A lovely piece showing off the sheer flexibility of this synth, -thanks for sharing. I've owned the P12 (module) twice. Its the most well designed interface and best UX as a result I've ever come across. However, I found myself editing it to warm up the sound and would describe it as grey aurally if that makes any sense. I seem to remember increasing the saturation and modulating the fine pitch with noise or random would help. I realised I was trying to get it to sound like a prophet 08, with a darker sound. My excuse for getting it a 2nd time around was falling for its physical appearance - its a handsome beast ! Amusingly, the guy I sold that to was buying his 6th P12 module to polychain it into a 72 voice 144 osc detuned mono monster (which felt like an expensive folly to chase). I do hope he managed to resist the urge to scale it to the P12 farm to 12 :(
I totally agree with your assessment. It's a beautiful synth, but the sound is so difficult to wrangle in. Meanwhile, the 3rd Wave brought me there in only a few moments. That 6th P12 polychain sounds crazy. Reminds me of the guy who bought 3 Radias... 3 Radii? I don't know. He made one awesome video and disappeared. Always wondered what happened with that one!
I'm constantly in tension over selling my P12 and getting something more traditional. But when I sit before the P12, I soon find myself lost in building and exploring interesting sounds; always in a very enjoyable way. I can power on my OB-6 and without much effort have a beautiful familiar sound. Yet, the OB-6 doesn't invite me to dive into a possibility of sounds the way the P12 does. They are nearly opposite synths in this regard: the Oberheim is all sweet-spot and no effort, the P12 is all intrigue and investigation. Here's what I see in the design of the P12: Hand-holding is not a thing: Although the flow of the interface is brilliant, building a sound requires either planning or attentive exploration with your ears, not your eyes. Parameters are not constrained to traditionally useful ranges: often on modern gear the range of filters, effects, parameters, etc. are constrained so that anything from 0-10 (or 0 -127) sounds "good." NOT the P12. It's very easy to go from musical to ugly in the slightest twist of a knob. I've found that fairly often 80% of the range of a knob or parameter is unusable. For example, "slop" is capable of modulating pitch a whole-tone! The P12 hides nothing and gives you access to everything. Effects (character and delay) are an integral part of the sound: I wondered why there was no on-board reverb but I realized this synth is not about hiding behind a beautiful haze, it's about engaging with the construction and destruction of complex sonic information. Reverb is the social media face-filter of synthesis, everything is smeared and smoothed until it's all the same beautiful blur, the P12 takes reverb beautifully, but it doesn't extend you any shortcuts, it demands deliberate interaction. The limited number of waveforms was probably not intentional, but this constraint helps focus the sound designer on all the above. You're not going to find satisfaction with a basic saw/filter sweep sound on this synth, nor will you find any "samey" sounding swept wavetables. Those sounds are easily obtained elsewhere. Though frustrated at first, I'm now glad the P12 isn't yet another "wavetable monster." The Prophet 12 is a synth for people who love puzzles; a synth for people who want to be challenged. It deeply divides synthesists and for that reason will never be unloved, or un-hated.
Those are all great points. P12 is definitely a synth for people who love puzzles and want a challenge. I think it's an interesting synth, and unique, but I can't say it's among my favorites, it just does what it does really well.
I have a P10 and love it. I like it way more than the P12. I didn’t care much for the Prophet 6, but only spent a small amount of time with it. I played the OB-6. It was ok too. But looked cooler than it sounded IMO. The P08 is my second favorite Sequential/DSI synth. I find it to be tonally the best next to the P10, maybe even better in some ways because it fits only within sweet spots and has great modern modulations and features. Didn’t like the REV2 at all. An updated P08, with worse sound IMO. I have not used the Pro2, Prophet XL, Pro3, Teo5. Wow… I have a lot of DSI synths.
Such beautiful sounds... You have chosen the right time to re-upload. DAVE SMITH passed away two years ago today. All synth lovers will never forget the PROPHET of the synthesizers... ua-cam.com/video/cyvbOYBBc2I/v-deo.html
Yes, Sir:)! Love those sounds! Infinitely surreal and majestic. Thank you...
Thanks :)
A lovely piece showing off the sheer flexibility of this synth, -thanks for sharing. I've owned the P12 (module) twice. Its the most well designed interface and best UX as a result I've ever come across. However, I found myself editing it to warm up the sound and would describe it as grey aurally if that makes any sense. I seem to remember increasing the saturation and modulating the fine pitch with noise or random would help. I realised I was trying to get it to sound like a prophet 08, with a darker sound. My excuse for getting it a 2nd time around was falling for its physical appearance - its a handsome beast ! Amusingly, the guy I sold that to was buying his 6th P12 module to polychain it into a 72 voice 144 osc detuned mono monster (which felt like an expensive folly to chase). I do hope he managed to resist the urge to scale it to the P12 farm to 12 :(
I totally agree with your assessment. It's a beautiful synth, but the sound is so difficult to wrangle in. Meanwhile, the 3rd Wave brought me there in only a few moments.
That 6th P12 polychain sounds crazy. Reminds me of the guy who bought 3 Radias... 3 Radii? I don't know. He made one awesome video and disappeared. Always wondered what happened with that one!
Good morning, very great Sounds World
Thanks!
damn, I really love these tones, and the glorious soundscapes and motif's you pull from them.......
Thanks!
I'm constantly in tension over selling my P12 and getting something more traditional. But when I sit before the P12, I soon find myself lost in building and exploring interesting sounds; always in a very enjoyable way. I can power on my OB-6 and without much effort have a beautiful familiar sound. Yet, the OB-6 doesn't invite me to dive into a possibility of sounds the way the P12 does. They are nearly opposite synths in this regard: the Oberheim is all sweet-spot and no effort, the P12 is all intrigue and investigation.
Here's what I see in the design of the P12:
Hand-holding is not a thing: Although the flow of the interface is brilliant, building a sound requires either planning or attentive exploration with your ears, not your eyes.
Parameters are not constrained to traditionally useful ranges: often on modern gear the range of filters, effects, parameters, etc. are constrained so that anything from 0-10 (or 0 -127) sounds "good." NOT the P12. It's very easy to go from musical to ugly in the slightest twist of a knob. I've found that fairly often 80% of the range of a knob or parameter is unusable. For example, "slop" is capable of modulating pitch a whole-tone! The P12 hides nothing and gives you access to everything.
Effects (character and delay) are an integral part of the sound: I wondered why there was no on-board reverb but I realized this synth is not about hiding behind a beautiful haze, it's about engaging with the construction and destruction of complex sonic information. Reverb is the social media face-filter of synthesis, everything is smeared and smoothed until it's all the same beautiful blur, the P12 takes reverb beautifully, but it doesn't extend you any shortcuts, it demands deliberate interaction.
The limited number of waveforms was probably not intentional, but this constraint helps focus the sound designer on all the above. You're not going to find satisfaction with a basic saw/filter sweep sound on this synth, nor will you find any "samey" sounding swept wavetables. Those sounds are easily obtained elsewhere. Though frustrated at first, I'm now glad the P12 isn't yet another "wavetable monster."
The Prophet 12 is a synth for people who love puzzles; a synth for people who want to be challenged. It deeply divides synthesists and for that reason will never be unloved, or un-hated.
Those are all great points. P12 is definitely a synth for people who love puzzles and want a challenge. I think it's an interesting synth, and unique, but I can't say it's among my favorites, it just does what it does really well.
What do you think of the P12 vs. the more recent Prophet incarnations?
I have a P10 and love it. I like it way more than the P12. I didn’t care much for the Prophet 6, but only spent a small amount of time with it. I played the OB-6. It was ok too. But looked cooler than it sounded IMO. The P08 is my second favorite Sequential/DSI synth. I find it to be tonally the best next to the P10, maybe even better in some ways because it fits only within sweet spots and has great modern modulations and features. Didn’t like the REV2 at all. An updated P08, with worse sound IMO.
I have not used the Pro2, Prophet XL, Pro3, Teo5. Wow… I have a lot of DSI synths.
Such beautiful sounds...
You have chosen the right time to re-upload. DAVE SMITH passed away two years ago today. All synth lovers will never forget the PROPHET of the synthesizers... ua-cam.com/video/cyvbOYBBc2I/v-deo.html
Ah man that’s crazy it’s been two years already. Wild. Not that I personally knew him, but I have more DSI synths than any other.