This is goddamn great.
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Some incredible patches in there
damn the pro2 and prophet 12 are future unsung classics I can tell you that!
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Recently figured out the paraphonic sequencing.
Powerful stuff. Each OSC with its own gated envelope gets its own track.
Love being able to reprogram one note in a chord live, and have all 4 run on their own individual pattern lengths for paraphonic polyrhythms.
Best synth ever.
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I was wondering how paraphonic sequencing might work. Sounds amazing with the polyrhythmic possibilities.
Should be getting a Pro 2 tomorrow. I had one when they first came out… and it was too much synth for me at the time. A few years on and it all makes so much more sense, much like the A4 did once I had a small modular rack to talk to it.
Can’t wait!
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It’s surprisingly simple to get going.
Make sure paraphonic mode is turned on for the synth, and make sure it is also turned on for the sequencer.
Hit record and play your notes. It will automatically split them into the first four tracks of the sequencer.
The thing that hung me up before was that I was assuming it would put all 4 on track 1, somehow, and so I just didn’t explore it when that assumption proved incorrect.
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Yeah, that was exactly what I thought it was going to do as well. Just watched a couple of YouTube tutorials on it and was pleasantly surprised. They really have added so much functionality to the Pro 2 since the early days. Looks so much more flexible now.
Out of interest, which OS version are you running on yours?
I think it would help if they lumped the manual addendums into the existing manual PDF. But at least they’re all available in the same place. The details about the paraphonic sequencing are in one of the addendums.
Heh, the “newest beta” aka 4 years old 1.4.0.5
There’s a bug thread on the Sequential forum, but in regular use I haven’t come across any bugs, personally.
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Wow. Reading this thread has got me super curious about the Pro 2. I’m thinking about picking one up this week. I know that there are newer, synths out there, but are you all still getting a lot of traction out of your Pro 2’s?
This just seems like a monster of a synth. I recently moved along a few synths with the intention of moving to a single synth and a single sampler for a while in order to learn them really well and stick with the same instruments for long enough to become VERY efficient with them.
I feel like this would pair very well with my SP-16.
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Yea, plenty of new kids on the block, but none as skilled. None as wise.
Lots of traction out of mine. I think I prefer these oscillators with their character FX to any other oscillators on any other synth. They’re just so capable of so much variety, and yet still reside in giant sweet spots.
Usually these qualities are mutually exclusive. But not on the Pro 2. They sound so full, all the time.
These oscillators have made me consider buying a Prophet 12 many times, but I ultimately stop there because the Paraphonic mode is so capable…
The 4 note whole paraphonic implementation is very well thought out. Individually gated envelopes means you’re mostly losing out on the type of keyboard tracked filtering you’d get in a true poly synth.
The supersaw is more “dual-detune-saw” than it is JP-8000 super saw. And that’s not a bad thing, it makes it ideal for paraphonic mode.
Plus you have the sub OSC for a fifth note.
It depends on the style of music you make but unless you really need more than 8 or 9 oscillators, it’s a very capable stand in for a true poly synth.
I have paraphonic patches that definitely sound like 9 oscillators, and P5 filter drive into the OB LPF is a thing of beauty. Tweaking the parallel filter routing just a little bit adds so much.
As I am sure you read, there is loads of modulation on tap.
Synthesis wise, the Pro 3 is more simplified, and as you hear often, it’s own thing. I wish the Pro 3 were designed more as an extension of capabilities of the Pro 2 synthesis than what it is, a more accessible mono synth with more FX and sequencer tricks, but losing so much of what made the Pro 2 great.
I’ve been making some chorus FX with one of the delay lines lately, and that’s been nice. Still need to work on my skills when making Reverb with the delays. But for now I can at least get simultaneous chorus+delay/echo from the 4x delay processors.
And then there’s the ergonomics of it all. It’s not very wide. 44 keys makes a surprising difference over 37. It’s in the Goldilocks zone of capability vs compactness.
This is a debatable statement, but for me, this is the best synth Dave Synth ever made. It isn’t perfect, but it’s damn close.
And it’s going to take a lot more than what the Pro 3 can do to top this thing. Prophet X with the Pro 2’s filters and Character FX woulda been massive.
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Absolutely. This will be my main synth for a long time I think.
The only thing I feel it is lacking is reverb - the four delays cover a lot of ground, but I just can’t quite get to a decent reverb sound. However, it’s obviously not sold on that point, and reverb is easily added elsewhere.
It sounds incredibly ‘analog’ for a digital (oscillator) synth. The fact that it is so highly spec’d means I’m often wondering what I could do with the spare envelope or LFO, rather than wishing for one.
Paraphonic mode is awesome too, plus I’m fairly certain the Sub Osc always tracks the lowest note you are playing, so it’s great for bass note+chord playing.
The touch strips are such an insanely useful feature too, I’m really suprised more manufacturers haven’t done something similar: a single control that you can assign any amound of change in (almost) any parameters to… and you get two of them!
It honestly lets you be as ‘normal’ or as wild as you want. I’m not suprised it and the P12 are kind of cult classics that just seems to appear in all studio photos.
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Yeah I think the Pro2 and Prophet 12 are Dave’s best work. The Pro 3 is still an amazing synth, but I really hate what it stands for. Feels like Sequential caving to the demands of their main demographic. Gone are those scary digital (gasp) oscillators, delays and filter routings. There’s literally an interview with Dave Smith where he says as much. “We didn’t go as crazy this time”.
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Amen @Norb! I don’t want to bag the Pro 3 too much, but the namesake isn’t earned, IMO, especially when you look at the leaps from Pro One to Pro 2, and yet the analog essence was well retained.
Synths with analog oscillators that I love:
Roland MKS-70, Elektron Analog Four, Elektron Analog Rytm (Dual VCO), Dreadbox Typhon.
Synth with digital oscillators that I love even more than those:
Pro 2.
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The one knock against it is I think it takes a bit to learn to get the most out of the oscillators, if you aren’t looking for that more perfect digital sound. The good thing is you have lfos and envelopes out the wazoo, in tandem with the oscillator drift you can really start to craft really great subtle movements into your sound. Add a touch of filter fm, send the envelopes to themselves in the mod matrix for a snappier curve… I could go on but yeah if you learn it well it is super fast to program, very flexible, with a lot of options for characterful sounds aswell.
For more classic sounding poly sounds, I’ll use the supersaws in paraphonic mode. With differing amounts of shape mod (detune).
OSC 1 = +14
OSC 2 = -11
OSC 3 = +16
OSC 4 = -13
Plus different amounts of “slop” (aka “drift” that you mention) on each parameter.
You’re right about feeding envelopes back into themselves. Ugh, the synth is so deep and capable.
It rewards everyone. Whether you want to spend an hour carefully crafting something unique, or two minutes just getting a bass patch to fit into the tune with ease.
Honestly I can’t blame Dave for it. I’m pretty sure they’ve sold 10x more OB-6s than Prophet 12s. Their main demographic loves knob-per-function analog keyboard synths, not deep dive programmer synths. The Pro 3 feels like it’s a mix of a Pro 2 and their bread-and-butter synthesizers like the Prophet 6. It’s retained the absurdly flexible mod matrix, and for that reason alone I still think it’s a fantastic device.
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Thanks @AdamJay and @tomfs, for the responses. I think I’m sold on this one. I was headed for the Pro 3 or Hydrasynth Keyboard, but this just sounds like exactly what I’m looking for.
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how „sweet spotty“ would you say the pro2 is. Does this incredible flexibility take away the day immediacy? Or is it also possible do get nice sounding simple standard patches quickly?
I‘m looking for something that can be very direct but also deep if needed. Hunting for sweet spots can be tiresome on this amount of parameters.
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I would say once you learn it, it is pretty fast to hit sweet spots, but you can easily get off the rails and go down crazy rabbit holes with that many parameters. Some parameters are harder to get to sound good, and it is pretty important to look at your gain staging as there are lots of points to drive/feedback a sound more.
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I made this patch in just a few minutes. All 4 OSCs are tuned separately, super saws with individualized detune and slop on each.
Character FX and P5 filter drive play a big role in the tone. P5 filter is fully open and OB filter is tweaked live.
I rarely use the tuned feedback, 4th LFO, or analog distortion. I’ve never run out of slots in the mod matrix either.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CMnIxtYhjxe/?igshid=7h9x8d88iu9d
Solo’d Pro 2:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9nsa81op8dgq9jj/JustThePro2_-AdamJay.mp3?dl=0
But yea, I had to get to a point where I could do that quickly. Maybe it would have taken me twice as long if I was using it for the first time? It’s a rather bread and butter chord patch.
If you are confident in your abilities to synthesize the sounds you want, it doesn’t take long to get fast with it.
Modulation assignments are relatively quick, compared to Analog Four, for example.
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Thank. Sounds really nice