Hardware Clone of RePro-5

[david.beholder]

Pretty sure it was a heated conversation about how envelope clipping doesn’t occur in Minimoogs.

Serious question: does it occur anywhere?

[Urs]

Pretty sure it was a heated conversation about how envelope clipping doesn’t occur in Minimoogs.

Serious question: does it occur anywhere?

Not very likely. The comparator which detects "Maximum Attack Level reached" usually does not draw current from the integrating circuit; it isn't a clipping circuit. I have also not seen a clipping circuit injected after the envelopes... (I mean, what for would any engineer add a clipping to an envelope?)

However, if for example the envelope goes beyond the minimum attenuation of a VCA aka max Volume, you can surely not see any effect of the envelope and thus it may appear clipped. As in, if the envelope goes beyond the range of the parameter it modulates, the modulation may stop at the max and the envelope may therefore look clipped.

As for the Minimoog, its envelopes can easily exceed the maximum value reached during Attack or set at maximum Sustain. It therefore is arguably and demonstrably not clipped.

What people talk often about is what looks like a short plateau between Attack and Decay. But that's not a plateau in the first place and it's not the result of clipping of the envelope (again, it may look like it when seen through a VCA...). It is actually a funky artefact that happens due to a quirk of the envelope Logic. Which is present in not a single Minimoog emulation I have tried.

[Urs]

Guess I'll just have to keep an eye out once Zebra 3 is done.

Yeah, once I figured out how to do better than all the emulations I was critical about, pretty much ten weekends into the weekend project, I figured I needed weekends off for a while to source enough energy to deal with Hive and Arm.

There's still a 1971 Minimoog hooked up to probes on my desk.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

I got one of these RePro hardware clones on the way as a little present to myself for entering my 40s. Looking really forward to a hardware RePro! Will be very interested in comparing the two in rev 3 mode.

I also fully endorse any further dissections of the U-he Minimoog for a future emulation (Diva update?). As well as getting some 2140 chips into Urs’ hands for some rev. 1/2 filters (I know they’re not exactly the same but good enough for Dave’s Smith and Rossem) in RePro-5.

[Super Piano Hater 64]

Guess I'll just have to keep an eye out once Zebra 3 is done.

Yeah, once I figured out how to do better than all the emulations I was critical about, pretty much ten weekends into the weekend project, I figured I needed weekends off for a while to source enough energy to deal with Hive and Arm.

There's still a 1971 Minimoog hooked up to probes on my desk.

Thank you for the exorcism, and all the hard work!

[vertibration]

Guess I'll just have to keep an eye out once Zebra 3 is done.

Yeah, once I figured out how to do better than all the emulations I was critical about, pretty much ten weekends into the weekend project, I figured I needed weekends off for a while to source enough energy to deal with Hive and Arm.

There's still a 1971 Minimoog hooked up to probes on my desk.

Whats the deal with the lack of voyager emulations? I know blamsoft got the swift slap about their voyager type skin for viking a while back. Just curious as to why no one is really emulating the voyager? If you did an emulation, would you switch it up and add more mods?

[Howard]

Whats the deal with the lack of voyager emulations? I know blamsoft got the swift slap about their voyager type skin for viking a while back. Just curious as to why no one is really emulating the voyager? If you did an emulation, would you switch it up and add more mods?

Unlike the original Minimoog, I don't think the Voyager has enough special character to warrant emulating. Just my opinion, man!
Of course one could slap a Voyager-like UI on a synth with similar spec, but that's not emulation.

[EvilDragon]

Well, you can always apply the slew rate mod to the Voyager, which brings some character back

[vertibration]

Whats the deal with the lack of voyager emulations? I know blamsoft got the swift slap about their voyager type skin for viking a while back. Just curious as to why no one is really emulating the voyager? If you did an emulation, would you switch it up and add more mods?

Unlike the original Minimoog, I don't think the Voyager has enough special character to warrant emulating. Just my opinion, man!
Of course one could slap a Voyager-like UI on a synth with similar spec, but that's not emulation.

I guess you're right. I think that its the additional modulations that make it interesting, and even more so on the XL. Would be pretty cool to see an emulation that had a slew of modulations though, rather than being a full on emulation.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

One of my favorite features from the Prophet 10 with the 1.5 firmware is the "poly unison." They assign two unison voices across 5 voices of polyphony so it's like having two detuned Prophet 5's. Very neat.

Another is unison Chord memory. Hold down a chord, engage unison, now you've got a unison chord.

These would make great FRs for RePro-5 if two more voices could be squeezed in.

[WatchTheGuitar]

Can we have a Repro-10, 3 and 6?

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Can we have a Repro-10, 3 and 6?

I wonder how Dave Smith would feel about that today.

At the time RePro came out, he had no interest in revisiting the past by recreating the classics, so a good Pro-One emulation and a Prophet-5 probably didn't feel like any kind of competition at the time. For all I know, he might still feel the same way about software emulations, but the Rev. 4 and rumored upcoming Oberheim (I think an OB-X) may have changed things somewhat. Although, he did publicly state that Behringer was the deciding factor in recreating the Prophet-5 (not the thread of software). I saw an interview where he said something to the effect of, 'someone emailed me and asked why I don't recreate the Prophet-5 before Behringer does it - and that was the thing that changed my mind.'

[WatchTheGuitar]

Is a roughly £100 software plugin going to queer the pitch for selling £x000 hardware synths that much though?

Bit of a see-saw because you could also argue that people loving RePro 5 will have led to sales of the new hardware synth.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Is a roughly £100 software plugin going to queer the pitch for selling £x000 hardware synths that much though?

Bit of a see-saw because you could also argue that people loving RePro 5 will have led to sales of the new hardware synth.

It did here!

Like I said, I think Dave’s concern was more with the potential for a $1,000 P5 hardware clone coming out of Behringer.

[WatchTheGuitar]

Is a roughly £100 software plugin going to queer the pitch for selling £x000 hardware synths that much though?

Bit of a see-saw because you could also argue that people loving RePro 5 will have led to sales of the new hardware synth.

It did here!

Like I said, I think Dave’s concern was more with the potential for a $1,000 P5 hardware clone coming out of Behringer.

Sure. I would definitely have bought it too.