Low end improvements for Repro

[AnX]

dev caveat = no two units sound the same

[lunardigs]

I love the fact that U-he knows actual electronics.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

dev caveat = no two units sound the same

With vintage synths, no one unit ever sounds exactly the same either.

[spunkmuffin]

I had a bad night of sleep,

Urs sleeps?

[accessdune3]

When you watch carefully, he plays Repro on a 4 octave keyboard. The note he hits on the Prophet 5 simply is an octave lower because the Prophet-5 has a 5 octave keyboard.

I've had to point this out about three dozen times since the video surfaced, I'm happy to point it out again and again

I didnt catch that, sorry. Im not as active on this forum to have known that you addressed this previously. I do still think that there can be a low end improvement, I will try to find other comparisons and post them if I can find them.

Here are couple pictures to ilustrate this better

[Ploki]

didn't this guy make a blind-test video controlling both repro and prophet from the Prophet, and the blind test is pretty much random deviation?

wait that is that video lol

[Urs]

Here's an even more obvious section:

Screenshot 2020-10-17 at 15.11.55.jpg

C# in the upper octave, A# in the bottom octave. When he tries to play the same part on the smaller keyboard, he has to transpose the bass note up an octave.

[vertibration]

If Repro has been pushed to its absolute limit, who am I to say anything about how it sounds. I think its the best sounding prophet emulation out there. My only curiosity was if there was anything else that could be uncovered to push it further.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

If Repro has been pushed to its absolute limit, who am I to say anything about how it sounds. I think its the best sounding prophet emulation out there. My only curiosity was if there was anything else that could be uncovered to push it further.

Maybe Rev 2 filters and poly glide? A few more mod matrix slots? But from a raw sound perspective, it's already there IMO. I think there's a natural bias to think "the hardware must be better somewhere" when in reality, the hardware might just have some differences due to the fact that it's old hardware and no two pieces will be exactly alike all these years later, let alone the same piece on different days. RePro is close enough. I heard someone mention aliasing in RePro-5 when using the distortion, but even if there is some, remember, that wasn't a feature of the original either. Neither was velocity scaling, the built in FX, different filter types, etc. In my estimation, RePro (both of them) are way beyond "good enough" at this point.

[zerocrossing]

One thing I always do when comparing synths is to get them up on a spectrum analyzer right away. Look to see where those harmonics are. How they’re sloping. Match exact frequencies of filter by tuning that filter with resonance all the way up and then bringing it down so they match. I’ve never done that with a Prophet 5, of any revision, but I have on a Prophet 6, and while there are differences, they’re a lot more similar than different. The best way I can describe the difference is that the hardware sounds a bit more defuse. Not super noticeable on a single voice, but when you hold down a chord, you can definitely notice it. For some sounds, the coherent sound of Repro is actually preferable. That little bit of difference is quite expensive, but worth it to me. The interface is nice to have, as is the available voices with no CPU hit. The distortion on the 6 is nice too, a bit more wild sounding and doesn’t show the aliasing in the upper registers that the software shows. The high pass filter is really nice too.

I definitely wouldn’t buy a Prophet 5 r4, though. In all honesty, I don’t think it sounds as good as the Prophet 6. People are all going crazy for it, but I’m not really hearing anything that I consider to be “better,” and for that price, it should make you weep.

I had an Evolver for a long time, the way those synths are made with stereo out, I think makes quite the difference vs VST's. They just sound more full. When you compare your P6 to the Repro, do you agree or disagree that the P6 sounds wider or more full?

I consider “wide” a measure of stereo voice panning or stereo modulation, like chorus, so I wouldn’t really say that either sounds “wider” when all things are equal, but there’s something... I think of it as “open,” when I hear the 6, where Repro sounds a bit more “closed.” It may be something as simple as the 6 is more noisy, which of course it is. It’s like looking at a far off building on a very dry day as opposed to a humid day when there’s a bit of haze in the air. The 6 is just a bit hazy.

[zerocrossing]

If Repro has been pushed to its absolute limit, who am I to say anything about how it sounds. I think its the best sounding prophet emulation out there. My only curiosity was if there was anything else that could be uncovered to push it further.

Maybe Rev 2 filters and poly glide? A few more mod matrix slots? But from a raw sound perspective, it's already there IMO. I think there's a natural bias to think "the hardware must be better somewhere" when in reality, the hardware might just have some differences due to the fact that it's old hardware and no two pieces will be exactly alike all these years later, let alone the same piece on different days. RePro is close enough. I heard someone mention aliasing in RePro-5 when using the distortion, but even if there is some, remember, that wasn't a feature of the original either. Neither was velocity scaling, the built in FX, different filter types, etc. In my estimation, RePro (both of them) are way beyond "good enough" at this point.

That was probably me, and you’re right, no distortion on the Prophet 5, but I have heard that someone... I can’t remember who, but they installed per voice distortion circuits. Must have been amazing. Anyway, of course you could buy an analog distortion for any synth and the 6 has one built in, which is why I brought it up. Things changed now that there is actually new Prophet 5s out and about in the world, but they left the analog distortion off. I get why, but it’s yet another reason that synth doesn’t interest me at all. Call me crazy, but I feel like I like the sound of the 6 and Repro more than the demos I’ve heard so far from the 5 r4. The high end always sounds a bit too hard or something. People like to pay for nostalgia. Hopefully Dave will take their money and use some of it in R&D for something new and cool.

Aaaaaaaanyway, so... is it the end of the world that Repro’s distortion is a bit on the digital side? Of course not, but I’m sure it was a choice made so that it could maintain an acceptable CPU level. OTOH, I’m not sure how, but the distortion on Massive X sounds pretty damn amazing, though not per voice. Roland’s distortion on their Jupiter 8 plugin also sounds pretty good, but my point was that I feel like the Prophet 6 is worth having, even though I also own Repro. I love Repro, and I recommend it all the time, but if you’re asking on how to improve it for me, that’s my biggest gripe. I think you could handle it by hard lowpassing the distortion, which ends up sounding better anyway. Cap it at 11 kHz or something.

[vertibration]

Lyre Bird can do a chorus effect like the P6 sort of, so thats a plus. Would be cool to see a phase shifter and ring mod effect, but its all good. I think an arp and sequencer would also be nice, but I understand that its supposed to be like a P5.

[Howard]

If Repro has been pushed to its absolute limit, who am I to say anything about how it sounds. I think its the best sounding prophet emulation out there. My only curiosity was if there was anything else that could be uncovered to push it further.

If you need more bass than the P5, try Repro's own EQ.

[Ploki]

i often bypass stuff and just use external FX.
for example, the noise in Velvet bothers me too much, so i just use satin and turn down hiss.

[zvenx]

Velvet noise bothers me too much too, i made a set of the presets with automute hiss on and have to remember every update to replace the new ones with those fail safe ones.
rsp