AK vs. Pro2

Much debate will undoubtedly ensue about the pros and cons between Analog Keys and Dave Smith’s recently announced Pro2 powerhouse synth. I am especially intrigued by Dave Smith’s boast that the Pro2 will include the “most powerful step sequencer ever put in a synth.” Until we get all the details, this claim may seem exaggerated, but one thing DSI has certainly gotten right is enabling Step Sequencer note data to be sent out via both CV/Gate and Midi outputs. No matter how impressive the much anticipated Overbridge software turns out to be, Analog Keys cannot become fully integrated into a complex setup that includes both CV and Midi gear until Elektron adds similar Sequencer Midi note out capability.

What other differences caught your attention? Anyone planning to sell their AK in favor of the Pro2?

We could also add the MOOG SUB 37 to this thread.

I thinks it´s up to you, but not only in terms of taste, but how you work.

  • Moog SUB 37: Classic analogue design, knob/function, most tweak able, with some “new school” gadgets
  • DSI Pro 2: between the other 2. still lots of knobs, but much more modulations and stuff to prepare, organize, play around with.
  • AK: probably the most options in sound design, but not very intuitive to tweak. almost impossible to do a jam from scratch, but unbeaten for producing.

So in fact, it´s not that hard to decide, because the concept of all three is so different, so it just depends on how you work. And this is much easier to find than what you “like”

andajazz

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I can’t speak about the Pro 2 but I sold my Prophet 08 to fund my Analog Keys and I couldn’t be happier. The 08 had continual software/OS issues that just made it no fun anymore. I would never by another DSI product. I find the AK superior at sound creation, easier to program than an 08 and tons of fun.

Pro 2 seems more like a mono voice from a virus than ak. The moog is similar in some ways but sounds very different. All unique instruments I reckon. Take your pick.

I have an a4 and it is a LOT of fun to sequence but quite tough for me to get a consistent sound that I’m imagining. Still early days. There are many things that make the a4/ak totally unique.

I’d be interested in pro 2 if it has sweep variable noise colour and noise is available as fm source(which I don’t think it does) . Only one sound from the many on the demo sounds good to me. The sequencer looks basic .

I’m also interested in the moog cos it sounds amazing and looks seriously fun.

Surely they will all sell plenty.
I’m lucky/unlucky enough to have no money to spend. :slight_smile:

All Dave Smith synths and drum machines have a cheap thin sound to them, poor build quality, and are way over priced. Dave Smith gear should not even be compared to Elektron gear. I’ve owned a lot of different gear and honestly, The Elektron stuff is top of the line for sure. The decision should be clear if you watch a few videos on YouTube from a user named MrDataLine, the videos give an accurate representation of the elektron high quality sound coming from their gear.The Dave Smith videos also demonstrate clearly why I wouldn’t buy a Dave Smith synth, they’re cheaply made, sound thin, and are way overpriced for what you get for your money.

Even the old Vintage Dave Smith gear was basically cheaply made junk. I see the Dave Smith gear posts like this mysteriously popping up in forums, almost as if it were a marketing ploy? That alone is enough to turn me off on Dave Smith gear.

BTW… I own Elektron Analog Keys, Analog Rytm, Analog Four, and The Octatrack… They are all unbeatable in sound, quality, and sound design capabilities.

@MoonStruck: Sorry, but the build quality of any DSI synth is excellent and they are by far not “cheaply made”. As for the pricing, they are at par with the Elektron line up though it is hard to compare them feature wise.

The quality of the sound is a matter of taste, but you obviously have a strong opinion about this.

I have a lot of experience with both the A4 and the PolyEvolver and both have their strong and their weak points.

Btw. what is it with all that fanboyism? I know one can get emotionally attached to a piece of gear as a source of inspiration but in the end they are also products and tools. You choose your tool to your liking, some people choose other tools. Diversity, everything’s fine, calm down.

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As I said elsewhere, the A4/AK is 8 oscillators and 4 subs of analog unison fury! The Pro 2 can’t complete with that, but as per the above posts it can carve out a different niche. I just wish it had six voices and was $3k.

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Sound quality and richness is not a matter of the number of features. On both keyboards you can press 4 keys simultaneously to get four different notes. Besides that, if you do not need to play the keyboard you can use the 2 OSCs and the sub on the A4 to get certain paraphonic chords. Soundwise the Pro 2’s OSCs allow you to use special OSC modulation/morph as well as digital waveshapes that could make up for the lack of OSCs in paraphonic mode. etc… etc…

It really depends on what subset of features and desired sound you want. Until anyone has had the ability to test the Pro 2 IRL one at least must admit, that both the AK, the Pro2 and the Sub37 have features that overlap and several that don’t. None of those instruments is capable to be a feature complete substitute for the other.

I can always think of features that might be important to certain people (ranging from sound engine to panel interface), one or the other synth lacks.

When deciding between several synths I usually advice to make a personal list of pros and cons for each synth. Also add at least one vintage synth, that’s close in features and in the same price range to that list.

If the outcome is not to your gut’s feeling start to weight the pros and cons. If you do not succeed, look if there’s a higher priced synth that fulfills all your needs. Save money to fill the gap and by the better synth. It will be worth it.

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I agree with you about the dsi sound, but apparently the chips he uses for the filter in the pro 2 are different ones (finally). previously he used chips that were very similar to the ones in the old marion msr2, which had a very weak sound.
I think that talk of selling an a4 keys for the pro 2 is kind of silly. The workflow of an instrument is very important, and in addition, the a4 has 4 voices, while the pro 2 has 1. No matter how good the pro 2 turns out to be, it will not be the same to work with. Even if the sequencer has more features, I doubt that it will have parameter locks, etc…
that said, I did have a p12 for awhile, and the interface on it was great. I actually put in a pre-order for the pro 2, but no way am I getting rid of the analog keys.
I do love the fact that the pro 2 has cv/gate inputs though!

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I agree with you about the dsi sound, but apparently the chips he uses for the filter in the pro 2 are different ones (finally). previously he used chips that were very similar to the ones in the old marion msr2, which had a very weak sound.
I think that talk of selling an a4 keys for the pro 2 is kind of silly. The workflow of an instrument is very important, and in addition, the a4 has 4 voices, while the pro 2 has 1. No matter how good the pro 2 turns out to be, it will not be the same to work with. Even if the sequencer has more features, I doubt that it will have parameter locks, etc…
that said, I did have a p12 for awhile, and the interface on it was great. I actually put in a pre-order for the pro 2, but no way am I getting rid of the analog keys.
I do love the fact that the pro 2 has cv/gate inputs though![/quote]
Dave demonstrates this in the video. And according to the specs on his site:
[ul]
[li]16 x 2 modulation matrix with over 50 mod sources and over 140 mod destinations[/li]

[li]Sequences can control not only oscillator pitch but any parameter in the modulation matrix.[/li]

[li]Parameters that can be sent to CV outputs include oscillators, LFOs, envelopes, sequencer tracks and any other source within the modulation matrix. Runs up to audio rates.[/li]

[/ul]
I will definitely be getting the Pro 2, but I will not be canceling my Sub 37 Tribute order; it’s exactly what I’ve been waiting for from Moog…

Well what do you define as a voice? I see and hear components that can be routed differently together. The A4 has 4 identical voices. The Pro 2 is paraphonic (4 voiced OSCs) while having 2 filters that can be routed in parallel.

The A4 though is multi-timbral whereas the Pro 2 is basically mono-timbral. Though with my experience of the Evolvers - that sport true stereo voices - by filter-seperation you can also easily achieve duo-timbral sounds and therefor in the Pro 2 by using the split OSC filter routing. Still they only be played monophonically or paraphonically but not independently.

It’s just not that easy. Very hard to compare. The Pro 2’s structure is very unorthodox.

Even if the sequencer has more features, I doubt that it will have parameter locks, etc…

There’s something similar to P-Locks, I read a statement from Pym (DSI’s developer) where here specifically referred to the term “P-Locks”.

The difference is, that you can have different track lengths for each of the “P-Locked” parameters, making it easy to do endless polyrhythmic morphing sequences.

As I understood the number of parameters that you can lock is limited to the number of tracks, AFAIK 16 which is still a lot.

As an owner of both brands I think that is completely ignorant.

I suggest you ignore this poster, either trolling or no idea and not worth any ones time.
Unfortunately there is no “reply to last post” option on this forum s/w, but deleted the content any way.

I think DSI build quality isn’t as good as elektron, clavia, access or moog (other brands made in 1st world countries by small manufacturers). And the price is just as high as those other brands, except for the very cheap stuff like mophos.

It’s isnt that DSI quality is bad, is simply not that great for the price.

And the other big problem is the quality of the OS, DSI doesn’t seem to locate as much resources to get that right.

The sound is subjective and I think DSI stuff is good, and stuff like evolver and the new hybrids are quite interesting and have quite deep sound engines.

Dsi build quality is EXTREMELY poor - now this does appear different on the p12 and the pro2.
But if history is any use as a predictor to what will transpire in the future thane the pro2 and p12 will end up exactly where the tempest is now - development abandoned and the synth is now being reverse engineered by users and they are taking over any developement of the tempest. Then with the evolver and p08 fiasco with the endless encoders and the “PE” edition which meant I could send my MEK to the factory (in another hemisphere) and pay the $350us to get usable pots on the thing
I was burned buying a dsi synth as a first instrument and I’m not joking when I say it put me back - I thought all synths where that bad and you just had to put up with it.
The guy should retire - thanks for midi but go to Florida and go to bed early and stuff. Leave the instruments alone

Software development has only been a real issue with the Tempest, so carrying that over to all of their other synths is a bit of a stretch. Elektron’s initial release of the Octatrack and Analog Rytm have had teething issues with OS too. Jomox had endless OS problems, the list goes on - so DSI is hardly a unique example.

While I agree that the encoders were an issue on earlier DSI synths, to say they are built poorly is very misleading. Can you name any build issue with DSI synths other than the encoders? The encoder issue is now sorted.

Since upgrading to PE pots (which you can simply do yourself with a screwdriver alone - no need to send back to factory), my PEK is perfect. I don’t feel burned at all. I had major encoder issues that DSI support sorted for me. Eventually I decided to go to the PE upgrade, because I love the PEK sound - it is a synth I will never sell, a blessing in fact, when there are so many other disappointing sounding machines around these days. Solidly build, robust chassis, great keybed. I love it. The P12 I played on the other day was solid and high quality too, and I expect the Pro2 will be the same.

You clearly have a grudge / personal vendetta with DSI that you voice wherever and whenever you can. It’s fine to have an opinion, but your comments verge on defamatory.

I would urge other readers to take dogmas negative comments with a large grain of salt.

Regarding the Sub 37…Amos from Moog revealed on Muffs that the sequencer can also have per step different pitch/gate/mod and the step sequencer can be routed into either of the two mod busses as source. The step sequencer also accepts duophonic note entries.

Pro2 offers more of everything, but i am not convinced of the sound so far. But just as snowcrash said, lets wait and see IRL.

The AK comparison is interesting, UI wise i think i would prefer the knobby Pro2 with its cool big OLED, but soundwise? The AK is really unique sounding.

Software development has only been a real issue with the Tempest, so carrying that over to all of their other synths is a bit of a stretch. Elektron’s initial release of the Octatrack and Analog Rytm have had teething issues with OS too. Jomox had endless OS problems, the list goes on - so DSI is hardly a unique example.

While I agree that the encoders were an issue on earlier DSI synths, to say they are built poorly is very misleading. Can you name any build issue with DSI synths other than the encoders? The encoder issue is now sorted.

Since upgrading to PE pots (which you can simply do yourself with a screwdriver alone - no need to send back to factory), my PEK is perfect. I don’t feel burned at all. I had major encoder issues that DSI support sorted for me. Eventually I decided to go to the PE upgrade, because I love the PEK sound - it is a synth I will never sell, a blessing in fact, when there are so many other disappointing sounding machines around these days. Solidly build, robust chassis, great keybed. I love it. The P12 I played on the other day was solid and high quality too, and I expect the Pro2 will be the same.

You clearly have a grudge / personal vendetta with DSI that you voice wherever and whenever you can. It’s fine to have an opinion, but your comments verge on defamatory.

I would urge other readers to take dogmas negative comments with a large grain of salt.[/quote]
Not totally true about DSI OS stuff. The Tetra has issues too (multimode especially). And your comparison to with AR is laughable because the AR has had 2 updates already plus it does what it is supposed to do, it is over 90% complete, and not really buggy. Plus it will continue to be developed after it is fully functional, Elektron will keep adding machines for a good while. What about when the A4 was made polyphonic on an update? Elektron adds features that weren’t even discussed and make their machines better than expected while DSI fights to make their synth what it was advertised to be upon release. Maybe the P12 and the P2 are/will be different…
really find it strange that the DSI forum, with all of it’s talks about OS issues, gores down right before the P2 is announced…
After saying all of that, a part of me wants a Tempest again because it is fun to jam on by itself.

It’s just so offensive to suggest that people cannot think for themselves critically and they need you to point out that they should read a post “with a grain of salt” I would hope everyone doesn’t read something on a forum and say “well it must be true - I read it on the internet” everyone needs to think for themselves or they’re a lemming.

I have had the X4 polychained to a Tetra and I can tell you I made some really great sounds with it but I actually prefer the sounds of my AK, though wish it could polychain to an A4. Why not? DSI did it.

The build quality of DSI is like a brick house and I found the wood to be of very high quality as well. I did question the exposed key hinges at the back of the keys, which I found rather strange. However, the functionality was top notch.

There was no loose screw rolling around in it as there was with my Analog Keys and it sat perfectly level.

All that said, it was nothing, repeat, NOTHING like and Elektron product, nor are any of their products. Everyone must own both and experience both.