UC-1

Sequencer for the Pro One

Courtesy/Thanks to: Per Linné

Description: UC-1 Brochure text.

The UC-1 sequencer is built into the Sequential Circuits PRO-ONE. This installation is not very complicated, but it is recommended to be done by a qualified person. The outer appearance of the UC-1 is a panel with a knob, 8 buttons and a display window. This panel is conveniently located above the PRO-ONE keyboard. On the back panel four new jack sockets are added for tape interfaceing and external clocking.

Outstanding features:
Micro processor controlled sequencer with 1760 battery backuped memo­ry locations. These are dynamically allocated to 10 individual se­quences, 10 transpose sequences and 10 individual chains (i.e. sequen­ce sequences). The UC-1 will not loose its memory at 'power down'.
All note programming is done from the PRO-ONE keyboard in either real time mode or single step mode. AUTO GLIDE is recorded in both modes. In single step mode several features are included that make programm­ing more convenient and controllable than usual on sequencers.
At highest clock speed notes of less than 2 seconds duration use 2 memory locations. Longer notes use 3 memory locations. This allows for high resolution up to about 8 minutes. In other words: The UC-1 can store at least 586 notes and at most 880. Transpose entries and chain entries use one memory location per step, making efficient use of available memory. It is quite possible to achieve 20-30 min of varied music.
The UC-1 has its own high resolution clock, which means that the PRO­-ONE's LFO can be used independently for modulation purposes. Alterna­tively the LFO can still be used for clocking.
The UC-1 has a four character alphanumeric display for various status feedback including clock frequency and active tape load indication.
All sequencer programs can easily be stored and retrieved by an ordi­nary tape recorder. Regardless of the length of the music in the se­quencer the tape procedure takes at most 2 minutes.
None of the PRO-ONE's original functions are tampered with. So, for example, it is still possible to step the new sequencer from an exter­nal clock source or even an audio signal. For advanced applications there are two new jack sockets for high-resolution clock (appr. 100 Hz) in/out. These can be used to synchronise the UC-1 to a drum machine or other UC-1/PRO-ONE's.
The UC-1 has a sync-to-tape facility for multi track studio work. This can also be used to synchronise other devices where this facility is missing.
With help of the PRO-ONE's control Voltage and Trigger outputs the UC-1 can serve as a general purpose sequencer for other synthesizers provided they have inputs for these signals.