Sequential is led by legendary instrument designer and Grammy award winner Dave Smith, who founded Sequential Circuits in 1974. In 1977 Dave designed the Prophet-5, the world's first fully programmable polyphonic synthesizer and the first musical instrument with an embedded microprocessor. In the following 10 years, Sequential introduced many innovative instruments and drum computers to the market.
Dave is known as the driving force behind the 1981 MIDI specification. In fact it was Dave who coined the term. In 1987, he was named a member of the Audio Engineering Society (AES) for his continued work in the field of music synthesis. After Sequential, Dave was president of DSD, Inc. a research and development division of Yamaha, where he worked on physical modeling synthesis and software synthesizer concepts. He then founded Korg's research and development group in California, where he produced the Wavestation and other technologies.
He became head of Seer Systems and developed the first soft synthesizer for Intel in 1994, followed by the first professional soft synthesizer Reality, which was released in 1997.
Recognizing the limitations of software, Dave returned to hardware and founded Dave Smith Instruments, starting in 2002 with the hybrid analog/digital synthesizer Evolver. The product range was expanded and today includes the synthesizers Prophet X, Prophet Rev2, Prophet-6, OB-6 (with Tom Oberheim), Pro 2, Pro 3 and Prophet 12 as well as the drum machines Tempest (with Roger Linn).
In 2018, DSI changed its name to Sequential, bringing Dave's legacy full circle.