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Who is planning on buying the Prophet 08?


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I know you can order a P08 right now, but Nova Musik has "Shipping in 2 Weeks" on the main page for the P08 and "Shipping in 2-4 Weeks" on their list of Dave Smith Instruments products for sale.

Happily, this gives me some time to unload some gear on Ebay that has not seen any use in about a year.

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Ah, thanks for the info. I think I did see that in the discussion on matrixsynth. Since I am still a noob to this stuff, it is hard to sort out what is accurate and what is not. I did download and start looking through the manual for the A6, though.

 

 

You

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FWIW: you can get awesome bell and marimba type sounds from one sine wave modulating another. More complex waveforms just add too much clangor with too many sidebands.


So a P8 should do just fine with audio modulation of the oscillating filter.

 

 

In the past I have used VAZ modular to experiment with getting FM using one sine wave modulating another and made a couple patches that I like. I never tried modulating the frequency of a self-oscillating filter, so I just spent the last hour or so experimenting with that. Boy it is hard to control and find a sweet spot! I made all sorts of really cool sounds, but getting something to move tonally up the keyboard in a predictable way is hard to do. I am sorta flying blind here and also moving off-topic for this thread, but it looks like I have some searching to do here and at KVR and other places.

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I never tried modulating the frequency of a self-oscillating filter, so I just spent the last hour or so experimenting with that. Boy it is hard to control and find a sweet spot! I made all sorts of really cool sounds, but getting something to move tonally up the keyboard in a predictable way is hard to do.

"Hard to control" is right. I don't know about VAZ, but with some synths (at least, of the real analog variety), it's pretty much impossible. Even forgetting about modulating the frequency of an oscillating analog filter at audio rates for a moment, it's often tough to get the filter scaled and tuned properly, such that you can actually play it from the keyboard, and not have it sound like garbage. Most of my vintage analogs have varying degrees of trouble with this. I also haven't been able to get any of my Evolvers to do it well, either. However, the Prophet '08 prototype I had did a very good job of it - consistently. Don't get me wrong, you won't mistake it for a regular oscillator - it's still a self-oscillating analog filter, which is a rather unstable thing by nature. :) That said, it makes for some cool "3 oscillator" Programs with a sort of "Kramer unstable" kind of edge! And then it gets better when you apply the audio rate frequency modulation. And then a little better when you modulate the frequencies of the oscillators. And better still when you set one of the oscillator base frequencies different than the other. And then... when you set the oscillators to hard sync, modulate the frequencies of the oscillators (envelopes *and* LFOs), which are in turn modulating the frequency of the tuned self-oscillating filter... that's when the police break down your door, and you know you've achieved success! :eek:

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"Hard to control" is right. I don't know about VAZ, but with some synths (at least, of the real analog variety), it's pretty much impossible. Even forgetting about modulating the frequency of an oscillating analog filter at audio rates for a moment, it's often tough to get the filter scaled and tuned properly, such that you can actually play it from the keyboard, and not have it sound like garbage. Most of my vintage analogs have varying degrees of trouble with this. I also haven't been able to get any of my Evolvers to do it well, either. However, the Prophet '08 prototype I had did a very good job of it - consistently. Don't get me wrong, you won't mistake it for a regular oscillator - it's still a self-oscillating analog filter, which is a rather unstable thing by nature.
:)
That said, it makes for some cool "3 oscillator" Programs with a sort of "Kramer unstable" kind of edge! And then it gets better when you apply the audio rate frequency modulation. And then a little better when you modulate the frequencies of the oscillators. And better still when you set one of the oscillator base frequencies different than the other. And then... when you set the oscillators to hard sync, modulate the frequencies of the oscillators (envelopes *and* LFOs), which are in turn modulating the frequency of the tuned self-oscillating filter... that's when the police break down your door, and you know you've achieved success!
:eek:




Lol, I got at least halfway there by having three sync'd and slightly detuned oscillators into a self-oscillating filter.

I let wife listen (baby was sleeping so I was using headphones) to what I was doing and she gave me a strange look and asked why I wanted to make a noise like that.:rolleyes:

With VAZ you can also feed back and mix a portion of any of the signals into the input any of the modules...

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seems to be a massive amount of buzz around at the moment at least amongst various studio-heads I've run into about this synth- but is it true that it's going to be much cheaper from people in Europe to buy it direct from the states ? It looks to be 1700 UK pounds at Turnkey, which is seriously steep.

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seems to be a massive amount of buzz around at the moment at least amongst various studio-heads I've run into about this synth- but is it true that it's going to be much cheaper from people in Europe to buy it direct from the states ? It looks to be 1700 UK pounds at Turnkey, which is seriously steep.

 

 

I think we can get them from Thomann and some french store (can recall the thread but its here somewhere) for

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Waldorf showed up with prototypes (some that you couldnt even touch - just look at inside a glass case) and promised that everything was almost ready to ship. they are either very bad at estimating a release schedule or had some reason for being outright deceptive.

Waldorf just doesn't have any leadership that knows how to actually run a successful company, honestly I'll be really suprised if they ever release anything new. Sad since their synths do sound pretty good.

 

I much prefer having the product basically finished and for sale in less than a month after it's anouncement.

 

Anyway, I just need a PEK and have no plans on getting a P08, but I wish the PEK had the knobs of the P08.

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Anyway, I just need a PEK and have no plans on getting a P08, but I wish the PEK had the knobs of the P08.

 

Umbra - I still don't have my production model P'08 yet, but I'm 99% sure that the P'08 knobs would physically fit on a PEK, should you get a PEK and wish to replace the knobs. The issue would be the spacing between the knobs.

 

When the PEK panel layout was being designed and tweaked, one thing that was carefully considered was the amount of space between the knobs. I forget the actual distance, but I think everyone felt it was important to have enough space between the knobs such that the average finger would fit in between.

 

If you put the larger diameter P'08 knobs on a PEK, you probably won't have enough space between the knobs for your fingers. That may or may not be an issue for *you*, as you could still grab the top of the knob. I think the tight spacing would bug me a lot, though.

 

If it's just the looks (not the size) of the PEK knobs that you don't care for, I bet there are some other (same diameter) replacement knobs out there that you would like better.

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Its great to read the number of positive responses to the P08 on this site, its a tough to please crowd, at times. I remember reading on a number of forums that players liked the PEK but didn't care much for the digital "noise" side of the synth. After all these years, people still love analog synths. We still need B&B sounds.

Did any of you read direct buy Dave Smith is offering? You can return the synth if you don't like it (in a reasonable amount of time).

The price of this synth is just right. 2k for an 8 voice RA, with Dave Smith's great service behind it.

It will sell. :thu:

Mike T.

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