Sina is 40.

Happy birthday, from all of us.

The message

For your 40th, from all of us.

A little something to make more music, explore new sounds, and celebrate everything still to come.

From

  • Shiva
  • Borhan
  • Bobby
  • Sabine
  • Maya
  • Leo
  • Farnoosh
  • Andy
  • Jason and Shelly
  • Sarah and Brady
  • Naida
  • Ruth

P.S. Only screen readers can read this part

This paragraph is invisible. Anyone looking at the screen right now has no idea it exists. Sina, the next button is yours alone.

The music

Every MySpace page had a song. So does this one. It will not start by itself, so it will not talk over your screen reader.

Not playing.

The song is synthesized live in your browser, Prophet style: two detuned sawtooth oscillators per voice, a resonant low-pass filter, envelopes, a mono lead with glide, drums made from noise and a sine wave, and a dotted-eighth delay. It builds over about a minute, drops out, and lifts.

The synth: Dave Smith Instruments Prophet '08

Released in 2007 and built in San Francisco by Dave Smith, who designed the original Prophet-5 in 1978. This year Sina is 40, the Prophet '08 is 19, and the Prophet-5 is 48.

  • Eight voices, each with two analog oscillators: sawtooth, triangle, sawtooth-triangle mix, and pulse with pulse-width modulation. Hard sync, and a separate glide rate per oscillator.
  • One Curtis analog low-pass filter per voice, two-pole or four-pole, self-oscillating in four-pole mode. The whole audio path is analog.
  • Three five-stage envelopes and four low-frequency oscillators per voice, with four assignable modulation routings.
  • Gated step sequencer, four rows of sixteen steps, plus an arpeggiator, all syncable to MIDI clock.
  • 256 programs, each with two layers for keyboard splits and stacked sounds.
  • 61 semi-weighted keys with velocity and aftertouch, pitch and mod wheels, and mahogany end panels.

Found at Main Drag Music

It was sitting on top of an Oberheim at the front of the shop in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Sina put both hands on it, played one chord, and the rest of the room went quiet. That was the whole decision.

Sina standing at the Prophet in the shop, head bowed toward the keys, both hands on the keyboard, mid-chord. Sina wears a black hat, a green knit short-sleeved polo, and black jeans. The Prophet sits on top of a bigger black Oberheim keyboard. Behind, a white Hohner Clavinet on a stand, guitars and a banjo on the wall, and racks of gear.
Sina meets the Prophet.
The Prophet '08 on a stand in the front of the shop, its black panel covered in knobs and a mahogany end cheek catching the light, the Dave Smith Instruments logo on the right of the panel. Below it, a larger black Oberheim synthesizer with rows of sliders. Behind them, a cream-colored speaker cabinet, a Hammond organ in dark wood, a Roland stage piano, a wall of Marshall and other amplifier heads stacked to the ceiling, exposed brick, a big leafy plant, and a window to the street.
The Prophet among its elders.

Main Drag Music is an independent instrument and repair shop on South 1st Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in business since 1997, with a stated passion for gear that fits the analog ethos.

The journey

How this Prophet reached Sina in Raleigh, North Carolina.

About 500 miles

  1. Built in San Francisco, California, at the Dave Smith Instruments workshop.
  2. Found at Main Drag Music in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
  3. Hand-delivered by personal courier from New York City to Raleigh.

It's today.

Friday, October 30. Sina, you are officially 40, and you are in Palm Springs, which is the correct place to be.