First post of `06: Thanks to Tom Whitwell for pointing me to the pages of a magazine for which I write, Keyboard, to find out that soft synth maker Arturia is in fact recreating the Prophet-5 synth. Sequential’s original Prophet-5 is a perennial favorite on lists of vintage instruments, so it’s little wonder Arturia has turned their attention to it following their Moog and ARP emulations. (See page 47 of the January 2006 issue — well, hopefully after you’ve read my AES writeup, anyway.)
This isn’t just another Prophet-5 virtual analog synth, though: Arturia says they’ll combine vintage emulation with digital vector synthesis for a matchup of old and new worlds. I’m a little too wrapped up in my TimewARP 2600 and a zillion other synths to get too hot and bothered over this for the moment, but I expect we’ll see more in a few weeks at NAMM. Arturia is unlikely to make an official announcement until then, but Matrixsynth has scanned the ad. Notice the Yamaha logo, since that firm picked up US distribution.