Previous Pro-One updates:
- 2014/08/29 – NorCal NoiseFest and Synth Repair
- 2014/09/08 – Pro-One Brief Update
- 2014/11/21 – Pro-One – Modified (Finally done)
I’ve had this Sequential Circuits Pro-One in my possession now for over 10 years. I’ve had varying success controlling this thing over CV. I use it so little that every time I use it I forget the proper patch to make it accept the CV signals I’m sending. Essentially, the gate CV input doesn’t get recognized by my controller so I would have to put the synth in Drone mode, and have the gate trigger the Filter CV, which opens and closes the filter. It essentially gets the job done.
A while back I decided to purchase the MIDI kit for the Pro-One to see if that would make this synth a little more usable.
The MIDI kits are sold by grantmtg on eBay. The kit comes with an updated CPU, the MIDI board and the MIDI ports.
Over the past few weeks I started on this project. Now, I purchased this kit back in 2023, so in an attempt to do more projects for 2025, I decided to finally get this thing installed.
Here’s the finished photos.
It’s already in the case and I forgot to get photos of in the interior. (Maybe I’ll do that in another 5 years).
And now the complaints (ahaha)! So after hooking up the MIDI it IS accepting MIDI signals, but it is only triggering the gate and not the pitch! I emailed the seller for their insight already. The workaround I have currently is to use CV for pitch and Midi for gate, which gives it more functionality than I had before, but this project is still far from being complete or perfect.
In general I’m proud of this synth and that I’ve been able to get it working. I definitely think I’ve made an interesting name for myself in town that people call me to fix broken synths, or give me synths that have been utterly destroyed.
I’m reminded of the Novation MiniNova that I “fixed” back in 2021.
Since I’ve gone modular for my synth setup, I don’t use the “all-in-one” synths as often, but I still like having them in my collection. Ideally I figured I would be using the these other synths over MIDI for more compositional work. For the last 10+ years I’ve been wanting to put together an album that was more complex and thought out than the pieces I generally do with my solo and live works. Something that would utilize these older synths fully. I think I’m slowly working towards that goal. Getting the MIDI updates on the Pro-One is a step towards it.
UPDATE: I heard back from MTG and they said if I had anything plugged into the CV in that would bypass the internal DAC from controlling the oscillators. I unplugged the CV ins and outs that I had mapped and sure enough it worked! This Pro-One is fully functional over MIDI now!