The Legend vs repro-1

[Examigan]

It would be cool if u-he started working on a synth that doesn't exist (instead of an emulation), but had many ideas
from other synths blended into it.

Zebra? Bazille? Filterscape? Hive? Actually even Diva fits that description

Ok I might have worded that the wrong way. I meant something that hasn't been thought of, instead of a bunch of ideas from other synths all together...but still in the u-he way..

[fmr]

Ok I might have worded that the wrong way. I meant something that hasn't been thought of, instead of a bunch of ideas from other synths all together...but still in the u-he way..

If you mean some esoteric, out of this world synthesis technique, I think it will be hard. Basically anything that could be invented in this field is already invented. Spectral Modelling Synthesis, Wave Terrain Synthesis, all kinds of distortion synthesis (FM/PM, Phase Distortion, AM, RM), additive and resynthesis, sampling and all kinds of granular synthesis, physical modelling, etc.
Things like Csound or Kyma, have been including basically everything that's available in theoretical models. So, it will be hard to come with something entirely new. But, like it happens in cooking, the same ingredients may be combined differently to create new dishes.

[Terrafractyl]

Yeah exactly. Although as far as synths go I would still say Bazille is pretty up there in uniqueness(is that even a word?).
I have yet to see any other Phase distortion modular synths?

[wagtunes]

Five pages of opinions but no examples of either actually being used in music.

I'll have a whole library for Repro-1 done very soon. Actually, within the next 5 days or so. However, I won't be releasing it until February.

Isn't this spamming?

I was simply responding to him commenting that there have been no examples of anybody using this VST. I guess what I should have said is that in a few days I'll have some music up on Soundcloud that he can listen to. So my bad. Feel free to report my post to the moderators and have them delete it.

[rosschehayeb]

It took a long time to buy a pristine Prophet 5 second hand. I started looking after we released RePro-Alpha - after it became clear that we might get a problem releasing a monophonic synth. At the same time I was certain that a polyphonic version would have to sound exactly like a Prophet-5.

I found a really great sounding, collector grade P-5 about a month or two before we finished Repro-1, but it broke down and had to be repaired. We just so managed to figure out the VCO section but there wasn't enough time to wrap all of it into a poly model. We're slowly getting there...

You've said elsehwere that this is likely to be its own plugin.

Can you explain why this is not going to be a Diva module? It seems that polyphonic capabilities places the Prophet 5 perfectly within the scope of Diva. Not to mention that audio rate FM and filter FM is also a standard feature of Diva, which seems to make the Prophet 5 a perfect fit for Diva.

[surreal]

It took a long time to buy a pristine Prophet 5 second hand. I started looking after we released RePro-Alpha - after it became clear that we might get a problem releasing a monophonic synth. At the same time I was certain that a polyphonic version would have to sound exactly like a Prophet-5.

I found a really great sounding, collector grade P-5 about a month or two before we finished Repro-1, but it broke down and had to be repaired. We just so managed to figure out the VCO section but there wasn't enough time to wrap all of it into a poly model. We're slowly getting there...

You've said elsehwere that this is likely to be its own plugin.

Can you explain why this is not going to be a Diva module? It seems that polyphonic capabilities places the Prophet 5 perfectly within the scope of Diva. Not to mention that audio rate FM and filter FM is also a standard feature of Diva, which seems to make the Prophet 5 a perfect fit for Diva.

Because it would not make commercial sense to Uhe to release it as an ad on to Diva... niether are they obliged to..... another poly synth would mean fresh sales and more income... afterall Urs is a developer and fresh new sales is what is needed to keep the ship afloat!! That been said, many if not all the Prophet 5's sound dan be replivated in Diva as it currently is!! Many people have been blinded by the Repro hype while Diva can already fullfill their Prophet Poly Synth Lusts!!!

[zerocrossing]

I don't think so. To make a 5 voice synth of the same sound quality, and still keep it in the realm of Repro-1's CPU usage is probably going to mean something's probably got to go. I doubt Urs is just "holding back" on optimizing Repro-1's resource use. Also, the Prophet 5 didn't have an arpeggiator or sequencer. The effects of Repro-1 seem to be as CPU hungry as they are great, so shaving those off might have to happen, or at least limiting their quality in some way.

Anyway, I've got no doubt that a Prophet 5 emulation from U-He would smoke Prophet V, but my guess is that it'll not have quite the detail, especially when doing the polymod stuff, that Repro-1 does. Arturia has also made noises alluding to the fact that they too are working on a new version of their Prophet V software. That could put U-He in a tricky place, depending on the quality of Arturia's next version. I think if Arturia didn't hamstring themselves by keeping to such low CPU levels they'd be able to put out a great emulation. We'll see, I guess. I also seem to remember that Urs mentioned that he might put Repro's filter into Diva at some point... I might be wrong about that but I could see that being a good way to go.

If you were following Urs' posts on the subject more closely you'd know this isn't the case. Sure, Prophet-5 is more voices but also a simpler modulation system with more sane ranges from what I remember. Also, the Prophet-5 emulation should be able to run on multiple cores compared to the single core only Repro-1. Or something...I'm sure he'll poop up yo explain better. He's good like that.

According to the DSI website the Pro 1 is a single voice of the Prophet 5. Are they wrong?

1981 – PRO-ONE
The Pro-One was Sequential’s first mono synth. In most respects, it was a single voice from the Prophet-5, but also featured its own sequencer and arpeggiator. The Pro-One was a hugely successful instrument and has found its way onto countless recordings, both at the time of its release and even today.

[ghettosynth]

I don't think so. To make a 5 voice synth of the same sound quality, and still keep it in the realm of Repro-1's CPU usage is probably going to mean something's probably got to go. I doubt Urs is just "holding back" on optimizing Repro-1's resource use. Also, the Prophet 5 didn't have an arpeggiator or sequencer. The effects of Repro-1 seem to be as CPU hungry as they are great, so shaving those off might have to happen, or at least limiting their quality in some way.

Anyway, I've got no doubt that a Prophet 5 emulation from U-He would smoke Prophet V, but my guess is that it'll not have quite the detail, especially when doing the polymod stuff, that Repro-1 does. Arturia has also made noises alluding to the fact that they too are working on a new version of their Prophet V software. That could put U-He in a tricky place, depending on the quality of Arturia's next version. I think if Arturia didn't hamstring themselves by keeping to such low CPU levels they'd be able to put out a great emulation. We'll see, I guess. I also seem to remember that Urs mentioned that he might put Repro's filter into Diva at some point... I might be wrong about that but I could see that being a good way to go.

If you were following Urs' posts on the subject more closely you'd know this isn't the case. Sure, Prophet-5 is more voices but also a simpler modulation system with more sane ranges from what I remember. Also, the Prophet-5 emulation should be able to run on multiple cores compared to the single core only Repro-1. Or something...I'm sure he'll poop up yo explain better. He's good like that.

According to the DSI website the Pro 1 is a single voice of the Prophet 5. Are they wrong?

1981 – PRO-ONE
The Pro-One was Sequential’s first mono synth. In most respects, it was a single voice from the Prophet-5, but also featured its own sequencer and arpeggiator. The Pro-One was a hugely successful instrument and has found its way onto countless recordings, both at the time of its release and even today.

No, but that is a simplification. The schematics are online so you can see for yourself. The filters are identical, but, there is some subtlety with oscillator mixing that will absolutely impact the sound in some way. With a polysynth you can't use a simple off the shelf slide switch to switch the oscillators on five voices, so you have a computer read the switch and it then switches the voices with CMOS switches. Consequently, the oscillator mixing is substantially more complex in the P5 vs the P1, even though conceptually, it's the same thing.

[Urs]

Also, parameter ranges are very different. For instance, one can't fully open the filter with the cutoff knob alone on a Prophet-5. I originally thought this was a flaw of Pro-53 and Pro-V, until I got the vintage hardware.

[AnX]

Are these kinda threads opened by company shills to boost advertising/sales?

It quite obvious the comparison is pointless...so there is no sensible reason for threads like these

[Urs]

Can you explain why this is not going to be a Diva module?

Hehe, ok... brace yourself

Firstly, it doesn't add anything exceptionally new to Diva. We already have a waveform mixing dual oscillator with FM, we already have analogue ADSR envelopes. A set of whole new models would be a money making argument ("now with ..."), but it wouldn't improve Diva. (My stance: It's preferrable to have few different modules in Diva rather than a gazillion - of which many are same-same)

Secondly, things in Diva are put into a consistent corset of parameter ranges. FilterFM is orientated at Minimoog level, so not quite up there with Prophets. That and parameter ranges in general won't allow for quite a few typical Prophet sounds. Prophets particularly do not fit some of Diva's parameter ranges and internal levels.

Thirdly, I've already hinted at adding a filter based on the Synthex circuitry to Diva. Same chip/character as Prophet-5, but more flexible - and no chance to mismatch FilterFM levels.

Then, I have other things to do and I'm the only one at u-he who touches Diva's guts . That "Repro-5 whatever it's called" is a task for our student. He's writing the voice logic, stripping Repro-1 of unwanted/tedious functionality etc.

Last but not least... we're doing this because it's the number one feature request for Repro-1, right down to the point where we get abusive emails, or where we have to deal with threads like this. Adding value to Repro-1 by adding a poly version might be a good thing. We can raise the price, we'll sell more, all for the investment of maybe two student quarters.

So we can hereby say: Our project "pump out some beautiful mono synths for the nice price segment" might get shelved. If polyphony dictates a product's viability, then we rather concentrate on Diva and the rest of the gang (as e.g. you would expect). Obviously, mono synths will not generally be appreciated for what they are. If we have to go through this over and over, we simply can't do it.

(Of course, when we add polyphony to Repro and raise its price, people will start asking for a mono-only option at a lower price )

Anyhow, everything depends on whether or not our student gets it done. If then the next escalation is numerous threads with the Prophet-5 rev 2 argument, maybe we should simply shelf any Prophet-5 emu as well. We're not an internet argument company, we also have to concentrate on our work some time.

[Urs]

Are these kinda threads opened by company shills to boost advertising/sales?

Not this one. The ratio of posts by regular member : developer is way down. Go have a look at threads where the company representative does 30% or more of all posts. That happens when the company needs to bump the thread a lot because of lack of interest by regular members. Those threads are purely for advertisement and nothing else.

[ghettosynth]

Can you explain why this is not going to be a Diva module?

Hehe, ok... brace yourself

Firstly, it doesn't add anything exceptionally new to Diva. We already have a waveform mixing dual oscillator with FM, we already have analogue ADSR envelopes. A set of whole new models would be a money making argument ("now with ..."), but it wouldn't improve Diva. (My stance: It's preferrable to have few different modules in Diva rather than a gazillion - of which many are same-same)

Secondly, things in Diva are put into a consistent corset of parameter ranges. FilterFM is orientated at Minimoog level, so not quite up there with Prophets. That and parameter ranges in general won't allow for quite a few typical Prophet sounds. Prophets particularly do not fit some of Diva's parameter ranges and internal levels.

Thirdly, I've already hinted at adding a filter based on the Synthex circuitry to Diva. Same chip/character as Prophet-5, but more flexible - and no chance to mismatch FilterFM levels.

Then, I have other things to do and I'm the only one at u-he who touches Diva's guts . That "Repro-5 whatever it's called" is a task for our student. He's writing the voice logic, stripping Repro-1 of unwanted/tedious functionality etc.

Last but not least... we're doing this because it's the number one feature request for Repro-1, right down to the point where we get abusive emails, or where we have to deal with threads like this. Adding value to Repro-1 by adding a poly version might be a good thing. We can raise the price, we'll sell more, all for the investment of maybe two student quarters.

So we can hereby say: Our project "pump out some beautiful mono synths for the nice price segment" might get shelved. If polyphony dictates a product's viability, then we rather concentrate on Diva and the rest of the gang (as e.g. you would expect). Obviously, mono synths will not generally be appreciated for what they are. If we have to go through this over and over, we simply can't do it.

(Of course, when we add polyphony to Repro and raise its price, people will start asking for a mono-only option at a lower price )

Anyhow, everything depends on whether or not our student gets it done. If then the next escalation is numerous threads with the Prophet-5 rev 2 argument, maybe we should simply shelf any Prophet-5 emu as well. We're not an internet argument company, we also have to concentrate on our work some time.

Awesome post!

Do your thing man, kids these days are so spoiled! Monosynths are awesome, when I sold off half of my collection I kept most of the monos because they are much easier to integrate into a modern studio (most vintage polys don't have midi or have shit midi). I'm totally looking forward to a Synthex filter in Diva. Also ACE Turbo! (That is what you decided to call it, right

Octave CAT SRM with the 2040 is the answer, with the question being: "what cool monosynth has one of the world's most awesome filters?" justsayin!

[Teksonik]

In 2017 Mono should be an option not a limitation. Almost every VA softsynth can be set to mono mode so how many mono only synths do we really need ?

Sure there are some mono synths that haven't been emulated yet but I would bet that every one of them will generate "we want more polyphony" posts shortly after release.

[AnX]

So we can hereby say: Our project "pump out some beautiful mono synths for the nice price segment" might get shelved. If polyphony dictates a product's viability, then we rather concentrate on Diva and the rest of the gang (as e.g. you would expect). Obviously, mono synths will not generally be appreciated for what they are. If we have to go through this over and over, we simply can't do it.

Prob a good idea. I would never buy a mono softsynth. Its just not acceptable to me today. Seems many agree.