aftertouch function.
Main panel features a 16 x 2 lines display, 58 push buttons, 2 knobs and a slider for value entries.
On the left side there are 2 wheels for pitch bending / modulation and a vector joystick.


Back panel terminal connectors:
- stereo out
- Midi interface
- sustain pedalswitch input
- pedalswitch input assignable to arpeggiator / latch / transpose.

TECH main core Motorola MC68000 manages 8 voices polyphony, DAC CEM3365
A VS voice is composed by 4 detunable digital oscillators called A-B-C-D. Each OSC digitally reads a short-cycled waveforms, but unlike PGG or Waldorf Microwave synthesis, the VS cannot achieve a well-structured wavetable scan process.

WAVETABLE ROM contains 96 PCM (128 samples long) in mainly composed by basic waveforms such as square, sinewave and acoustic instrument spectral short harmonics.

In addition 32 user-definable RAM waveshapes that can be loaded by external Midi SDS dump or manually, drawing the harmonics with the joystick. HEAR wavesequence

PERFORMANCE various playmodes:

- split plays 4 keys on either side (user-defined split point) - double plays only 4 keys, but each key simultaneously uses 2 programs - unison stacks 8 voice for fat solo with variable glide portamento - aftertouch is assignable to filter cutoff or pitch modulation.

LFO up to 2 modulators (shapes: triangle, square, saw up-down and random) and 6 destinations:

- LFO to filter - LFO to voice mix - LFO to opposite LFO rate - LFO to amplitude - LFO to stereo panning. - LFO to pitch OSC

ENVELOPE 3 analog EG groups: EG VCF + EG VCA + EG voice MIX.

- EG VCF and EG VCA are the same each featuring 5 stages + 5 levels and 6 segments loopmodes. - EG Mix is simpler: just 4 rates + 6 loop modes. VECTOR MOTION the joystick defines the oscillators mix moving it toward one of the ABCD oscillator which is pretty nice for some texture patterns. The traced motion can be also recorded and replayed.

FILTER lowpass resonant analog VCF based on 8X CEM 3379 or 3389 digitally controlled quantised in 99 digital scaled values.

HEAR filter in action

ARPEGGIATOR section features a 2 to 4 octaves range and various traditional playmodes:
up, down, up-down, reverse, random and assign (which is the order you press keys).

SYNC the arpeggiator frequency can be set internally or synched to external Midi clock, latch mode (with pedal) and real-time note-shift transpose. The special REPEAT function allows to play up to 4 times the same note before going to the next one. HEAR arpeggiator

 

EFFECT stereo analog chorus based on BBD MN3209 with variable rate and depth parameters.

HEAR chorus full amount

MIDI excellent ! full Sysex implementation for edit and librarian purposes.

MEMORY:
- 100 RAM patches
- 32 RAM PCM.

TIP: Memory can be expanded with special cartridge model VSRAM 241 that doubles available locations + 32 more PCM waveforms. LEFT BATTERY REPLACEMENT RAM battery is a 3V Lithium battery -click to magnify pic-

OS is in 2 eprom 27C256 LSB + MSB latest is 1.2V

FREE- DOWNLOAD BIN

MAINTENANCE the most common failure comes from the voices allocation managed by one of the chip IC CEM 5530 multiplexer sample and hold, easy to break and it is NO more available on the market - now really quite hard to find out anywhere.

Some people managed to clone this rare chip but this project has never been officially released.

 

EDITOR some free and commercial computer-based softwares:

- VECTOR SURGEON (FREE) java platform - Soundquest ($$) MAC PC - Prophet VS Editor for iPad ($$) IOS

 

VS Related family:

Prophet Vs Rack same rackmount version

 

 

VST PLUGIN / SAMPLED VERSION there are some free and commercial samples set:

	-IPROPHET -ARTURIA PROPHET V	VST plugin COMMERCIAL
	AUGUR	VST plugin FREE

 

AUDIO DEMO

mystic vector sweet organic glissando test raw panning another vector bell wave sequence Strings open filter paddie

chorus BBD waves sequenced digital choir arpeggiator low pass filter test square punch movie from 60'

VIDEO SELECTION Factory Demos Sounds VS Vector

MANUAL

SERVICE MANUAL

original advert

original brochure