Being a Pro2 user/lover for 4 years now, i can totally call it a machine which lets you easy hit sweetspots. Key is the Inteface (much knobs on the front) and the menu structure (going deep if you want to). Shortcuts e.g. hold source knob, turn destination knob to make mod connections is a breeze. Soundwise it`s quite versatile but tends to be on the colder, crunchy side of things (esp with feedback patch, osc mods like bitreduction, drive etc). A truly gem is the ability to use a programmed sequencer patch and scroll thru your patches. This opens up your saved patches to totaly new and surprising sequencer gymnastics.
Top Machine
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Never tried that, great tip, sounds fun!
Don’t forget the audio input either. Those 2 filters and all other mangling options are wild. You can treat the audio in completely together with the internal oscs.
My pro2 has been out on holiday the last 5 months as I’m moving hohses. It sleeps in a friends studio with quite a few of my other luxurious instruments.
I miss it the most, which is a powerfull and surprising insight…
God this was the hardest I’ve ever had to try to buy a synth.
Bought it from a local shop. Got a call a few minutes later telling me it was already sold. Said screw it, bought the relatively expensive one listed on Reverb. Refunded, already sold. Tried to buy the only one listed on Ebay. Messaged the seller, already sold.
Found one on a French music store’s website through Google search, but the page itself does not show up on the website when you search for the pro 2. Called about it and it’s a display model. Was asked to send them an e-mail about it. Called a day later to see if my e-mail got through, and they literally hung up on me when they recognized me. Called again and didn’t get through at all. WHAT THE HELL?!
I almost gave up, thought maybe I should just buy a pro 3 instead. It does sound very nice as well, and perhaps offers more of a different flavour to my prophet 12 than the pro 2. That’s when I look at the filter implementation on the pro 3 and just weep. Who puts 3 filters on a mono and then doesn’t do anything fun with them? I finally managed to find one through ebay-kleinanzeigen, which is kind of like German Gumtree/Craigslist, and I found a seller willing to ship to the Netherlands. There’s a few listed there still. There’s also a few listed in the UK, but the import fees would’ve bumped the price up too much for me.
I’ll let you guys know if/when it arrives. Hopefully this whole saga will be worth it. The pro 2 on paper looks like a dream machine to me. I love paraphonic synths, but pretty much all of them are super limited due to being analog monos. Honestly poly synths should come with a paraphonic/cycling mode.
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You know, I’m in a similar position to yourself - always been thinking about the Pro2 for many years and this thread keeps popping up and reminding me what I’m missing out on. I might be finding myself with a bit of spare cash in the near future. Whereabouts in the UK did you see them listed? I could finally be tempted!!
Check Gumtree. There’s also one up on eBay right now that’s located in the UK.
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It’s here!
First impression is very good. I’ve only really messed around with the oscillators and the filters so far, and already I have gotten tons of really interesting sounds. Haven’t even touched the sequencer yet.
Okay so the fact you can put it in paraphonic mode, but then still have the oscillators affect each other with sync, AM or FM is bonkers. The pitch relationship between each osc keeps changing as you play various notes, and when used very subtly it’s magical. Can’t think of any synth (except maybe to some degree the Pro 3) that can do that. I’ve just been messing with it all day.
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Yeah there is a ton to get lost in, key tracking subtle FM can be really cool to make stuff break apart in the upper or lower registers.
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always nice to see the pro2 getting some attention
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4 note paraphony on a synth is a rare treat. With the release of the Matriarch the Pro 2 has a new stablemate. Here’s a tiny demo of how the two compare on a similar paraphonic sound.
0:00 - 0:30 Matriarch
0:30 - 0:55 SEM P2
0:55 onward is a little bit of P5 filter
The differences are kind of what you’d expect really. Moog has more bassyness and the DSI has that midrange presence. I wish the Pro 2 had all the paraphonic modes of the Matriarch.
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How are you liking the combo? Have you tried patching them together yet? I literally just ordered a mint pro 2 to go along with my Matriarch as well. Curious how an analog oscillator sounds running through the pro 2’s filter section alongside its wavetables. I May even grab a behringer pro 1 just to run its oscillators through the pro 2 and have the best of both worlds haha.
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It’s the paraphonic power couple. Both are insanely deep synths, and the CV connectivity just adds even more layers. I can’t say I’m even close to exhausting all possible options. So far I’ve just used the Pro 2 CV outs to give the Matriarch some additional modulation options. The Matriarch standalone is right at this sweet spot feature wise where you can do just about anything, but you need to carefully consider WHAT. Adding the Pro 2 means you get to screw the rules and add an additional 4 LFOs or Envelopes if you want.
Sound wise they also compliment. The Matriarch is definitely voiced more like a mono. The Pro 2 feels almost like a poly that was only given one set of filters.
They’re a nice match if you don’t mind having two monster mono/para synths. Part of me feels like I should get rid of one just so I can squeeze a poly back into my setup. I just can’t get myself to let go of one or the other at the moment.
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Kinda is, thanks to the individually gated amp envelopes.
It’s kept me from getting a Take 5.
Kinda like my Take 4, really. 
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I believe the Matriarch does the same actually! I was talking about the character of the sound. The Moog can play 4 notes at once, but it still has this really fat bottom end. The Pro 2 is voiced much more like other DSI synths, despite being a mono. You get a brassy midrange sound out of it.
It can definitely do mono duties but its not going to replace someones Sub37. I wonder if the Pro 3 has a fatter sound to it, since it seems designed to be more traditional than the Pro 2.
So… my journey to streamline and downsize my setup has me thinking about the Pro 2 again - it really could do a fantastic job replacing a number of other bits of kit. This thread is a gold mine of temptation… Whilst I’ve been researching, there is a wee query about the sequencer I’m hoping someone can shed some light on.
I understand that each lane can have it’s own length - e.g. Track 1 having 12 steps, Track 2 having 8 steps etc for polymetric fun. I also understand that with more recent firmware that you can have different sequencer directions - forward, pendulum, random etc. So, how does it work when you combine the two aspects? Is each lane independent? Like, would the random step be different for each lane or would it jump to the same random step for every lane (in which case what if one lane only has 3 steps but it’s trying to jump to step 7)? Or, can you set sequence direction for each lane (that would be mental, in a cool way)?
I’m pretty sure each lane is independent, so if lane one is 5 and lane 2 is 7 they will both ping pong how you expect, I’m pretty sure random follows this aswell not sure exactly how it works but my guess is there is one seed and then it picks numbers based on that and wraps around to pick the step based on how long the lane is. You can’t set the play mode per track sadly, I’m pretty sure that the Pro3 did get that feature. One cool thing on the sequencer is the glides are based on the next/last note so stuff like random and ping pong can have some really interesting note glides.
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Thanks for the insight, that’s (another!!!) big tick in the plus column. Sounds really good for being able to dial in just the right blend of generative vs predictable.
Hi Guys;
I’m currently looking to get a workhorse synth to replace my DX7; looking for hands on control and sound design possibilities mainly.
While i’ve been looking at the Sub(sequent) 37, Prophet rev 2 and Nord Lead A1 mainly; I discovered the Pro 2 and Pro 3 as well. The latter being more of a ellaborate sub 37 if I can put it that way, of course differences in sounds but just in terms of options.
Then the Pro 2 has digital oscilators; and is actually 4 voice poly?
I find that these all have a lot of overlapping features; i am mainly looking for something that can do basses and leads and everything inbetween; should I even consider the Pro range?
It’s not a true ‘poly’ as the filter section is shared, so it’s technically paraphonic. As long as you don’t want to do wild filter sweeps on each note you can get away with it being ‘poly’.
The oscillators can be routed to each filter in pairs too, so you can do all kinds of madness if you switch it to paraphonic mode then.
I love my Pro2 - normal enough that I can easily get some standard sounds, deep enough that I can start to replicate other classic synth sounds, right up to pure madness with the superwaves and the weird waveforms (and being able to blend between them in a semi-wavetable type way).
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Its probably the closest you can get to faking poly sounds convincingly on a paraphonic synth. There’s some digital trickery involved with the amp envelope. Here’s some sound examples:
Lush pad using the OB-6 filter it has
Oscillators FMing slightly eachother while being played paraphonically
It’s a really deep synth. Deeper than it’s brother the Pro 3 and definitely deeper than the Sub37. The flipside is that it’s not going to instantly sound as phat as a moog sub37. If you want that classic mono sound on speed dial look elsewhere, but if you’re interested in the more experimental side of synthesis it’s one of the best synths for it.
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thanks! Are these dry sounds? Im not too sure yet tbh. I’m new to sound design but I thoroughly enjoy creating drums. So looking to step into melodics as well