This was my first synth. Still have her but haven't played her in years.. Great video! Gonna have to bring her out of retirement! Hope she doesn't need a vacation at Wine country! :(
this is incredible man!!! I was searching all over the internet for history on the first multitimbral synth since i planned on buying the korg legacy collection and somehow ended up researching a lot more than I planned all thanks to the M1... This here is beautiful
Nice to see a demo of one of these! I remember owning one in the early 90s when I was first learning to compose e-music. These where cheap used and you had 6 voices and 6 "tracks" you could sequence with AND it was analog. If anyone likes old new age music check out Michel Genest's 1984 album Crystal Fantasy almost 100% Six Trak very much in the style of Kitaro. Youd swear he had a room full of synths because he knew how to get the most out of this little gem of a machine. Nice patched btw!
No, it's not..this guy is a talented musician, the six-track is a budget synth that doesn't sound very good, what you are liking here is the PLAYER not the INSTRUMENT
Literally the very first analog synthesizer I owned. If it had a chorus and at least one more output it could have competed with the junos easily. It DESPERATELY needed a chorus or something to make the 6-voice poly sounds come alive. We still joke about “stack mode”. It is massive in that mode. Nice patches 👍
Bought the presets and installed without issue, just dragged the sysex file to a track in Reaper which was set up to transmit out my MIDI output, made sure tempo wasn't too fast, hit play and the patches loaded fine. (You have to switch away from whatever preset you're currently on, so you won't notice the new patches until you change presets) they sound great! Add a little verb or delay and it's outerspace time, I tried them all and at least 30 of them are ones I want to use in my recordings. Love it.
Hi guys. I own one of these and for those people saying that it has 1 VCO, that is incorrect. The Six Trak has 6 VCOs. You can individually control and use each VCO in whatever combination ypu like by creating and saving 6 patches (as similar or different as you wish) then choosing those patches in stack mode and playing them. You will then get 6 INDIVIDUAL timbres playing all at the same time. PHAT!
***** yes, it's big as a monophonic synth, but somewhat weaker at polyphonic sounds - similar to the Korg Mono/Poly. After all, a very useful analog synth with MIDI
When people refer to a synth as having one, or being a single VCO synth, it is understood that they mean there are the same number oscillator as voices, most "single VCO synths let you stack the occilators on one voice, or like the AX73 let you use two per voice. But they are not saying there is one oscillator for the whole synth. It's an important point as the rule of thumb is budget synths have one per voice while the more professional models have two (hopefully 3 including a sub occilator)
This looks like something Behringer would try to clone. I wonder if it was between this and the Prophet 600 and they went with the 600. Six-Track would've been cool too tho
what a coincidence! I have ordered a Sequential Prophet-6 and it came just today ;-) yes, a sound bank and a demo will follow! But it will take some months...
Interesting! I too prefer the SCI sound but the 12db filter seems more sonically flexible, no ? Bandpass & notch seems really fun too. Would be hard to decide.
the Prophet-6 also has a resonant highpass filter and is also flexible. A Sequential 24 dB lowpass filter is essential for creamy mellow sounds and flexibility, so for me it was an easy decision. The P6 is also cheaper and better looking ;-)
You're good at using the pitch wheel on this. It doesn't return to center by itself (no spring) and I'm not good at the return to zero movement on this particular synth.
The Yamaha DX7 was the first synth having a spring in the pitch wheel. Few years later it became standard and is a good improvement. But no synth before 1985 had a spring in the wheel (all Sequentials, the Moogs, Korg Polysix, etc.)
@@AnalogAudio1 I recently cleaned out my Six Trak, dusted out the inside, cleaned the potentiometers and upgraded the EPROM to v14, along with that I cleaned the wheels and I think maybe I need to lube/grease the pitch wheel. Not sure if there was originally some grease on it right now the white plastic tab inside is kind of scraping on the wheel, not very smooth.
@@AnalogAudio1 Isn't it sprung on most of the early 80s Rolands? It is on my Juno 6 and JP-4 anyway. Unless you're drawing a distinction between pitch wheels and pitch benders... great demo though, thanks. Am getting a Six Trak soon hopefully, can't wait :)
Donal Finn no I didn’t and I sent it back because it wasn’t as described by the seller. One of the voices was out, so every 5th key I pressed it would t sound.
Might be a little late to the party on this, but check Espen Kraft’s demo. He ran his six trak through a nice chorus if I’m remember correctly. Cheers!
yes, the Six-Trak has a dedicated ADSR to VCO, VCF and VCA. Also the VCO offers all waveforms at once. And don't forget, the Six-Trak sounds clearly different - more raw in a positive way. I wouldn't sell my Six-Trak even when I have the Prophet-6 now. Both are great and have their own personalities.
Maybe not as simple to program as synths that have a knob or slider per parameter, but it's still quite a simple synth. All the synth parameters are listed on the front panel, so you know exactly what is available to tweak.
So there are 2 seperate sequencers on the six trak? Can you sync the six trak with an external sequencer or the sequnce from another synth? lovely demo.
AnalogAudio1 How does MIDI sync of the sequencer work? Quantized somehow or how would you keep it in sync with lets say a drummachine when you press the start/stop record manually?
Bought mine in 1990 for $200. It gave me much joy until It went bad in 2002. Spent $250 to fix it. One month later it died again. Sold it on ebay for $150. Still wish I had it in working condition though.
@@fjfrancois Same way. Just turned it on one day and it booted up frozen. It wasn't really fixed the first time. I think the guy just replaced a ribbon cable and re-seated a few of the socketed ICs and got it to work. I would like to know if it was ever fixed properly. Really, the only thing that sucks on the Six-Trak is the interface. The sound of them are as good as the Prophet in my opinion.
The envelopes are faster and the basic sound of the oscillators is a bit different, especially in the unison mode. Why? Different synths with different designs...
@@AnalogAudio1 I think I must have just had a duff one. It was cleaned, but it was never the same note twice. Random notes would just continue until I switched it off.
This is a weird time in the synth market. All the modern poly analogs have thrown the vintage speculators into a panic, causing them to try and jack prices through the roof to compensate for the new lack of interest, as long as idiots don't go paying the stupid prices out there right now, the synth market is in for a big correction in the next year, this synth you should never pay for than $400-500 USD anything more WALK AWAY you can get better for more, this was a BUDGET model, it is NOT a flagship classic, nor is it considered to sound very good next to other poly analogs, don't get fooled by the S.Q name or the fact that it was made in the 80's DO NOT PAY BIG BUCKS FOR THIS
Donal Finn its strange you are saying this considering it was $1095 when it was released. I think you’re severely understating the actual price this synth is worth
@@johnhennessey5 No it's not. As Donal stated, it's not a classic. Only they fetch the crazy prices. Given how quickly the contacts wear out on this, any owner is in for a bill. That and its 36 year old electronics near the end of the bathtub curve. There has to be a solid justification behind stupid money prices for old kit, and the Six Trak doesn't have any. It's virtually unknown, even though it sounds good. The reason it was > $1000 in 1984 was solely due to the technology that is old hat now, being new then. Otherwise I'd be flogging my hand built Compukit for silly money too. Price then does not equate to price now.
Why is it that in many youtube videos the Six-Trak sounds weak, lame and uninspiring, then once in a while you see one that sounds like this (not too bad). You must be adding some external effects or something to it. One guy even commented on this video that he can't get his Six-Trak to sound anything like this one. I've heard a similar variance of sound on here with Prophet 600s. Some sound awesome, others sound weak, non-fat and not impressive at all..
Its because the sixtrak only has one oscillator, and no chorus to fill out the sound. So, pads and chords are not always its strength. Howeve the unison and stack mode save it. Stacked / unison lead and bass sounds easily compete with the best out there, but in normal poly mode with no effects and chorus it can thin out. Adding FX I don't think is a cheat, but is needed, and for some reason the sixtrak takes to fx very well. There is classic sequential magic in these, you just have to tease it out. I love mine/wanna sell it equally - but its so small and cute!
studiomilo I ended up getting a Multi-Trak, instead of a Six-Trak. The Multi seems to be rarer, and it has more features than the Six. I was impressed by the bass, on my unit, coming from just a single voice (one VCO). In unison mode, with all 6 voices, it sounds very fat! The Multi has a velocity sensitive keyboard and a built-in, analog, stereo Chorus, with separate depth and rate controls too!
+Komet163B Yeah, I got the multi-trak, also. In unison mode (or stack) it is an absolute monster. Loved it so much I got another one! Of course, back in the day, you needed multiple machines driven by a hardware sequencer. Sometimes two are better than one.
The six-track is NOT A GREAT SYNTH this guy is a GOOD PLAYER, and like Jexus, he's going to make most thing's sound better than they are DON'T BE FOOLED,
Do you want these patches (sounds) for your SIX-TRAK? You can buy these patches. Read the video description for details.
Wowwww.. this synth is trippy AF! incredible layers
It's cool that you can jam over the sequence.
I really have to stop watching your demo videos. Every time I watch one I want another synth. Thanks for the great work.
:-) thanks for watching!
Wow always wondered what these sounded like. thank you.
This was my first synth. Still have her but haven't played her in years.. Great video! Gonna have to bring her out of retirement! Hope she doesn't need a vacation at Wine country! :(
this is incredible man!!! I was searching all over the internet for history on the first multitimbral synth since i planned on buying the korg legacy collection and somehow ended up researching a lot more than I planned all thanks to the M1...
This here is beautiful
I bought these presets in 2019 after updating the OS. I am STILL using these sounds today.
god, all of your videos are inspiring! I love the sounds.
Nice to see a demo of one of these! I remember owning one in the early 90s when I was first learning to compose e-music. These where cheap used and you had 6 voices and 6 "tracks" you could sequence with AND it was analog. If anyone likes old new age music check out Michel Genest's 1984 album Crystal Fantasy almost 100% Six Trak very much in the style of Kitaro. Youd swear he had a room full of synths because he knew how to get the most out of this little gem of a machine. Nice patched btw!
Thank you. Fab album !
Fantastic, love these sounds!
0:30 sounds like it could turn into the best Last Ninja cover ever... I love this demo!
my first synth...loved it
I love mine!!!!!! Great synth!!!!!!! Thank you for your work with all demos!!!!!! :)))))
Holy shit! This thing is awesome. Thanks for turning me on to it.
No, it's not..this guy is a talented musician, the six-track is a budget synth that doesn't sound very good, what you are liking here is the PLAYER not the INSTRUMENT
Sound comes from the instrument. Just going to leave this here.
Literally the very first analog synthesizer I owned. If it had a chorus and at least one more output it could have competed with the junos easily. It DESPERATELY needed a chorus or something to make the 6-voice poly sounds come alive.
We still joke about “stack mode”. It is massive in that mode.
Nice patches 👍
Very nice demo.....thanks
Bought the presets and installed without issue, just dragged the sysex file to a track in Reaper which was set up to transmit out my MIDI output, made sure tempo wasn't too fast, hit play and the patches loaded fine. (You have to switch away from whatever preset you're currently on, so you won't notice the new patches until you change presets) they sound great! Add a little verb or delay and it's outerspace time, I tried them all and at least 30 of them are ones I want to use in my recordings. Love it.
nice! thx 4 sharing!
you're welcome, thanks for watching
nice patches, man. Congrats!
Ace sound design
Sounds cool.
Hi guys. I own one of these and for those people saying that it has 1 VCO, that is incorrect. The Six Trak has 6 VCOs. You can individually control and use each VCO in whatever combination ypu like by creating and saving 6 patches (as similar or different as you wish) then choosing those patches in stack mode and playing them. You will then get 6 INDIVIDUAL timbres playing all at the same time. PHAT!
***** yes, it's big as a monophonic synth, but somewhat weaker at polyphonic sounds - similar to the Korg Mono/Poly. After all, a very useful analog synth with MIDI
it does have cross-mod, that's interesting. how does that work with 6 individual timbres?
every single voice has cross mod. Actually it is filter FM by oscillator
When people refer to a synth as having one, or being a single VCO synth, it is understood that they mean there are the same number oscillator as voices, most "single VCO synths let you stack the occilators on one voice, or like the AX73 let you use two per voice. But they are not saying there is one oscillator for the whole synth. It's an important point as the rule of thumb is budget synths have one per voice while the more professional models have two (hopefully 3 including a sub occilator)
My first synth :-)
This looks like something Behringer would try to clone. I wonder if it was between this and the Prophet 600 and they went with the 600. Six-Track would've been cool too tho
Pro sounds
These patches are truly fantastic. Would you also make some for neo-analog synths like the Prophet 6 ?
what a coincidence! I have ordered a Sequential Prophet-6 and it came just today ;-) yes, a sound bank and a demo will follow! But it will take some months...
Yay! Looking forward.
What do you think of it so far ? And why didn't you get an OB-6 instead, just by curiosity
great instrument. Well, I prefer the Sequential sound with 24dB filters.
Interesting! I too prefer the SCI sound but the 12db filter seems more sonically flexible, no ? Bandpass & notch seems really fun too. Would be hard to decide.
the Prophet-6 also has a resonant highpass filter and is also flexible. A Sequential 24 dB lowpass filter is essential for creamy mellow sounds and flexibility, so for me it was an easy decision. The P6 is also cheaper and better looking ;-)
You're good at using the pitch wheel on this. It doesn't return to center by itself (no spring) and I'm not good at the return to zero movement on this particular synth.
The Yamaha DX7 was the first synth having a spring in the pitch wheel. Few years later it became standard and is a good improvement. But no synth before 1985 had a spring in the wheel (all Sequentials, the Moogs, Korg Polysix, etc.)
@@AnalogAudio1 I recently cleaned out my Six Trak, dusted out the inside, cleaned the potentiometers and upgraded the EPROM to v14, along with that I cleaned the wheels and I think maybe I need to lube/grease the pitch wheel. Not sure if there was originally some grease on it right now the white plastic tab inside is kind of scraping on the wheel, not very smooth.
@@AnalogAudio1 Isn't it sprung on most of the early 80s Rolands? It is on my Juno 6 and JP-4 anyway. Unless you're drawing a distinction between pitch wheels and pitch benders... great demo though, thanks. Am getting a Six Trak soon hopefully, can't wait :)
pure edgar froese synth.. how its coast? thanks..*hold mode?
not much , hard to find tho..
Just bought one on EBay. Hopefully I can coax at least some of these sounds out of her!
if everything fails, you can still buy this soundset ;-)
AnalogAudio1 I'll most likely take you up on that offer! Thanks for all the endless inspiration!
Oh god........please don't tell me you paid more than $500, even that is too much
Donal Finn no I didn’t and I sent it back because it wasn’t as described by the seller. One of the voices was out, so every 5th key I pressed it would t sound.
Wish someone would demo this synth through some chorus
Me too! A second demo would be sooo welcome with moderns patches as well. PLZ!!
Might be a little late to the party on this, but check Espen Kraft’s demo. He ran his six trak through a nice chorus if I’m remember correctly.
Cheers!
Great demo. Can you do a Six Trak versus Prophet 5 comparison vid?
it doesn't compare very much... just a little bit, it also have the real vintage Sequential vibe
Aside from multitimbrality, do you think there is anything the Six-Trak can do that the P6 can't ?
yes, the Six-Trak has a dedicated ADSR to VCO, VCF and VCA. Also the VCO offers all waveforms at once. And don't forget, the Six-Trak sounds clearly different - more raw in a positive way. I wouldn't sell my Six-Trak even when I have the Prophet-6 now. Both are great and have their own personalities.
Wish I had the money to have them both.
Could you sell them? I cannot get my sixtrak to sound like that.
I decided to make these patches available - the ones you hear in the video and many more (read the video description for details)...
Your making that six track sing. I hear they are a little difficult to program the sound parameters.
Maybe not as simple to program as synths that have a knob or slider per parameter, but it's still quite a simple synth. All the synth parameters are listed on the front panel, so you know exactly what is available to tweak.
So there are 2 seperate sequencers on the six trak? Can you sync the six trak with an external sequencer or the sequnce from another synth? lovely demo.
No, there is 1 Sequencer which can memorize 2 sequences. Yes, MIDI Sync is possible.
AnalogAudio1 How does MIDI sync of the sequencer work? Quantized somehow or how would you keep it in sync with lets say a drummachine when you press the start/stop record manually?
the sequencer is weak, no quantization and very little memory. See it as sketch pad for little ideas
Did you use the Six-Trak's multi-timbral capability on those patches ?
yes, for example when the arpeggiator is running and I play a solo
I wish those reissued neo-analog synths were multi-timbral... so limiting for live sequencing!
Are you selling your patches?
Yep! Read video description for details...
Bought mine in 1990 for $200. It gave me much joy until It went bad in 2002. Spent $250 to fix it. One month later it died again. Sold it on ebay for $150. Still wish I had it in working condition though.
How did he die the second time.
@@fjfrancois Same way. Just turned it on one day and it booted up frozen. It wasn't really fixed the first time. I think the guy just replaced a ribbon cable and re-seated a few of the socketed ICs and got it to work. I would like to know if it was ever fixed properly. Really, the only thing that sucks on the Six-Trak is the interface. The sound of them are as good as the Prophet in my opinion.
I can clearly hear it sounds much better than the MultiTrak/ Why?
The envelopes are faster and the basic sound of the oscillators is a bit different, especially in the unison mode. Why? Different synths with different designs...
@@AnalogAudio1 Isn’t it all one synth in a different modifications and with different OSs? six-multi-split-max
@@ingoodmusic Obviously not.
@@AnalogAudio1 Have you tried T8 btw?
@@ingoodmusic No, never came across one.
My first synth. Great sound but endless problems with it. Mainly the notes just sticking on. Infuriating thing it was.
I had two (now one), never had any problems with it. Occasionally the key contacts have to be cleaned.
@@AnalogAudio1 I think I must have just had a duff one. It was cleaned, but it was never the same note twice. Random notes would just continue until I switched it off.
How much is this worth?
I guess 400-600 Euros
This is a weird time in the synth market. All the modern poly analogs have thrown the vintage speculators into a panic, causing them to try and jack prices through the roof to compensate for the new lack of interest, as long as idiots don't go paying the stupid prices out there right now, the synth market is in for a big correction in the next year, this synth you should never pay for than $400-500 USD anything more WALK AWAY you can get better for more, this was a BUDGET model, it is NOT a flagship classic, nor is it considered to sound very good next to other poly analogs, don't get fooled by the S.Q name or the fact that it was made in the 80's DO NOT PAY BIG BUCKS FOR THIS
Donal Finn its strange you are saying this considering it was $1095 when it was released. I think you’re severely understating the actual price this synth is worth
@@johnhennessey5 No it's not. As Donal stated, it's not a classic. Only they fetch the crazy prices. Given how quickly the contacts wear out on this, any owner is in for a bill. That and its 36 year old electronics near the end of the bathtub curve. There has to be a solid justification behind stupid money prices for old kit, and the Six Trak doesn't have any. It's virtually unknown, even though it sounds good. The reason it was > $1000 in 1984 was solely due to the technology that is old hat now, being new then. Otherwise I'd be flogging my hand built Compukit for silly money too. Price then does not equate to price now.
This instrument was made for the future 🔥🔥🔥🔥
for the past, present AND future :-) just timeless
its not worth the price it goes for today
It's worth the price I paid though ;-) was long ago
FEZ sound track!
at least it sounds like it
I think todays akai miniak has copied a lot of the features from this baby.
bradleylinemihler The akai miniak uses the alesis ion engine
Why is it that in many youtube videos the Six-Trak sounds weak, lame and uninspiring, then once in a while you see one that sounds like this (not too bad). You must be adding some external effects or something to it. One guy even commented on this video that he can't get his Six-Trak to sound anything like this one. I've heard a similar variance of sound on here with Prophet 600s. Some sound awesome, others sound weak, non-fat and not impressive at all..
Its because the sixtrak only has one oscillator, and no chorus to fill out the sound. So, pads and chords are not always its strength. Howeve the unison and stack mode save it. Stacked / unison lead and bass sounds easily compete with the best out there, but in normal poly mode with no effects and chorus it can thin out.
Adding FX I don't think is a cheat, but is needed, and for some reason the sixtrak takes to fx very well. There is classic sequential magic in these, you just have to tease it out. I love mine/wanna sell it equally - but its so small and cute!
Anyone wanting to sell their "weak sounding" Six-Trak I'll gladly take it off your hands :)
studiomilo I ended up getting a Multi-Trak, instead of a Six-Trak. The Multi seems to be rarer, and it has more features than the Six. I was impressed by the bass, on my unit, coming from just a single voice (one VCO). In unison mode, with all 6 voices, it sounds very fat! The Multi has a velocity sensitive keyboard and a built-in, analog, stereo Chorus, with separate depth and rate controls too!
+Komet163B Yeah, I got the multi-trak, also. In unison mode (or stack) it is an absolute monster. Loved it so much I got another one! Of course, back in the day, you needed multiple machines driven by a hardware sequencer. Sometimes two are better than one.
The six-track is NOT A GREAT SYNTH this guy is a GOOD PLAYER, and like Jexus, he's going to make most thing's sound better than they are DON'T BE FOOLED,