Analogue Solutions AS500-Seq

Analogue Solutions’ AS500‑Seq is defiantly old‑school, eschewing quantisation, MIDI and encoders...

“You spoke, we listened,” declares the promotional video for Analogue Solutions’ AS500‑Seq 64‑step sequencer. It might look big and bulky — an impressive 38 by 29 centimetres — but by Analogue Solutions’ standards it’s pint‑sized. Perhaps I say this because the AS500‑Seq is in fact lifted straight out of a corner of the staggeringly huge EMS Synthi 100‑inspired Colossus; although it would actually be more accurate to say it skips a generation, since the Colossus’ sequencer circuit, so far as I can tell, is itself a faithful reimagining of the lauded Megacity ‘teardrop’ step sequencer.

I’ll stop, before we end up in Old Testament‑length lineages; the Megacity was reviewed in SOS by Paul Nagle back in 2017, who found it “an endless and evolving world of polyrhythms.” A 64‑step analogue sequencing titan that could be split into two 32‑step sequencers if desired, each step offered a choice of two different gate outputs, X or Y, alongside some very inventive and creative pattern configurations. If you filed a cutting of that review, you won’t be blown away by a raft of new features here; indeed, the latter does not offer one or two things the Megacity did, such as MIDI. In fact I wouldn’t dissuade you from reading Paul’s great piece to get something of a different angle on the AS500‑Seq, so similar is its functionality to that of the Megacity. In any case, since user demand was the apparent driving force behind the AS500‑Seq’s release, I suppose it’s my job to ask whether or not that demand has been satisfied.

Along with the AS500‑Seq itself, I was grateful to have been sent a companion synth, the similarly‑proportioned Analogue Solutions Ample. The Ample I have also been keen to try for some time, and while this review isn’t principally concerned with it, it’ll be our case study if nothing else. And what a gorgeous thing it is: a 16‑step sequencer of its own with a host of syncopation options and even a ‘snare drum’ noise output, a row of CV touch pads, three oscillators, two envelopes, a ring modulator and an elegant little pin matrix, it’s ample indeed, as futuristic‑looking as it is retro. Simply marvellous.

Simplicity Itself

If you’re at all familiar with Analogue Solutions then you’ll already know what to expect from the AS500‑Seq: this is old‑school synthesis, in almost every sense. A 64‑step all‑analogue machine, it has no MIDI, no quantisation of any kind (again, unlike the Megacity) and certainly no USB. Its encoder‑less, preset‑less workflow consists of knobs, toggle switches and the odd button, and that’s more or less it. And here I was thinking my Doepfer Dark Time was a nod to old‑school sequencing.

Like its predecessor, the AS500‑Seq centres on a vertical ‘teardrop’ layout whose transport moves from top to bottom, each step’s knob lighting up in sequence column‑to‑column as if ‘dripping’ downward. It is very pretty. There’s no Direction control here: instead, sequence variation is achieved by flicking various step switches to Jump, meaning the sequence will hop from one column to the next at that point. The topmost steps in each column have a Reset option instead of Jump for variable sequence lengths, and variously combining these two can make for some very interesting patterns. You can set the second lot of 32 steps to operate at divisions of the main clock, and you can also set it to act as a ‘fill’ for a sequence ordinarily operating across steps 1‑32, either with a button or trigger signal. Combine all of this along with the X and Y gate options and you’ve got some considerable and unique creative scope.

Fair to say, with so many steps available and with no scale quantising, you might find yourself spending a good amount of time tuning and preparing your sequence, but once a selection of values are in place and the clock is running, it’s essentially for the step switches to take over with their selectable gate outs and Jump settings. This is a lot of fun. In one simple but effective patch I sent one side of the AS500‑Seq to one of the Ample’s oscillators and the other side (with a sequence of different length and division) to another. I then used the AS500‑Seq’s clock to sync the Ample’s own onboard sequencer and trigger its filter and VCA envelopes (while it certainly does not disappoint overall, the Ample curiously doesn’t have a way to trigger either of its envelopes externally). In any case, I then patched the Ample’s Interval Generator CV touch pads to the filter cutoff with the pin matrix so I could performatively offset its response to the envelope. I dialled in a little portamento for the AS500‑Seq’s second side (there’s a Glide knob for each), and in no time I was composing some rich and dynamic sounds.

Back To Basics

Two understandable questions might arise at this point: firstly, why is it so expensive? And secondly, why would I want that in my setup? To address the first: not only do Analogue Solutions operate, from what I can tell, with fairly short runs, the components in their designs are at a premium: durable, sealed potentiometers, a steel and aluminium enclosure, and so forth. Where a manufacturing shortcut has been available, nine times out of 10 it has not been taken. That, in my experience, is generally worth paying for.

As for the second, this is something Analogue Solutions founder Tom Carpenter himself joked about with me at SynthFest, wryly quipping that people must surely not have any need for such a physical beast of a sequencer, let alone one with basically none of the mod cons we’ve come to rely on. It’s one thing to remortgage your house and jump feet‑first into the land of Colossus — you know what you’re getting yourself into there. But I’d say that adding this one ‘Colossal’ module into an existing setup requires a different mindset entirely.

Having but one genuine piece of no‑stabilisers analogue gear is not only a rarity these days but a highly valuable piece of creative stimulation.

My argument for its intrinsic value is fairly simple. Having but one genuine piece of no‑stabilisers analogue gear is not only a rarity these days but a highly valuable piece of creative stimulation; on top of this, it’s even more valuable that it isn’t a sonic component like an oscillator or a filter — any of which, if we’re honest, can basically be whipped into shape with a modern control signal. It’s a controller that requires direct interaction to work, and occasionally a little bit of calculation. Even writing this review, using the AS500‑Seq felt like reading a physical book after, ahem, staring at a computer screen all day. Or recording to tape without the visual feedback of a DAW. Its physical size meant I had to move my body to interact with the machine, the steps’ unquantised values meant that improvising on the knobs created as many weird microtonal intervals as it did more musical ones.

As for the question of whether or not the user demand for a rebooted Megacity has been satisfied — if you are a MIDI devotee then I daresay you’ll be disappointed with the AS500‑Seq. Retaining the signature Megacity workflow with a more compact form factor, however, along with more tactile and durable light‑up step knobs and a far more ergonomic overall shape, it would be remiss not to call it an enormous success.