It’s fantastic! I don’t think it’ll be a honeymoon thing.
It’s range is massive for sure. It can be perfect sounding or excessively organic.
I was a little concerned about the digital controls (for midi control and mod matrix settings) limiting how organic and analog it could sound. I was completely wrong and have found all kinds of unexpected interactions since getting mine late last year.
I guess that’s how I see it as a masterpiece synth. All the goodness of analog with the perfection and versatility of digital without either getting in the other’s way.
speaking of which, have any of you pro3 lovers owned the Take-5? how do you think they compare? i feel the same way about mine as most of the recent commentors here do about the pro3 (magical, best sounding synth ever, etc etc). still want a pro-3 though
I haven’t used the take5 but from what I’ve seen/ head/ read it seems like it and the pro3 are philosophically at opposite ends of dave’s current stable of synths. Granted they both have that dsi flavor. The take5 seems great but just a totally different synth.
I was of course ironic due to the recent hype over the A4 in some threads and the elektron claim “Inimitable analog sound combined with razor-sharp digital accuracy.”
I’ve an A4 mk1 and currently I’m evaluating to get a 2nd hand DSI Pro 2 over the Pro 3 mainly for the dual routing switchable filters and the additional oscillator.
I’ve builded a Dual SVF filter board for the Shruti XT in order to test some possibilities with the parallel filter, the signal flow is similar, digital osc, analog filters.
I’ve tried the Pro 3 in a local store but not that much to explore it in a deep dive way and maturate a solid opinion of it from a sound design perspective.
Anyway, I had fun with the 3 gain/drive stages that were insane.
So I basically unwittingly said their marketing phrase in regards to the Pro 3
Not sure you’d need it for mono sounds anyway (but everyone has different approaches). The 3 on the Pro 3 are very diverse. Also the 2 VCO’s do sound immediately thicker if you compare it with the same waveform on the digital oscillator.
You can definitely get crazy with them.
The interesting thing is to pull back and hear how nice the raw sound is without the gains and distortions.
Also this is where I feel you need to spend some time with it before you get a really good feel for it. Simply because it has a huge range that takes a while to explore.
I don’t know how the Pro 2 mod matrix works.
On the Pro 3 it’s really fast. For recursive envelope modulation (for example) you hold the source button and turn a filter envelope knob. Then hold destination and turn the knob you want to control (filter decay for example) and it’s assigned. The amount controls the last assignment/selection. So you don’t even have to use the menus at all.
Sequencer assignments are very similar and you can live record into it as well.
Point being, when you spend some time with it, it’s enjoyable to program and sounds great. I’m sure the Pro 2 is nice as well though.
Depends on how much you’re obsessed with the Analog Sound. It’s my favorite type of sound personally so I might be biased. I like digital for certain things too though.
I’ve owned both. I reallllly wanted to like the take 5. It did nothing for me and I returned it pretty quickly. I’m on my 3rd pro 3 (had to sell twice for financial reasons but always want to have one!)
interesting. i love mine, but mostly because its the best option available. like the sum of all the good parts of various synths that are otherwise pretty flawed. so it was just a relief to have something that sounded so good plus had a lot of sound design potential and wide timbral range. i am getting to the point that i ultimately arrive to with all synths where the limitations and omissions start to irritate me, but it took much longer for that to happen here, and i wouldn’t think of selling it probably. but contrasted with the pro 3, i feel like i would have less to complain about and even more sound sculpting possibilities there. i’d have to find an alternate polysynth, but the nymphes seems like it can sound almost as good as the t5. it would be hard to get a poly with that gorgeous sound, but maybe i should consider the pro3. if not only for the svf and 3rd vco, and the looping envelopes. all things i wish the take-5 had
i think i’d miss having such a nice analog poly but now that i think of it, the cv ins and outs might work very well alongside my A4 mk2
wait, does the pro3 not have fm? it is so weird what they chose to include and exclude from the take-5. why not just make the ultimate polysynth? id gladly pay the difference
You can weasel some really basic fm stuff out of it with the mod matrix but since it’s not a “feature” it’s really limited in that regard. If there’s one thing I could add it would be better fm capabilities but I’m a long time fm addict so I want that in everything. It doesn’t feel like it’s missing anything by not having it. The patch morphing feature from the last firmware update more than makes up for it.
The Pro 3 does have FM - which is just modulating the oscillator frequency with something else. It does not have DX-7 style FM which is really still only practical in a digital synthesizer as far as I know. Thus is not really an omission, but kind of off the table if you’re going to have two analog oscillators in the system.
But you have wave tables and audio rate modulation of the wave table shapes and VCAs in the mod matrix (Mod Amount). So while you don’t have DX-7 FM, you have access to a fairly large array of digital sounds.
I’ve only had mine 6 months or so still haven’t tried a lot of stuff. But for example I think syncing OSC 2 to OSC 3, then modulating OSC 3 shape with OSC 2, and also modulating the pitch of OSC 2 - I think all kinds of interesting stuff can happen.
Pro 2 matrix assignment is the same, super fast and intuitive.
@Rics the digital section is pretty different also on Pro 2, the superwaves and character effects are really nice imo but yeah much more tweaking is needed to add movement to the basic waveforms for traditional sounds. It’s also slot based wavetables vs traditional wavetables. Pro 3 is a more focused mono synth imo while Pro 2 is more experimental. I probably made more pads and stabs with the Pro 2 than mono voice lines just because there was a lot to explore in that area on it.
Motas-6 does DX-style phase modulation with VCOs so I guess it’s theoretically possible. No idea how he implemented it though, it’s definitely an outlier.
In the modular world there’s also the Richter Oscillator II. But I think in addition to phase modulation you need phase locking across all oscillators. I think this is perhaps why it’s just not a serious consideration for analog VCOs? It’s a lot of work to probably get something that doesn’t really sound like a DX-7 in the end.
I think you clearly love your T5 and should keep it–the Pro 3 will pair very nicely with it as the oscillators have a bit more grit and will stand out in the mix. I’m always using the Pro 3 alongside my polys (OB-6, MKS-70, Summit). T5 + Pro 3 is the core of a really powerful setup! If you were going to sell anything, maybe the A4? You could pay for most of a (used) Pro 3 with that. But that’s just personal taste again ( )–I had an A4 for a while and didn’t love it…
)–I had an A4 for a while and didn’t love it…