GForce Sequential Prophet-5

[IvyBirds]

Huh? Number of octaves has nothing to do with whether a keybed is high quality or not. By that standard the Williams 88-key "piano" we bought for the kids ages ago is premium As a player you should know that the number of octaves has nothing to do with anything other than the...number of octaves. And a Bosendorfer Imperial Grand is better than a Steinway because it's got some extra keys too right? Lordy.

Oh I see you are deliberately misrepresenting what my point was. Not all that surprising. You said

"The hardware is about as premium as it gets"

only that's not true at all. Even if you don't see the advantages of a bigger keybed the Prophet 5 Rev 4 uses the Fatar TP 9/S. That is the budget line of Fatar keyboards, to get as Premium as it gets you would need to have the Fatar TP/8S. As for needing more than 61 keys the Prophet 10 and the Gforce Prophet 5 are bi-timbral with a split point. With 61 keys one timbre will have a maximum of 30 keys while the other has a maximum of 31. Meaning that each timbre can only play 2.5 octaves per timbre. How is that as premium as it gets for a player?

Fatar makes 76 key keybeds that have synth action. That would give you 38 keys. As a player how can you not see that is better?

and the keyboard itself is just a Fatar 61 keybed. Very nice for sure but lots of MIDI Controllers and Synths have the same keyboard. My 88 key Montage M blows it away however

Your Montage M keybed isn't a synth action so "blows it away" isn't even a relevant comment. It's like saying the action in my Kawai digital upright blows away the keys on the P-5. Makes no sense. Prophet-5 is an analog synthesizer, not a workstation instrument built for piano players. (and for the record Fatar has multiple lines of 61-key actions).

Yes they do have multiple lines and Sequential took the cheap route and didn't get the premium one. And for Bi timbral instruments more keys is better

And you are correct the full experience of using the hardware isn't matched by the software and a generic controller. It completely blows away the hardware because it does way more and can be configured exactly how you want it to be configured. If you really want physical controls why would you not want the best experience possible? Why would you settle for whatever Sequential think you should have laid out the way they think you should use them

Because they designed the instrument. Why should you "settle" for how your Montage M is laid out?

Only the Montage M was designed to be user customizable. I can set it up however I want pretty much everything is programable to do whatever I want. But beyond that saying that Sequential designed it that way, doesn't address why you are settling for that. Don't you want the experience to be about as premium as it gets? It never ceases to amaze me how people will say how import physical controls are and then turn around and just blindly accept what the hardware manufacturer decides to give you in the layout they choose

[IvyBirds]

Huh? Number of octaves has nothing to do with whether a keybed is high quality or not. By that standard the Williams 88-key "piano" we bought for the kids ages ago is premium As a player you should know that the number of octaves has nothing to do with anything other than the...number of octaves. And a Bosendorfer Imperial Grand is better than a Steinway because it's got some extra keys too right? Lordy.

Oh I see you are deliberately misrepresenting what my point was. Not all that surprising. You said

"The hardware is about as premium as it gets"

only that's not true at all. Even if you don't see the advantages of a bigger keybed the Prophet 5 Rev 4 uses the Fatar TP 9/S. That is the budget line of Fatar keyboards, to get as Premium as it gets you would need to have the Fatar TP/8S. As for needing more than 61 keys the Prophet 10 and the Gforce Prophet 5 are bi-timbral with a split point. With 61 keys one timbre will have a maximum of 30 keys while the other has a maximum of 31. Meaning that each timbre can only play 2.5 octaves per timbre. How is that as premium as it gets for a player?

Fatar makes 76 key keybeds that have synth action. That would give you 38 keys. As a player how can you not see that is better?

and the keyboard itself is just a Fatar 61 keybed. Very nice for sure but lots of MIDI Controllers and Synths have the same keyboard. My 88 key Montage M blows it away however

Your Montage M keybed isn't a synth action so "blows it away" isn't even a relevant comment. It's like saying the action in my Kawai digital upright blows away the keys on the P-5. Makes no sense. Prophet-5 is an analog synthesizer, not a workstation instrument built for piano players. (and for the record Fatar has multiple lines of 61-key actions).

Yes they do have multiple lines and Sequential took the cheap route and didn't get the premium one. And for Bi timbral instruments more keys is better

And you are correct the full experience of using the hardware isn't matched by the software and a generic controller. It completely blows away the hardware because it does way more and can be configured exactly how you want it to be configured. If you really want physical controls why would you not want the best experience possible? Why would you settle for whatever Sequential think you should have laid out the way they think you should use them

Because they designed the instrument. Why should you "settle" for how your Montage M is laid out?

Only the Montage M was designed to be user customizable. I can set it up however I want pretty much everything is programable to do whatever I want. But beyond that saying that Sequential designed it that way, doesn't address why you are settling for that. Don't you want the experience to be about as premium as it gets? It never ceases to amaze me how people will say how import physical controls are and then turn around and just blindly accept what the hardware manufacturer decides to give you in the layout they choose

[Jamface]

So much arguing going on here!

[gaf_thit]

So much arguing going on here!

Then the plugin have to be good. Plugin quarrels equals quality? Wouldn't quarrel over something that wasn't good to begin with, right?
Not close to This/That plugin or One-Ping-Only, but close... full circle.

[D-Fusion]

So much arguing going on here!

Yep. It is the regular people making a thread about them instead of staying on the topic after a few pages.
Back in the day people called Gearslut/Gearspace a Toxic place but these days it is KVR that has started to be that place so i am not surprised that most companies that had their own page here started to run in the other direction.

It is like a breath of fresh air when i go to Gearspace now.
People need to learn that one setup doesn't work for another person and accept that instead of fighting over who has the correct setup that everyone should use.

A Studio setup only matters to the user and what they prefer to use when they sit down to play a few notes or make a full song so it is time to let go and enjoy what you have Instead and buy the things you like.

This new Prophet 5 Emulation is kind of unique because of it's strong Analog behavior so It is a bit different than the Other ones but they all sound good in their own way.

[banal65]

I tried to ask that already on page 12, but then the huge discussion took over everything. So maybe anyone has an answer for me? Thank you very much
>>>>>
Program change is not working here neither in vst2 (Cubase, Reaper) or in standalone mode. Other gforce plugins using the same system are working fine with program changes. Did anyone get this feature to work?
<<<<<

[SoftSynthLover99]

So much arguing going on here!

This new Prophet 5 Emulation is kind of unique because of it's strong Analog behavior so It is a bit different than the Other ones but they all sound good in their own way.

This is definitely more like the hardware even designing your own patches it behaves as close to the hardware as any of the previous plugin. Makes u-he repro seem a bit outdated doing a side by side comparison. It’s really a great plugin.

Anyone else have issues with resonance behavior being a bit weird with filter 1/2? Could be how it’s designed but idk seems a bit off.

[zvenx]

I tried to ask that already on page 12, but then the huge discussion took over everything. So maybe anyone has an answer for me? Thank you very much
>>>>>
Program change is not working here neither in vst2 (Cubase, Reaper) or in standalone mode. Other gforce plugins using the same system are working fine with program changes. Did anyone get this feature to work?
<<<<<

I saw it. But sorry i don't use pc in software synths.
rsp

[D-Fusion]

So much arguing going on here!

This new Prophet 5 Emulation is kind of unique because of it's strong Analog behavior so It is a bit different than the Other ones but they all sound good in their own way.

This is definitely more like the hardware even designing your own patches it behaves as close to the hardware as any of the previous plugin. Makes u-he repro seem a bit outdated doing a side by side comparison. It’s really a great plugin.

Anyone else have issues with resonance behavior being a bit weird with filter 1/2? Could be how it’s designed but idk seems a bit off.

I guess it is how that filter works
A trick to make it sound better is to have the filter key knob set to max so the filter open up a bit more which is a trick i use on Oberheims and Prophets that tend to sound a bit muffled/muted when filter key tracking is off.

[234north]

So much arguing going on here!

Yep. It is the regular people making a thread about them instead of staying on the topic after a few pages.
Back in the day people called Gearslut/Gearspace a Toxic place but these days it is KVR that has started to be that place so i am not surprised that most companies that had their own page here started to run in the other direction.

Dude I've been on KvR since 2004 as you have. It's been like this from day one with fools like IvyBirds saying things just to hear themselves talk. Notice that IvyBirds didn't quote anything when called out on the fact that he wasn't talking about a Prophet-5 when he wasn't even getting the layout of the panel right. He just ignored it and moved on. He's a troll. He's been ignored as of now.

It's gotten worse since VSTs became a normal thing and the emulations have gotten better. Is any of it toxic? No, it's nerds arguing about nerd things, or just trolling (see IvyBirds). That's been happening since newsgroups were a thing.

[kritikon]

Finally got around to a proper demo today and remain very conflicted. Might buy it, might not need to spend quite a bit more time with it yet.

I agree with a few complaints about GUI - really could be clearer, just looks sloppy IMO.

Many of the patches seem geared towards that "analogue drift" thing which mostly is not my thing. I don't automatically associate analogue with unstable, plenty of them are rock solid. Down to taste I suppose.

It still reminds me very much of Obie filters - vanilla. I like some of the filter squelches but on the whole, I want to grab it by the lapels, shake it about and tell it to put some effort into it. I guess that's why I never got into Sequential in the past, same as with Obies. Not enough aggro in the filters.

On the upside, it's capable of some real depth. I think the power is in the XMod capabilities. Once I got into some real programming it can make some great movement. I don't think I want a real Prophet same as I never did, but this GForce plugin takes it far enough on to be quite usable. I like how they improved it but kept it (I assume) sounding like a Prophet.

Usually, I don't see the point of the bi-timbral/layering thing but have to admit some of those dual arp patches had me thinking I could use that. I bought the Behringer UBXa thinking I could do more of that sort of thing, and it turned out to be a bit meh. This Prophet looks like it can do it properly and with a little bit more feel to it. Still think the filters could be better but...better than Obie filters IMO, marginally at least.

I'm probably closer to buying it than not, really not sure. As usual though I can't fault GForce in their quality. Just might not be enough to my personal taste.

[Uncle E]

Not enough aggro in the filters.

Yes, it's pretty much the same with the hardware, even vintage Prophet-5's. The filter sounds vanilla in the best and worst sense of the term (delicious but won't shake you by your lapels).

[Korg Supporter]

I compared the sounds and features of Repro, Expanse-5 (demo), and GForce Prophet-5 (demo).

My hearing range is ~30Hz to 16+ kHz

I wore SONY MDR-7506 monitor headphones through a MOTU M4 interface set at 96 kHz and a buffer of 512. I used my Sequential Fourm as a MIDI Keyboard in Bitwig Studio 6.

Expanse-5 was used at Normal and Mega quality settings. Repro-5 was set to multi-core and high-quality.

In the grand scheme of things, the three plugins sound very close to each other. It doesn't really matter which one you buy, but I think Repro is overall the best of the three. Here are several things I noticed:

• Repro has the least detuning between notes. The waveforms sound a bit static or sterile/thin compared to those in the other two.

• The GForce version has the loudest noise generator, and it works really nicely with the filter resonance.

• The filters sound very similar. The GForce version has a little more saturation in the Rev3 filter (up to 9 kHz no keyracking for the resonance). The Repro filter sounds musical but can have squealy resonance up to 10 kHz. The Expanse filter can only go up to 8 kHz without keytracking, but the edge and nuances are nice.

• The poly-mod (especially the filter FM) is a bit different across the three. Depending on the waveform used, the filter FM in Expanse is sometimes closer to the GForce plugin. Other times, Repro's filter FM sounds more musical and controlled.

• A good example of this is when you listen to the triangle wave in Osc B modulate the filter at no resonance, as both square and saw waves in Osc A are audible. The detuning is fastest in the GForce plugin, followed by Expanse-5, followed by Repro-5.

• Some of the vintage factory presets like Alien sound the best in Repro or GForce.

• Most of the vintage factory presets that don't use poly-mod or filter FM sound almost the same throughout the plugins. But Expanse

• The low-end is sometimes better in GForce than in Repro. However, Expanse sometimes has a more pronounced low-end and mid-range, making it better for the mix.

• The sync and pulse width modulation have a little more dirt in GForce and Xpanse.

• The attack is sometimes dull in GForce or not as punchy as in Repro.

• Repro and Xpanse have a higher modulation range than the GForce plugin. And as others have noticed, the GForce one has more detuning variability, though, it's not very distracting or disruptive for the most part. It just happents to be that way. But I rather have reduced detuning for poly-mod sounds.

• Lastly, Repro uses the least CPU. GForce is alright on the CPU when the sampling rate is below 96 kHz. Even at 41 kHZ, Expanse-5 uses about as much CPU as Serum 2.

I think I will stick with Repro. However, I'm still planning to get the GForce Prophet plugin next month just for the slightly more organic character, the louder noise generator, the Rev 1/2 filter, and the polyphonic X-Modifiers. Polyphonic modulation can be done with Repro only in Bitwig and other hosts that use it with CLAP plugins. With the GForce plugin, I can have more modulation regardless of the DAW.

[jobinho]

• The attack is sometimes dull in GForce or not as punchy as in Repro.

Interesting, I always found the attack of Softube Model 80 was more consistent than Repro. Both are great though.