Prophet-5

Well, it's a Rhodes, some kind of Prophet.

I mean, it used to be a Prophet 5, which was my venerable keyboard for years.

I retired that in 2010, and I got a Dave Smith Prophet 8.

And then a few years later, I got a Rev 2 version.

And he'd been in the studio with Wally and he'd seen Wally in action.

And Wally was and still is an amazing sound programmer and synth programmer and i didn't know anything about synths and so phil said let's get wally in to add some kind of fairy dust to the record at first i kind of bristled like hang on i'm the keyboard player you know why do we need a second keyboard player but then when wally came in and did what he did it was like wow this sounds like star wars or something i never heard anything like it and then over over the you know next few albums i would be very closely observing what Wally was doing and realizing that he had an incredible talent for, if you like, orchestration via the synth.

And fortunately, you know, the technology existed, albeit on cassettes, to actually take the sounds that we use in the studio and program our live Prophet 5 and then use the same sounds on stage.

And so that and the Rhodes, I think, are the kind of signature, basic signature sound of the keyboard playing in Level 42.

[synth music] The Sequential Prophet 5 synthesizer was designed in 1977 by Dave Smith and John Bowen, and it remains sought after even today.

But when they say that the music industry has long been too profit motivated, I only wish they were talking about the synthesizer.

[upbeat music] Welcome to Strong Songs, a podcast about music.

I'm your host, Kirk Hamilton, and I'm so glad you've joined me to talk about music made with a Prophet 5, music made with an Oberheim OB-X, a Moog Grandmother, a Juno-6, or maybe a DX7.

[synth music] Strong Songs is entirely listener supported, and if you help out and back the show on Patreon, you'll get early access to episodes, monthly bonus episodes on each song I cover, and really you'll just be making it possible for me to keep making this show.

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Through the lens of my memory, it feels like synesthesia, and I remember thinking, "This song is a dream come to life.

This is what dreams sound like." And when I hear these synthesizers, the particulars don't matter.

Tell us what you've got noted down.

I have the Eventide H3000 or the Prophet 5.

[laughs]

'Cause now that-

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Think I'm gonna go Prophet 5.

The new one?

synths.

They wanted the Roland Juno 106, the Yamaha DX7, the Sequential Prophet series.

These are big, heavy, expensive keyboards that define the pristine pop sound of the 80s.

And the drums were crucial, too.

Or it's just what you do, really.

Um, but I would say my trusty Prophet-5 synth.

That's the synth that makes up about 70% of Dracula, and all those sort of doo-doo sounds, um, across the album.

[synth plays] That's all Prophet-5.

Yeah.

Um, I was just really into the idea of, uh, using only a handful of synths, and that one just, it just got...

It was just the one next to me the whole time, so you know.

If you remove the Prophet-5 from the album, there wouldn't be much left, you know? Not to say that I wouldn't have used a different synth.