It certainly didn't sound like anything else. From its stellar playability to its sterile, knob-free front panel, it was nothing like the analogue instruments that dominated the synthesizer market in 1983. Follow MusicRadar on Instagram to stay up to date with the latest gear news, artist interviews and tech tutorials.įew synthesizers have ever had such a lasting impact as Yamaha's DX7.Ideal for mournful leads and low, scrubbing string pads alike, it's easy to see the appeal. It is, in fact, the very first sound on that album. This sound was much-loved by Gary Numan, figuring prominently on The Pleasure Principle.

It was, however, the second, pared-down version - the Polymoog Keyboard - that would burn its sonic signature into synthesizer history, thanks to one its additional presets – the fabled Vox Humana patch. Troubled from the start, this cantankerous instrument nevertheless found favour with a number of high-profile users, Rick Wakeman among them. Released in 1975, the original Polymoog was a 71-note synthesizer that offered organ-style divide-down polyphony and a miserly eight presets. Vox Humana (from the Moog Polymoog Keyboard) This ripping, nasal lead patch would - like many of the Prophet's presets - become wildly overused in the years following the instrument's release. One such player was Greg Hawkes of The Cars, who promptly exploited one of the Prophet's wicked oscillator sync presets for the memorable riff that propels the band's Let's Go, the lead single from their classic Candy-O LP. Sequential's slick combination of patch storage and polyphony ensured the P5's popularity, with a then-impressive 8000 units being sold, many to big name performers. Before Sequential Circuits unleashed the Prophet-5 in 1977, synthesizer presets were a rarity – most often relegated to non-programmable instruments like ARP's Pro Soloist.

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