GForce Sequential Prophet-5

[kritikon]

I've always loved impOSCar but tbh was quite underwhelmed by v3. There's not much new in there that was useful for me. Loads of really good presets, but otherwise....meh. I'm not a fan of wavetables, and what wavetable it has is limited. The upgrade was cheap enough to be OK but not really what I'd call value....but yeah XMod would be good. ImpOSCar4 should be due in around 2036?

[Korg Supporter]

I've always loved impOSCar but tbh was quite underwhelmed by v3. There's not much new in there that was useful for me. Loads of really good presets, but otherwise....meh. I'm not a fan of wavetables, and what wavetable it has is limited. The upgrade was cheap enough to be OK but not really what I'd call value....but yeah XMod would be good. ImpOSCar4 should be due in around 2036?

I love impOSCar for the filter and how its unison sounds really nice. I'm not sure if I want to sell it, because I paid $60 for impOSCar 2 and $40 for the upgrade. Not many synths I own have stereo voice unison. Hive only has oscillator unison.

[TechHaus]

New PJ Harvey track with her credited on a Prophet 5



(barely on topic)

Written by PJ Harvey
PJ Harvey: Prophet-5, vocals, percussion
Damien Quintard: Drum programming, mixing, production
Dario Marianelli: Orchestral arrangement and conductor
The Miraval Orchestra
Professor Brian Cox: Juno synth bass
George Cox: Percussive bass guitar
Recorded at Miraval Studios, Provence, February 2026

[Echoes in the Attic]

I'm getting closer to buying it. The clincher is the XMod stuff. None of their other synths with it sounded interesting enough on their own to hook me (obie stuff is just too bland imo), but this has XMod attached to at least a reasonable enough sounding synth. Without the XMod I don't think I'd buy it. I'm in the same boat as Wagtunes - never bought a hw Prophet in the past and dunno why particularly. I assume this is a good emulation (GForce usually is) but it wouldn't make me want to buy a hw Sequential. I've mulled over getting a Fourm, but tbh this makes me think twice. At least Fourm has a filter drive. Do no Prophets have filter drive?

If GForce did some emulation of character synths with XMod I'd probably instabuy. E.g. would love Imposcar to have XMod, or for them to make some Yamaha CS emus, or a Jupiter6, Polyvoks etc. XMod is quite a selling point. Just a bit sad that they pick so many boring synths to emulate (I know I might be in a minority with that view)

The OB-X sounds awesome though. And actually the Oddity and Minimonsta are both worthy as well. All with XMod.

[DiodeLadder]

By the way, Repro-5 tweak page has a setting for oscillators called "P5 Old". According to the manual, this is a more detuned version of the regular P5 mode. Maybe that'll work for some people.

[zerocrossing]

By the way, Repro-5 tweak page has a setting for oscillators called "P5 Old". According to the manual, this is a more detuned version of the regular P5 mode. Maybe that'll work for some people.

I just did a very deep comparison of Repro-5 and Prophet-5, and it was no contest: Repro-5 sounded a lot better to me, in every way, and especially when pushed. As for extra modulations, I use the CLAP version in Bitwig, so I can do basically the same things, and more.

[Deisss]

But I guess if I had the hardware my take would be a bit different..
I suspect this is the closest I will ever get to owning the 'hardware'.
rsp

Nah when you got the hardware you use the hardware and forget all those

In retrospect, I'd owned Korg, Moog, Oberheim, Yamaha, ARP, Roland, Ensoniq, and just about every other major synth brand. Yet, I never once bought anything from Sequential Circuits. Looking back, I don't know why.

That's a very solid list already, I would have put a Pro One before any mono-Moog, and then a PolyEvolver, a Prophet 08 and a P12 in that order, only after come the prophet 5/10.

While the Prophet-5 never had filter drive, there is saturation in the Rev 2 filter. It sounds dirtier than the Rev 3 filter. Their teaser video for the Prophet 5 also showed cards for the CS-80 and Oberheim Matrix. I am looking forward to their Matrix emulation.

I would love to see a proper Matrix 12/xpander emulation done, the Arturia is below average to get that classic tone...

[Korg Supporter]

By the way, Repro-5 tweak page has a setting for oscillators called "P5 Old". According to the manual, this is a more detuned version of the regular P5 mode. Maybe that'll work for some people.

I just did a very deep comparison of Repro-5 and Prophet-5, and it was no contest: Repro-5 sounded a lot better to me, in every way, and especially when pushed. As for extra modulations, I use the CLAP version in Bitwig, so I can do basically the same things, and more.

In what ways did it sound better to you? Repro sounds a bit more static, sterile, or plasticky to me. But it's still very good, and I love its Filter FM.

[Mr Arkadin]

And what did you push?

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

By the way, Repro-5 tweak page has a setting for oscillators called "P5 Old". According to the manual, this is a more detuned version of the regular P5 mode. Maybe that'll work for some people.

Indeed. The other tricks for loosening up RePro are:

1. Use the Detune knob. About 22 to 38% is the sweet spot for me. That doesn't just de-tune voices, it also loosens up the filter and envelopes.

2. If you want more granular control, use voice index modulation in the Mod Matrix. You can assign small amounts to oscillators A/B fine tune control controls, filter cut off, filter envelope depth, or resonance. The only downside is you're limited to four in total and if you want to use those mod slots for something else, you have to start making choices.

3. As plugmon pointed out, a bit of soft clipping in the FX section with the tone around 40% will get you more into model 80 territory.

[zerocrossing]

By the way, Repro-5 tweak page has a setting for oscillators called "P5 Old". According to the manual, this is a more detuned version of the regular P5 mode. Maybe that'll work for some people.

I just did a very deep comparison of Repro-5 and Prophet-5, and it was no contest: Repro-5 sounded a lot better to me, in every way, and especially when pushed. As for extra modulations, I use the CLAP version in Bitwig, so I can do basically the same things, and more.

In what ways did it sound better to you? Repro sounds a bit more static, sterile, or plasticky to me. But it's still very good, and I love its Filter FM.

GForce's Prophet-5's filter resonance and poly-mod off OSC 2 in audio rate mode sound very digital. They sound particularly ugly above C4 or so. Repro sounds a lot more like my hardware Prophet 6 and other analog hardware synths, though I don't have a Prophet 5 of any revision. In all honesty, I don't get the claim that Repro sounds static, sterile or plasticy at all, though it looks that way. It sounds a bit more focused than my 6, but obviously it's not an emulation of a 6. Have you tried a comparison? Messed with the tweeks page?

[Korg Supporter]

By the way, Repro-5 tweak page has a setting for oscillators called "P5 Old". According to the manual, this is a more detuned version of the regular P5 mode. Maybe that'll work for some people.

I just did a very deep comparison of Repro-5 and Prophet-5, and it was no contest: Repro-5 sounded a lot better to me, in every way, and especially when pushed. As for extra modulations, I use the CLAP version in Bitwig, so I can do basically the same things, and more.

In what ways did it sound better to you? Repro sounds a bit more static, sterile, or plasticky to me. But it's still very good, and I love its Filter FM.

GForce's Prophet-5's filter resonance and poly-mod off OSC 2 in audio rate mode sound very digital. They sound particularly ugly above C4 or so. Repro sounds a lot more like my hardware Prophet 6 and other analog hardware synths, though I don't have a Prophet 5 of any revision. In all honesty, I don't get the claim that Repro sounds static, sterile or plasticy at all, though it looks that way. It sounds a bit more focused than my 6, but obviously it's not an emulation of a 6. Have you tried a comparison? Messed with the tweeks page?

I did not alter the tweaks section, but I compared it extensively with Expanse and Repro. I posted my comparison earlier in this thread. Repro was set to MC and HQ modes. I also looked at the harmonics for the waveforms, resonance, and filter FM using Renoise's spectrogram. The spectrogram shows way less detuning between notes in Repro vs the GForce plugin. I already bought the GForce one, but I'll compare it with Repro again after tweaking Repro's engine and soft clipping per plugmon's suggestions.

[Korg Supporter]

Zerocrossing may be right about the filter FM. I like how it sounds more in Repro, but unless the voice detune is adjusted, Repro's oscillators sound a little thinner to my ears than the GForce one. I still hear a little more saturation or grit in the Rev 3 filter of the GForce version, which also has a louder noise generator that is better for "snowy" sounds when combined with filter resonance. Nevertheless, I would be happy to keep just Repro.

[beely]

The GF one has random voice detuning no matter what you do, so to compare like for like when it comes to oscillators, you'll need to dial in the appropriate amount of voice detuning - Repro 5 is more stable by default (and some people have expressed they wished the GF to be more stable by default than it is).