On August 31 Dave Smith, on behalf of his company "Dave Smith Instruments" announced its rebranding, timed to the 40th anniversary of their first synthesizer - Prophet~5. From now on the company is called “Sequential”, which refers us to the original name of the company founded in 1974 by Dave Smith - “Sequential Circuits”, which once firmly established itself in the developing market of electronic musical instruments and soon positioned itself as the main innovator in this field. In 1978, Sequential Circuits’ flagship keyboard, the Prophet~5, took the music world by storm as the world’s first fully-programmable polyphonic synthesizer and the first musical instrument with an embedded microprocessor. Soon, it was followed by new innovative developments, some of which also became "pioneers" in the world of electronic musical instruments: the Prophet 600 (the world’s first MIDI-equipped instrument), the Six Trak (the first multi-timbral synthesizer), and the Prophet VS (the first instrument to feature digital vector synthesis).

In 1987, the company "Sequential Circuits" ceased its activities and the name of the company (shortened to "Sequential" in the mid-1980s), as well as its assets were acquired by Yamaha company. Dave Smith himself continued his work as a consultant for Yamaha and Korg companies, with a hand in the creation of Wavestation and many other products.

In 2002, Dave founded “Dave Smith Instruments” company to concentrate on creating his own instruments, and released the Evolver, a hybrid analog/digital synthesizer, followed by Prophet '08, Mopho, Tetra, Tempest drum machine, Prophet-12, Pro-2, Prophet~6, OB-6, Prophet Rev2, and finally the Prophet X.

In 2015, with the encouragement of Roland Founder, Ikutaro Kakehashi, Yamaha returned the Sequential name to Mr. Smith in a gesture of goodwill.

Here is what Dave Smith himself has to say about this event: “Once Kakehashi-san and Yamaha enabled us to re-acquire the Sequential name, I knew we’d fully adopt it again when the time was right. That time has arrived,” said Smith. “Sequential is back, better than ever”. He also pointed out that such a change in the name reflects the fact that their instruments are the result of teamwork: “It’s not just me, it’s the entire company,” he says.