Prophet 2000/2002 Digital Samplers

Acquired: Autumn 1985.
Sold: 1987

After the inital novelty effect of the Fairlight CMI had settled, a range of more affordable samplers were expectably popping up.

The first of these – the Ensoniq “Mirage” sampler had a basic sampling and synth engine, and was able to record short samples in only 8-bit resolution. It was quickly adapted by many players, but suffered from lack of convenient storage facilities – and a cumbersome menu driver GUI, that was not exactly intuitive.

So when Sequential launched their 2000 (Keyboard) and 2002 (Module) samplers with 12-bit resolution, it was a definitive improvement.

With a matrix driven command system, it was much faster to operate than the Mirage, and had better sound, and provision for hard disk storage, as well as floppies.

The Prophets had only 256K (expandable to 512K) of RAM memory, so sampling time was limited, especially at high quality.

I owned and used the machine many, times, until it was quickly being outsmarted by the then new Akai S-900 Sampler.