I got a brand spankin’ new DSI Prophet 12 in the mail today and spent the evening having a blast messing around.
My goal tonight was to find how well its timbre meshes with my OT and A4, but I really just spent most of the time goofing around with the A4 and P12 and made a funny little song with them.
It’s kind my jab at the fact that, for every new synth on the market, there’s the obligatory YouTube video of a guy in a dark room playing:
A) The Terminator theme
B) The opening music to Blade Runner
I realize that the 80’s soundtrack spoof is a tired trope, but this one just sort of came out of the presets of the P12.
The thunderous noise and the synth/horn melody are P12 and the arpeggiator is a patch I made on the A4 a few days ago.
Enjoy.
Nothing wrong with classic cinematics! In fact, that would be a great theme for a Mission Brief!
Looking forward to hearing what you program with the P12.
Did you get the module or the keyboard?
I’d pull the trigger on that one if it had 4 part timbrality. But for now I’ll have to wait and just get creative on plumbing together the things I already have. Some day, though!
I got the module, which is a bit more obfuscated from a UI perspective, but I really don’t want to have to make room for a huge keyboard and I like switching out MIDI controllers occasionally.
Plus, the closer it rests to my A4 and OT, the better for tweaking.
I’d pull the trigger on that one if it had 4 part timbrality.
It does kind of suck.
With 12 voices it’s practically built for it.
I’ve never, for the life of me, understood why DSI makes everything bitimbral.
Lemme do what I want!
As far as the synth itself though . . . . Jesus, it’s insanely great.
The sound design possibilities are endless.
It can do mechanical, metallic, icy, bell-ish, and cold.
It can do vast, warm, huge, soft, distorted.
It’s like a hardware version of Absynth, but it definitely sounds $2000 better than software.
Not at all surprised about the price; worth every penny.
This and the A4 are the only two synths I think I’d ever need; my desert island picks.
Do you have enough MM experience to compare the two?
I love my MM but I wish there were a digital machine in it that allowed for 4 or 5 different OSCs into a single voice. Like a massive DDRW. Sure, I can set up a multi, but then sequencing becomes less intuitive and more a copy/paste exercise.
Pro2, P12, and Evolver all seem poised when you want a huge multi Osc mono sound instantly ready at your fingertips.
And DSI does that incredibly well, multi timbrality be damned.
It is a shame that his only currently available 4 part synth is trapped in a module with just a handful of knobs and a software editor. He really should come out with a 4 part Prophet or at least a larger Tetra module. There is a noticeable gap there. One that the A4 fills all too well, coincidentally. Even making the P08 with 8 mono parts would zap the cash right out of my pocket.
Do you have enough MM experience to compare the two?
Yeah, I owned a MnM for a year and I liked the sound of it a lot.
As a matter of fact, that was what I was looking into buying again to compliment my A4 and OT and then I saw the Prophet 12.
I’ve been on the fence about DSI stuff because I didn’t like the timbre of it compared to Elektron gear.
The Prophet was even kind of “I dunno about this guy” when I first heard it, but every major publication known to man has given it a perfect score and if you look up #prophet12 on Soundcloud there’s too many great examples to ignore.
I can only go by the sound and functionality of the instruments as modules, obviously.
Sequencer aside, I find that the MnM is a bit soft and, even when pushed, can’t ever really get really nasty.
There’s a roundness to the oscillators, for lack of a better word.
It’s almost as if there’s a compressor on the end of the signal to make sure it never blows something out.
While the P12 can certainly follow suit on the soft side, it’s not afraid to get shrill or blow the roof off the whole place.
It’s got a pretty intense growl.
On the other hand, it’s fairly new and is one of a now pretty big product line vs it being the second product by the company and the first of a major line of products like the MnM.
DSI has had many synths now to sort of riff on what they’ve done previously.
Things like the Character effects could be done on the MnM with DigiPro I’m sure, but you would never really capture the sound of the P12 with the MnM, for better or worse.
The P12 has a much brighter sound than the MnM as well, so I’m not sure which would be preferable in your case.
I’d say, from a purely synth standpoint, they’re both great and are worth owning.
From a wavetable synth standpoint, the P12 is far more flexible, has a much more varied sound, and is easier to fit into a setup.
That’s nasty, no doubt.
But it still has the rounded tone I mentioned.
It doesn’t, at any point, make me wanna plug my ears because it hurts.
The P12 will make your eyes water.
