Sequential Circuits Pro One
The Pro One is a powerful and very versatile analog mono synthesizer from the early eighties. It’s a true vintage classic and arguably one of the best mono synths ever made. The quality of the hardware isn’t that good, but the sound is awesome. It is used extensively as bass on Antilles tracks.
It has a very clear and aggressive character. The envelopes are super fast, which makes it perfect for snappy and percussive sounds. It also has a very powerful filter witch is very clear and refined. There are two oscillators which features saw, pulse (with variable pulse width) and tri waveforms. All waveforms can be mixed together to create new waveforms. There’s also oscillator sync, an oscillator mixer and white noise. The LFO also features saw, pulse and tri waveforms and they can also be mixed together. Finally there’s an input for proccesing external audio signals through the filters, envelopes and modulation of the Pro One.
The Pro One also has extensive modulation possibilities, which makes it possible to create very complex sounds. This complexity is unususal for a small vintage analog monosynth. Futhermore it has an arpeggiator and even a small simple sequencer. The Pro One excells at basses, leads and sound effects.
The Pro One is perhaps mostly famous for being a favorite synth of Vince Clark. He used it all over Yazoo’s “Upstairs At Eric’s”. The songs, “Don’t Go” and “Only You” are recorded almost exclusively on the Pro One.
As mentioned the build quality isn’t that good and especially the keyboard itself is really bad, so it’s highly recommended to control it over midi.
Audio samples
Demo 1 Multitrack. All Pro One.
Demo 2 Another multitrack. All Pro One sounds.
Patchsheet created in Photoshop