When I got it exactly a year ago, I was very excited and was very much in love. However, during the year I realized that the PX does not suit me. Still, I was not ready to sell the PX, it is truly a remarkable instrument. Also, it was a huge investment and somehow, I was not ready to admit to myself I did the wrong purchase. I also own a Prophet 12 Desktop. My experience with this instrument was the opposite. I was blown away by the specs and bought one despite the many (not so good) demos found on Youtube. The first month I struggled to get good sounds out of it, but after a year I gelled with it and currently it is definitely my favorite synth. The decision to sell the PX came after getting my hands on a Waldorf Blofeld. Within a first couple of hours, I got the sounds I like, which did not happen with the PX. The Blofeld was just a tenth of the price of the PX and that was the moment to realize that the PX never will connect to me. I’ve tried to analyze the issues I have with the PX. I’ve came to these conclusions:
1) I really don’t like the samples. For me, most of them are a bit strange and don’t fit into my taste. Second, a lot of the samples are recorded with some ambience. I like samples to be dry and dial in my own ambience with reverb. I do like the VS samples b.t.w. and used them a lot in my sounds. But the wavetables in the Blofeld are a lot more interesting to me. The samples I do like are the strings. But unfortunately, these are not looped and there is a certain articulation in it. I’ve tried to extract a part and set a loop, but finding the perfect loop is difficult and cumbersome in my humble opinion.
2) I do like the synth part of the PX. I used the PX as a traditional synth, no usage of samples. I do like the stereo(!) filter, but how beautiful it is, there is a certain signature which I find too limited in the end. Maybe strange, but I prefer the Curtis filter of the P12. It sounds more neutral to me and therefor more versatile. The P12 has the tools to make it warm and lush if I want.
3) In my humble opinion the quality of the effects is mediocre. I’ve a Strymon Bigsky or a GFI Tempus Specular connected to my P12 and the quality of these two reverb units is stunning. I did like the superplate reverb, but had troubles to get the hall reverb sounds right to me. Same for the chorus… The P12 doesn’t have a chorus effect, but I get a better chorus with just two delay taps and an LFO.
I tell my story to ask if I’m the only one which have these feelings about the PX. Still, I really think the PX is a wonderful instrument and can imagine that others are very happy with it, but it was not for me. Sequential make some fabulous instruments and I will always follow them. I love my P12 and only will replace it when Dave Smith decides to develop a second iteration of the P12.