Couple of tips;
- Drop the osc volume a bit, like 50-70 or so. The filter seems a bit smoother with a less hot signal, may remove some of the harshness you’re feeling. Bump track level to compensate.
- Modulate the detune parameter, it’s pretty yummy and adds some fatness.
- Use the default routing PW on the envelope pages. I was actually shocked at how much more “analog” it sounded when the waveform shape drifts a bit on a note being struck.
- Feedback OSC, it’s an option on page one. This can make some otherworldly sounds. Be a little conservative on its volume, and drop your resonance on the filters a little else it blows up quickly. Modulate the level of the feedback OSC and you’ll get some creaky, evil, ethereal or dolphin sounds depending on your other settings. Maybe all of them at the same time.
- Some people, not myself personally, ignore filter one and use filter 2 on LP as the main filter. It’s more “rolandy” than filter 1 and can produce some nice harmonics . Filter one is a bit less stable and kinda fuzzy/lowfi apparently. I like it, personally!
- Use the peak mode of filter 2 to pluck out interesting textures at different bandwidths. It’s pretty sexy.
- NEI routing. Defo explore it, you can make mad polymeters by setting different track lengths, and trigging the envelope on both tracks to add accents that land on different beats.
- Unison mode. Phat with a capital P.
- Plug in a Keybed and start fucking with velocity modulations, makes the machine much more expressive. I do adore the minikeys though.
- Use it for drums, it’s a wicked drum machine. I’ll see if I can find the kick drum pack I found for free on here, they’re some of the best kicks I’ve heard. I think drumma by @darenager and the drumpacks by @taro are solid gold also. Props to the both of you, amazing stuff!
- Biopads. Just go download the free biopads pack. These are really, really, really good.
- Parameter slides and note slides. Note slides are weird at first, as they work backwards (put the slide on the note you want to slide TO, not from and the note lengths must overlap, and you need to set the slide time on OSC2 -page2) but when you get them down, oh my. Slick, wiggly solos ahoy.
- res boost = off tends to make a smoother sound to my ear. Func + OSC 1 should get to the menu.
I can’t make you love it’s sound, unfortunately, but this is a very deep synth. It sounds flat initially on purpose, as it has so many ways to affect the sound that it would be a mushy horrible mess after using 2% of its features I’d think. But I dunno, just my opinion. Let me know if you want an elaboration on any of this!
Oh, and if you have a good compressor, send the signal though it. There are a lot of nice textures generated that a compressor can reveal :).
But, I must stress, do not get bullied into keeping it if you don’t like it. That’s fine, different strokes for different fowks. Think of it less as “tightly controlled prophet 5” and more like a modular rack with 4 assignable tracks. You’ll squeeze weirdness out of this you’ll struggle to find elsewhere, and if you’re like me, you’ll be up late at night brimming with “OH BUT IF I MODULATED THE SOFT SYNC WITH A KEY TRACKED LFO WITH ITS DEPTH SET VIA ENV 2AND FED THAT INTO TRACK 2 WITH A SWEEPING PEAK TRIGGERING IN 7/8 TIME WHILST PUMPING THE OVERDRIVE AS A FUCKED UP SIDE CHAIN…” Well, you’re in the right place, and in good company.
