Leak: Sequential will release very soon the Take 5, a new 5-voice analog polyphonic Synthesizer with a dense feature set including a Prophet 5 Rev 4 filter.
Since the end of April, we have known that Sequential is now owned by Focusrite, the British company where Novation is based. At this event, Dave Smith (ex CEO of Sequential) gave some interviews and made slight announcements that two new synthesizers are in development for this year.
Now the cat is out of the bag in an unofficial way because a dealer (Abtmusic.eu) published the news too early. It’s a classic leak for a new polyphonic Synthesizer named Sequential Take 5.
Sequential Take 5
Visually, it can hardly be denied that the Take 5 is based on the new Pro 3 from 2020. Only here it’s a five-voice polyphonic Synthesizer and not a three-voice paraphonic. The leaked information says that it has two analog VCOs per voice with continuously wave shapes. It has hard sync, a square-wave sub-octave generator (OSC 1), and front-panel FM. The digital wavetable oscillator from the Pro-3 is not included.
In a dedicated mixer, you can mix the different signals and a white-noise generator to the global signal. Then it goes in a four-pole resonant, analog low-pass filter per voice, based on Prophet 5 Rev 4 design. It is possible to drive the filter in self-oscillation with the resonance control. Also you have a bi-polar filter envelope amount that is handy.
On the envelope side, it will have two 5-stage envelope generators (ADSR + delay) with variable routings (filter, amplifier, gate). The envelopes are freely assignable to multiple modulation destinations. Further, you have two multi-wave LFOs with five wave shapes including triangle, sawtooth, reverse sawtooth, square, and random (sample and hold). They offer clock sync (internal/external) and are freely assignable to multiple modulation destinations.
Effects & Sequencer
A digital effect section with multiple effects rounds of the signal chain. It includes a dedicated reverb and a multi-effect with stereo delay, BBD delay, tape delay, chorus, flanger, phaser, ring mod, vintage rotating speaker, distortion, high-pass filter. Plus you get an overdrive section. Very nice, Sequential also adds the beloved vintage knob functionality in the Take 5 that recreates the characteristics of vintage synthesizers. Including micro-fluctuations in oscillators, filters, and envelopes per voice.
An arpeggiator and sequencer are also onboard. The arp has different play directions and a re-latching arpeggiation functionality. The step sequencer is polyphonic with up to 64 steps with ties and resets. It looks like it has significantly fewer features than this one in the Pro 3. Take 5 is very hands-on and offers parameters for every feature and specific performance controls including a low-split mode. The latter creates two independent performance zones with different octave ranges
Keyboard & Connectivity
Take 5 comes with a full-sized, semi-weighted, 3.5-octave premium Fatar keyboard with velocity and aftertouch with bi-polar amount. You can freely assign aftertouch to multiple modulation destinations. A built-in preset manager gives you space for 128 user and 128 factory presets. More space would have been desirable here.
On the backside, you have classic MIDI connectivity (MIDI in/out/thru), a USB port for bi-directional MIDI connection, a sustain/footswitch input, an expression pedal input, and a stereo output on 2 x 1/4″ phone jack). There is also a headphone output. It doesn’t have CV connectivity which is a shame.
A sound demo is not yet out because it is a leak. At first sight an interesting new polyphonic analog Synthesizer with a nice interface. I’m really looking forward to the first sound demos.
Or the news in video form
According to the leaked information, the Sequential Take 5 will cost 1299€ which would be very fair. Stay tuned for the official news.
Source: Abtmusic.eu
But why five-voice?! Who designed this, the cartoon people?!
consider the Korg minilogue xd, loved by many only has 4 voices and it works 🙂
The original Prophet 5 had how many voices?
5 😉
Quit a classic design, which will proof easy to use. But the picture doesn’t show the envelopes have a delay stage, they rather look like standard 4 stage ADSR’s?
Take , possibly the worst name I’ve heard in a long time.