DSI Prophet 12 Keyboard - first impressions

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DSI Prophet 12 Keyboard - first impressions 2017-01-02T12:51:34+00:00 https://images.amcnetworks.com/bbcamerica.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/goodnews.jpg The technical review of the Prophet 12 Keyboard in November 2013’s Sound on Sound is pretty much exactly right (at that firmware revision) and is a good and true assessment of the machine I had delivered. http://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/dave-smith-instruments-prophet-12 Some technicals you don’t get elsewhere. I’ve crawled all over this synth with an RME Digicheck on the outputs. Mine has a consistent noise floor of -83dB, which is, by way of comparison, 2dB above the noise floor on a Manley Massive Passive. Looking inside, there’s 6x24179 4th gen SHARCs running the digital oscillator block (roughly 12 UAD-2 3rd gen cores). It’s DACed into analog and stays that way all the way to the TRS outs. There are optional effect sends back into the Oscillator block, but it is as analog sounding as you can get without genuinely analog Oscillators, but then it holds tuning across chords better than any analog. The synth itself is almost perfect. There’s not a single cut corner, no economies, no compromises. It is engineered beautifully and I don’t just mean the build quality, I mean the engineering. It’s a player’s synth and responds seductively to the slightest touch. My SN is just below 3000, so I don’t think there are that many of them out there. Oh well, what a pity, never mind. But this synth does have some severe problems. The first is that when you switch it on, you’re off with the fairies for hours on end, and sometimes forget to eat. The other big problem is that toe rag almost famous musicians, who haven’t bothered to keep in touch with you maybe even for years, suddenly phone you up and ask to come around and play with it. Anyone who tells you this synth has a ‘sound’ is looking into the mirror of their own sound design. Its range is monumental. It makes no concessions to fashion or genre and is a total chameleon. I’ve heard Novachords, Moogs, Waldorfs and Yam DXes in this synth (it now does 4-op linear FM). When I unboxed it, every single knob had been set to 0%, the volume being vertical at 50%. It’s a class act. It’s like driving an Aston Martin. What famous synth is the Prophet 12 most like? It’s most like a Prophet 12. And it sounds incredible. Creme tangerine and Montelimart. A ginger sling with a pineapple heart. A coffee dessert, yes you know it's Good News. But you'll have to have them all pulled out after the Savoy truffle. It’s like standing on the beach down at Surf City the first time you visit California and see the Pacific for the first time. That vast empty nothingness. There are so many people who blether on about creaminess and phatness and whatever tawdry scraps of fantasy they bring to synthesis. Imagine what it must have been like, for the lucky chosen few, to have been there at the dawn of it all. To stand there with a machine when its streets had no names. When the straight-jackets of genre and endless masturbatory genuflection to the sound of the past had not yet closed the minds of a generation of musicians. The shock of the new. That vast empty nothingness. I wonder if that's my one. https://i0.wp.com/www.synthtopia.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/dave-smith-prophet-12-e1370089430179.jpg HanafiH https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=311

alpicat alpicat https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=426995: KVRer; 2 posts since 30 Sep, 2018

Post by alpicat » Thu Nov 13, 2025 6:36 pm

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Love my Prophet 12 module, only synth I have that's small enough to take with me when going away on longer trips. Have just made this track with it away from my studio:

christian f. christian f. https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=393164: KVRist; 445 posts since 3 Feb, 2017

Post by christian f. » Thu Nov 13, 2025 6:49 pm

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I love the prophet 12 !

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