Well the Pro 2 arrived, questionably packed for sure (a good chunk of what padding there was was scratchy loft insulation, thankfully on the back of the synth) but luckily it didn’t look like it’d taken any drops on the way. Some dings that I would’ve mentioned if it were me (we can’t all be as amazing at selling things as I, one supposes) but good shape on the whole and a cracking, if slightly stressful, deal.
Really happy with my choice over the Pro 3 and kind of amazed at how quickly I was flying around the interface, which is a testament to how well designed it is… though I guess reading the manual and watching loads of videos whilst agonising over the decisioin probably helped! I’ve only really needed to remind myself of some of the sequencer stuff so far. Loving getting to know it.
I didn’t buy it expecting top tier ‘normal’ analogue type sounds really but it can get closer than I’d gathered from videos - a bit of slop, filter drive, modulating the envelope stages and it sounds pretty convincing. A nice bonus.
Something I wondered about and need to investigate more: at one point I was playing fairly high up the keyboard with one of the wavetable type shapes and there was some kind of noise going on. It sounded like aliasing, but lower down in the frequency range than you’d expect and couldn’t be filtered out. I don’t think I was pushing anything too hard but wondered if it might’ve been too much gain hitting the filter or something? The different options for gain/saturation definitely feel pretty crucial to get to know.
Found a good deal and went for the Pro 2 after reading many positive comments about it.
Well, I can confirm that’s a synth that drives you into the programming hole, had a lot of fun and created quickly a fair amount of patches in the last few days.
There’s only one thing that is a bit annoying: the envelope attack and release click.
I mean, I tried to start with the global init patch, set only OSC 1 with sine wave, activated the wave reset option for zerocrossing, both filters fully open, both Filter envs at 0 and Amp Env Attack set to values over 0.
Even with higher Attack values, long release values, and using the self env mod matrix trick to smooth both attack and release curves, I still get the clicks with this simple sinewave patch.
The only solution to avoid/mask a bit the clicks, it’s to close filter 1 quite a bit.
The mess comes up when you start to use the delays, the delayed clicks become very annoying.
Of course this happens mainly in case of clean tone patches.
I think I’ve tried, but not 100% sure to have done it correctly.
I set into the mod matrix Env4 to Amp Env Attack and another slot Env4 to Amp Env Release too.
Do you have an example?
In the meantime I did a test with the Analog Four Env shape change between linear reset and no-reset (icon with dot and without dot, shapes 0 and 1).
I Set a triangle on osc 1 only, closed a bit filter 1 to get less harmonics, did a similar sequence and played with the Amp env parameters.
With linear reset, the response is the same as the Pro 2, I get clicks at each triggered note, instead, with linear no-reset (without dot) the trigger click disappear.
Seems that the Pro 2 have the env reset behaviour (icon with dot equivalent to A4).
I don’t think you could mod it internally to add another analog oscillator. But you could get a eurorack oscillator module, sequence it with the CV outs, and return it into the Audio Input.
that’s what I was thinking aswell…
A partially broken DSI pro2 turned up on local ebay for thin money… description said that due to an perfomed mod with an additional analog osc, the connection of the oscillators to the filter section on the PCB broke. Will investigate this thing tomorrow, if it turns out to be an easy fix, I might consider to get my hands on it
Description also speaks about modifications to the front and rear of the synth, which makes me think if there might be an attempt to include additional Boards into the synth
If you know exactly what is broken on it, you could also try reaching out to Sequential to see what a replacement board/part what cost. They are usually good about supporting products for a long time, and I wouldn’t be surprised that they still have parts for the Pro 2.
Anybody has some serious reasons why not to get Pro 2? Some hardware issues that appeared during time, firmware quirks that will obviously last forever as it is discontinued or anything…
I´ve been obsessed lately with getting one of these futuristic monos - MEK, Pro 2 or Pro 3. And somebody is offering Pro 2 almost locally, so I am trying to decide whether go this way…
I’ve had a few Pro2s over the years. I love the idea of the instrument…it’s a modulation monster and the filters sound great. Lots of fun the way they can be routed/modulated.
I didn’t care for the raw sound of the oscillators and felt like it took some time programming to get the results I wanted. You can always make your own “init” patch and save as a starting point though. Also didn’t find the sequencer all that intuitive. These are just personal things and I won’t dive any deeper here.
Hardware-wise I’ve also had a few of the encoders get super skippy and had to replace them. Sequential hooked me up with replacements for free and replaced them myself, but they’ll also do it for cheap if you take the board out and send it to them.
I understood from some discussions here and elsewhere that the oscillators could appear somehow boring (maybe too strong word) in basic setting but can be effectively sculpted with those five character parameters.
Skippy encoders were also mentioned more than once… Maybe someone wrote that firmware reinstall helped or something like that… I am in Europe, so (potential) sending to San Francisco is not really inviting. But the unit is bought new some three years ago, around the time it was discontinued.
I was pretty obsessed with getting one for a while. Finally got one, and I liked it. For me, the pro 3 was better in every single way. Absolutely love the pro three, felt let down by the pro 2. Glad I was able to try one though! I have a mono evolver and poly evolver and I like those way more!
You mean the Mono Evolver Keyboard? You like it more than either Pro 2 or Pro 3?
Originally I was most interested in Pro 3 out of these - from the videos and manual it seems way more intuitive. But this used Pro 2 (with case) is for 60% price of new Pro 3.
Pro2 is really cool, had one for ages… it think it might be one you have to try and see if you get along with it. I felt I always had to do quite a bit if tweaking in the oscillator slop, drive, bitcrush, and decimate but the digital side never really will sound like a MEK. Sending audio from an old sampler through it made me really wish it had a something a little more raw as a starting point. That said the superwaves are a stand out very easy to get nice big lush sounds out of, 4 voice paraphonic is a treat and the filter architecture is amazing. To me having the dual filter serial or parallel was worth putting up with the extra work you had to put into the oscillators compared to a Pro3.
I guess I did sell it eventually though, Waldorf M basically got me the gritty hybrid sounds with ease that I was struggling towards with the Pro2… and I noticed I was just using it less and less. My biggest reason for selling though was just space, as I had moved and the new space lacked a good spot for the Pro2.
Well, that is a good point for me - my sole hw synth is actually Waldorf M. I was thinking they would complement each other. Maybe it is not that good idea.
The reason I am looking into these is I would like to have some keyboard synth - for some space and family reasons I don’t have a dedicated music room, only corner. So it is not connected permanently and it is quite scarce for me to have enough time to connect it with keyboard and focus. (and I was kind of distracted with the firmware situation lately, though that seems better now)
So the idea is to get something that can be just switched on and played when I have shorter time frame to do something. But maybe I should look elsewhere at the end. Was thinking about Take 5 as well (I understand that it is something completely different…)
Yeah workflow on the Pro2 I would consider near perfect but I found getting a sound I like on the M to be much faster because I had to tweak less to get there. I think it might come down to how much you like the clean tone or the FM stuff you can do on the Pro2 because M has the gritty stuff so well covered. Funnily I ended up with a Spectralis and in some ways its mono hybrid synth is pretty similar to the Pro 2 (4 oscs 2 analog filter serial parallel or mixed) also but more open in audio signal routing… its workflow is more M like with no modmatrix screen and is more of a pain to work because of some pretty deep menuing but its VA oscillators feel huge in it. Sadly I don’t have any great recs as far as actual keyboard monos go, I do know the Pro3 has local key off where you still maintain control local on which can be nice as a controller, as you can then use something like a digitakt to route the midi back or to other devices really quickly, Pro2 just has fully local on or off so you would need like a midi filter to set up something similar instead.
I have an M and a Pro 2, obviously it totally depends what you’re looking for out of them but for me they don’t have a lot of crossover. 90% of the time the Pro 2 is my ‘oddball para’ synth because that just feels like its wheelhouse, it does a lot in that area that nothing else can. Personally I love the sound of paraphony and I’m not sure anything beats it in that regard, except maybe the Matriarch in terms of pure sound but naturally that’s a lot more limited in terms of wave shapes etc.
Sound is a weird one with the Pro 2, the basic analog style waveforms aren’t great for whatever reason but (unpopular opinion time) I actually don’t like the sound of the Pro 3 VCOs either. I tried very hard to because I would’ve preferred to buy just one synth rather than getting the Pro 2 and another analogue mono, but after listening to basically every demo out there I couldn’t convince myself. To me the Take 5 is their best sounding synth on the oscillator front, if the Pro 3 was voiced in a similar way I’d have bought one. In contrast, the Pro 2 grew on me more and more as I listened to more demos… It does have its own flavour of weird hybrid sound - on more restrained patches I find it very kind of ‘spacey’ and forlorn. You can really hear it during this demo, which I think was the one which finally convinced me to go with it over the Pro 3.
If you extend ‘sound’ beyond the oscillators though, the filter section is superb. The delays can sound good (especially the BBD emulation) but, like the analog waveforms and envelopes, you have to dial in the modulation to do it and if you do all of the above you’ll be eating well into your mod slots. The distortion is very situational for me, I kind of wish they’d just stuck a Rat clone in there or something but it can definitely be just the ticket on certain sounds. Add in the tuned feedback and character section and it’s a VERY full-featured sound processor. If you just put a Werkstatt or something into it you’d be covering a lot of ground.
There are some slight bugs/niggles in the UI I’ve come across which will never be fixed, but nothing major. Getting it to send MIDI note info to other synths via the sequencer is a pain (but possible) if you have any plans to do that. If I get frustrated by anything it’s wondering why some seemingly obvious modulation destinations aren’t present (‘all env stages’ for one) but I suppose that can always be a thing with complex synths, when there’s a general lack of limitations they tend to feel all the more glaring when you do find them.
I had no idea this existed but it seems excellent. The best part is that either due to luck or good management I’ve found it’s possible to use it whilst still retaining the ability to use the Pro 2 as my DAW’s MIDI keyboard, setting the VST to send/receive over USB and the DAW to use the DINs works seemingly without a hitch. I love it when a plan comes together.
I just bought a Pro 2 after a long time researching the DSI/Sequential lineage of the last 15-20 years or so. After Dave Smith died it dawned on me that even though I have great respect for the man, I’ve never owned one of his instruments. So I decided put aside some money and find out which one it should be.
I wasn’t really interested in the classic analog poly synths as I feel like I have that covered already. I also didn’t want something too vintage because of price and maintenance considerations. So I looked to the hybrids from the Evolvers and on and first settled on the Prophet 12. Missed out on great deal on a P12 module that was up for a long time with no takers, silly me.
While I was waiting for a new one to pop up, I started investigating the Pro 2 and Pro 3 and decided the former was actually “the one” I was looking for.
I loved the sound I was hearing in demos, the specs were just as appealing and it has P12 DNA with a twist. I would still have the braniac sound design playground I was looking for and paraphony is just fine for my purposes, especially the way it’s implemented in the Pro 2.
I haven’t gotten properly started with it yet because I got to focus on finishing up some tracks that don’t include it before I can integrate it into my setup, but I love what I hear just fooling around with it so far and I’m looking forward to making it talk to my modular gear.