104 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter

S

ince last we spoke about the

new analog beastie from Dave

Smith Instruments, the Prophet

08 [rack-mountable] desktop has

landed. In a season marked by the

return of retro pieces, we talk to

synth designer and father of MIDI,

Dave Smith.

Can we go back to the days at

Sequential Circuits; can we start

there and talk a little bit about the

Prophet-5, and how that came to be?

Dave Smith

: Basically I got the idea

of doing a Polyphonic Programmable

Synthesizer because I knew the parts

I needed for the synthesizer functions

were becoming available. I had already

been working with Microprocessors for

quite a while so I knew how to do that.

That was a necessary step to do it all.

But initially I actually hesitated

and didn’t go forward. I decided not

to do it because I was a very small

company; it was mostly just me back

then, and we were building accessories

and sequencers and things like that. I

just figured it was such an obvious

next idea for the two big companies

at the time- Moog and ARP. I was

convinced that they must have been

doing something similar, because

it felt so right to build a Polyphonic

Programmable Synthesizer.

I waited a few months with that

assumption, and finally tired of waiting

and decided to just take the plunge

and go ahead and do it! That was

spring 1977. I spent the rest of the year

designing it. We announced it in January

of 1978, so it’s about 30 years ago.

Was it at that point that you said

okay, this is it for me, this is my life

from now on and this is my life’s

dedication?

All I was doing before that was

building synthesizers, so I had already

decided I wanted to design stuff. And I

was having fun doing it. That was, of

course, the first major instrument - the

first real instrument I had designed, so

it just cemented the deal.

How did you stumble across MIDI?

That was far from an accident. The

Prophet-5 was actually the first

instrument, musical instrument, that

had a Microprocessor and within two

or three years all the other companies

started putting Microprocessors in

their synthesizers. Once you have

a Microprocessor in an instrument

you realize that it’s fairly easy for it to

communicate with another instrument

with a Microprocessor.

So at Sequential Circuits we

developed a high speed digital interface

we used for connecting sequencers to

the Prophet-5, and remote keyboards,

and computers and so forth. At the same

time, Roland developed an interface

and Yamaha and Oberheim had

proprietary interfaces they were using.

We quickly realized it would

be silly if everybody only had their own

interface because no one can connect

Dave Smith

Dave Smith instruments

In

d

u

s

try

In

s

id

e

r

Synth Designer

105 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter

anything from different companies

together. So after some initial talks,

I decided to organize meetings

at the Audio Engineering Society

[AES] Convention, trying to organize

everybody for creating a common

interface. It took a few meetings to

convince people to do it. The four

companies; Dave Smith Instruments,

Roland, Yamaha and Korg decided

to move forward and actually do

this; whereas, other companies like

Oberheim and Moog and a few others

decided not to get involved because

they, for whatever reason, didn’t like

the idea. Well, from that point forward

it took about a year of working together

with the Japanese, but most of the

work was done by Sequential Circuits

and Roland, the other companies didn’t

exactly understand, but were at least

smart enough to go along for the ride.

Towards the

end of finalizing the

specification, we had to

come up with a name for it,

and that’s when I thought

of the acronym MIDI,

for Musical Instrument

Digital Interface. Then

we developed the very

first MIDI synthesizer,

the Prophet 600. We

shipped near the end of

1982.

Then at the January

NAMM Show in 1983

we connected it to a

new Roland synthesizer,

I think it was JX3-P or

JP 6 and that was the

first time the two MIDI

instruments were connected together,

and it actually worked.

As I was reading your bio, I was

sort of thinking to myself, well,

why isn’t Dave Instruments the

leader in MIDI controllers. [Why

wouldn’t they be releasing massive,

monstrous MIDI controllers with

127 knobs stretched across three

tiers.!] Why stay with synths?

We are instrument designers. I am

not that interested in controllers for

software. I would rather design a

musical instrument that has its own

knobs and its own keyboard and you

play it like a musical instrument, and

you don’t have to deal with computers

and software and all that.

MIDI is a just interface, and

something we needed at the time.

We gave it away free to the industry,

so nobody had to pay royalties to use

MIDI. Most of us would rather just keep

building instruments, and there was

actually a whole new cottage industry

that formed, with people who made

little interfaces and controls and stuff,

and that’s basically how the whole

recording industry got started when we

invented MIDI.

Now, in regard to the Wavestation;

why is evolving and changing sound

over time so important to you?

That’s just a personal preference; if

you think about it, virtually every other

musical instrument, acoustic musical

instrument, does that by itself. A piano

sound, if you hit a single note, it will

change gradually in different ways as

it decays. If you hit a second note in

the piano, the two strings will interact

and it will be a different sound than if

you only play one by itself. There is

always an interaction going on with

real musical instruments, and they are

always changing.

The other

extreme is

when you play

something like

the Sampler,

and it has a

simple loop on

it, you play it

and ends up

sounding exactly

the same. That’s

just one of the

reasons a lot

of instruments

sound boring- it’s

because there’s

no movement

in the sound.

I have

always been

a fan of expressive movement in an

instrument. I think it’s important and

it’s more interesting. I tend to build

products I like to use, so that’s the kind

of sound I like, and that’s the kind of

instrument I design.

So is it the envelope that you would

say is your main concentration as

opposed to say the filter?

No…it depends on the instrument.

The Wavestation obviously had a

lot of sequencing envelopes to turn

on and off different samples and

oscillators, so that was fairly important.

“

I

just don’t have any interest in

plugging things into a computer

and dealing with all that in order

to play something. I am sure it’s a

fine translation, but I would rather

have a piece of hardware in front

of me that I can hold and pick up

and move and play.

“

106 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter

But I think most people would agree

that filter is probably the center of

any synthesizer sound, even more

so than the oscillators quite often,

depending on the type of instrument.

All instruments are a little different

and they have different emphasis and

different priorities, so it’s hard to pick

one element of a synthesizer and call it

the most important part.

I see. Now, can you tell us a little

bit about your Korg years. Are

you aware of your own legacy, or

did you see yourself as a working

journeyman?

Well, it’s both. I don’t dwell on it too

much but when I look back; I have been

responsible for quite a few things that

were the first of its kind in the industry.

The Prophet-5 pretty much started

the Polyphonic Synthesizer business,

and virtually every synthesizer

since then has been polyphonic and

programmable. I don’t know if you

realize it, but I also designed the very

first professional software over ten

years ago now.

Really.

Yes and that started a whole new

industry that’s gotten quite a big bigger.

I tend to have a habit of doing things like

that. MIDI of course is still used today

in synthesizers and home computers

and cell phones, and everyone uses it

everyday whether they realize it or not.

I’d rather be known for the instruments

I designed. And

I am not done

yet.

Why not a

Poly Evolver

2 as opposed

to the Prophet

08?

Well, there

are no set rules

when I decide

what to build

next. In the case

of the Prophet

it was kind of

i n t e r e s t i n g ,

because I had

a lot of requests

from people

who wanted a

100% analog

signal-chain synthesizer, and I didn’t

do one for a long, long time because I

was having more fun with the Evolver.

The voicing is considerably more

complex, while keeping the analog

sound, but I decided to do it anyway.

It wasn’t until I was almost

done with it …I was playing with it and

it surprised me how good it was. It had

been a while since I actually designed

a fairly simple analog synthesizer

like that. So I was able to put in a lot

of updates, the things that weren’t

possible when the original Prophet 5

came out. The whole contribution of

that experience plus the basic analog

sound just provided something that is

right there. You can’t buy an instrument

with a sound like that. It was only then

that I realized it really was a Prophet,

so I didn’t start by trying to design a

Prophet, it just turned out that way.

What about the knobs, the design,

the physical layout of it, is that also

your handiwork?

Yeah, I did the

mechanical design, I did decide on what

features, what knobs and all that. One

of the things I thought after designing

soft synths is I didn’t like them. You

need to interact with your instrument.

Interacting with an instrument doesn’t

mean sitting in front a computer monitor

with a keyboard and mouse and

trying to click things and drag things.

Even though we designed the Reality

synthesizer and it sounded really good

and had a bunch of different synthesis

types, I just never used it because it

wasn’t any fun. That’s when I decided

to give up on software and go back to

only hardware, because it’s so much

more fun. So something like the

Prophet, I try to pick the right functions

for the surface so you don’t have to

dig through menus to find features.

Obviously the Prophet doesn’t have

as many features as some soft synths,

where every six months they come out

with 20 new features and 30 new menus

to dig through and figure out. It’s a very

straight forward design, so you always

know where things are. It’s familiar to

anybody who has used a synthesizer

before, because everything is pretty

much exactly where you would expect

it to be. There are more than enough

functions to keep you busy for a very

long time.

It’s kind of like a guitar. Guitar

players don’t complain about only

having three knobs and six strings,

but they get used to playing with their

instrument, and it’s always the same,

and they can come back ten years

later, and the same knob and same

string will do the same things that it

does now, and that’s the same thing

on the Prophet, whereas software

synthesizers won’t even work in ten

years unless you upgrade them every

six months.

Ouch! Well, I must ask, are you not

impressed with the Korg Legacy

Wavestation?

They gave me one and

I never even turned it on. I understand,

people tell me its pretty good, but I

just don’t have any interest in plugging

things into a computer and dealing with

all that in order to play something. I am

sure it’s a fine translation, but I would

rather have a piece of hardware in front

of me that I can hold and pick up and

move and play. I can pick up a guitar

and play it, and know that each of my

different guitars have a different appeal

and a different sound, and they have

some good parts and they have some

bad parts, and you learn how to play

with them and they are real musical

instruments.

107 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter

Are you concerned

with the comparisons

between your Prophet

and the older ones?

Oh, I welcome

comparisons. To me, it’s

pretty clear that it’s not

exactly like a Prophet-5,

it’s not exactly like a

Prophet 10 or a Prophet

VS, but it definitely is

a Prophet; it has the

same basic sound, it

has got the depth, it

has got everything that

the original Prophets

do. I think it goes well

beyond the original

Prophet. When I play a

Prophet-5 now, it seems

kind of quaint and nice

and tame compared to

the Prophet 08.

There has

been a couple of

very detailed product

reviews from people in

magazines who have

done just that, because

the big questions is,

well, are you just using the name to sell more instruments,

or does this thing really deserve to be called a Prophet? So far

pretty much, a 100%, everybody agreed that it’s definitely a

Prophet. Modernized and still has the character.

Do you have a vision in your head of what your

masterwork could be? Do you believe there is a synth

that you have not created yet, that could be your life’s

work, your life’s masterstroke?

No, I don’t look that far ahead; I tend to take things a day at

a time, so I can’t say that I have any long-term targets or a

magical product to build. I do think probably… the Evolvers

are by far my best to date, but it’s hard to compare because

they are different instruments. There is a lot of overlapping;

you get a lot of the same sound in the Evolvers, but they go

well beyond what the Prophets’ can do because they have

the integrated digital sound in addition to the real analog. But

as far as my future planning and fantasy designs…I don’t

have the ultimate instruments in mind to build someday, I just

go from one to the next.

Is there some sort of feeling you get when you are

designing a synth, knowing that someone is going to

lean on your instrument to express themselves, and

someone is going to try to make emotional music? Their

great ambition may be to make a living off of or to even

change their world, based on what you designed.

Oh sure, I mean

that’s the best part

about it. I mean,

there are only a

handful of people

in the world who

can call themselves

S y n t h e s i z e r

Designers; there

are not very many of

us who do this. For

me, I mean the real

payoff of designing

an instrument is to

be able to hear what

a musician does

because no matter

how much I know

about my instrument,

somebody will

still do something

with it that I didn’t

think of, and make

it sound a certain

way that I have

never been able to

make it sound…

make a song out

of it and use it in

a recording. That’s really the payoff as a designer;

seeing the artist actually use the instrument.

They like having me around to make instruments they

can play, and give them an individualized sound. I like to see

what they do with the sound. There are so many different types

of music; everything from pop and rock to hip-hop to techno,

and everything in between, so many different types of music

including soundtracks. It’s great to hear what people do with it.

This may be rude to a person who designs synths, but

there is such a heavy concern with the presets you

include in your synths, as opposed to the sound the synth

is capable of creating. So while creating soundbanks do

you keep in mind someone may judge all of this work,

only by the bank of a 256 presets? They may decide to

buy or not to buy your grand work that you spent months

on, based on just the included sets of sounds.

Well, that’s an important part of showing any instrument these

days. It’s probably more critical for instruments like Samplers

and digital instruments that are hard to use, because most

people are only going to use the presets and they will never

make their own sounds. It’s a little less critical in our case,

because it’s so easy to make a sound or to modify a sound.

If you are playing, at anytime you can just grab a knob and

change it, either a little bit or a whole lot to suit your taste in

an instant. But having said that, so far most of what we hear

“

...the real payoff of designing an

instrument is to be able to hear what

a musician does because no matter

how much I know about my instrument,

somebody will still do something with it

that I didn’t think of, and make it sound a

certain way that I have never been able to

make it sound…make a song out of it and

use it in a recording.

”

108 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter

from our customers is that they really love the sounds that are

in there. It’s a littler trickier these days, it’s like I was just saying

about how many different types of musicians use synthesizers.

You have to come up with a real variety. You don’t want to do

all bass and lead sounds, if somebody wants a techno sound.

You don’t want to do all sound effects just for the movie people.

Some people only want the old sounds and some only want the

new.

I noticed at trade shows when people are playing the

synths for the first time - they step through the programs and

everybody stops at different programs. So one person will stop

at number three because they really like it, and they will play

it for five minutes, the next guy will go right by three and play

number six. So all you could do is put in a real variety to really

show what the instrument is capable of.

Some people aren’t going to understand it. All they

might do is play major triads on a C chord, and they just bang out

the same chords on every sound, and of course it’s not going to

sound as good. What you have to do on a real synthesizer like

this is to take time with each sound, because low notes might

respond completely different than high notes. If you push down

on the notes, you use the wheels, it might change completely,

and you have to play the sound based on the type of sound.

You might miss part of what the instrument is capable of.

I have actually another hard question. What is your

feeling on effects, since some synth manufactures are

relying on effects and clever programming to get those

presets to sound good, while others are just concerned

with raw waveforms and let the user build it up, so how

important are the onboard effects to your instruments?

It depends on the instrument. I am not going to do

something like the samplers do, where they have tons of

reverbs and a whole big pile of effects on it, because in general

my instruments don’t need that. The Evolvers do have some

onboard effects, whereas the Prophet has none. It’s partly to

match the type of instruments. The Prophet was meant to be all

analog, and as soon as you put [commonly used] digital effects

you take away from some of that purity. So we wanted to

have maximum punch on the Prophet, and kept it as clean

as possible, so that means people have to have their own

effects on it if they want them.

The idea with the Evolver is still different than the

other instruments. It wasn’t meant to be a synthesizer with

a bunch of effects at the end of it. The effects in it are very

tightly coupled with the synthesis. So the distortion in the

Evolver is individual for every voice, the delay is individual for

every voice, and it allows it to be much more musical when

you play it, and the sounds get that much more incredible

when you have four different delays going on four different

notes at one time. So the answer is, it really depends on

the product, and what you are trying to do, and in my case I

have done it both ways, depending on the instrument.

I am sure you are sitting there thinking to yourself that

I wish everyone would buy my instrument, but when

you are designing it, surely there must be some sort of

synthesis or musician you have in your mind that you

are sort of saying to yourself, I hope this guy picks up on

this instrument. Who would that person be?

Well, I

have to say that’s not entirely how I do things. I design things

for what I want, and so maybe the answer is …is ME. I don’t

109 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter

sit here and think that, oh well, Keith Emerson would want

this, Timbaland would want that, Herbie Hancock would

want this, and Bernie Worrell would want that…there

are so many different people, and every one of those

people want something different. I can’t say I really have

end customers in mind, I think I have a wide range of

sound and a wide range of appeal, if that makes sense.

Well, is it a musical skill level; is there a musical skill

level, a bar you are looking at?

A musical skill…not

really. Here is a funny story. I had one customer that had a

Poly Evolver, and he was complaining that his roommate

who knew absolutely nothing about synthesizers was

getting better sounds off the keyboard than he was. That

was because this guy would just go up and start turning

knobs, and he had no clue what the knobs did, but he

would just keep turning them until almost accidentally he

would come up with some really cool sound, and then

he would save it.

So it depends on what you are doing. If you

are into creating sounds and soundtrack type stuff as

opposed to music, then that’s one thing. Obviously if you

are a musician with chops, then that’s a whole different

thing as far as your approach to the instrument, and your

level of competence.

But I see a lot of first time synth buyers buying

the Prophet, and it’s actually a good one for them. They

have always heard about analog synths and they have

always heard about Prophets, and they may not totally

understand it, but when they first get it, they will just start

turning knobs and they say Well, what does filter cut off

do., and they will hear it, and they will go oh, I know

what that sound is, I have heard that sound on a million

records and get the idea. They will learn how to use it a

little bit at a time.

Well, what do you want to say in conclusion to

the person who is hovering over the Prophet and

thinking about purchasing it, in an industry

that’s turning further and further away from

analog, synthesizers, and going into the

virtual realm, what do you want to say, or what

statement maybe does the Prophet 08 make?

Well, all I could say is play it and listen to it, and

if it speaks to you then my job is done. If you

don’t know what the difference, then you might

as well save the money and buy a software

synth. I don’t like to make a big deal about the

technology and say analog is better than digital.

I seem to think, and most people agree that, it

does have a much better sound then the digital

stuff, but it’s up to the musician. It’s like, why do

some guitar players like Les Paul, and some of

them like Tellies and some of them like Strats. It’s when they

pick it up, when they play it, it’s what they hear and what they

feel. All I could ask is for people try it, and if the instrument

speaks to them, then they should buy it.

I meant to wrap this up, but I can’t help it now that I have

you, I am intrigued about your thoughts on analog drum

machines.

Well, since I am in the middle of designing

one, my opinion would have to be that somebody needs to do

something like that, and it may as well be me, because it will

give a different sound than what everybody has been used to

for the last 10 or 15 years. How is that.

How does the BoomChick become the LinnDrum, and

how does that collaboration begin?

Well, Roger and I have

known each other for a very long time, and we have worked on

some minor projects together. Doing something big, like a drum

machine, is a huge project, so it’s a good one for us, and easier

as a joint project than either one of us trying to do it alone.

The BoomChick was a temporary name, and after we got

further into it, we decided that it would make more sense to call

it a LinnDrum, because that’s kind of what it is. It’s coming along

nicely; we hope to have it done later this year. A lot of people are

waiting for it. I think they will be happy with the way it sounds.

The rumor I have heard is that you’ve been able to shove

some of the Poly Evolver in it. Is is that true?

It’s similar; we have got four analog channels where you

basically put in samples or whatever you want through the

analog filters. I am borrowing from some of the tricks of the

Evolvers, where you can do tuned feedback and synchronous

delays, and then some other tricks to give it a little bit of a boost,

because for people that have played the Evolvers, they know

how it can do some really nasty and fun stuff as well as some

nice, clean stuff. So just like I said earlier, it’s trying to provide

some different sounds for people to play with.

I thank you for your time and Producer’s Edge wishes you

continued success with the Evolver series, Prophet 08 and

future release the LinDrum II. Davesmithinstruments.com

Dave Smith: Vintage Shop, Vintage Shot