The Official Sequential/Oberheim Forum
SEQUENTIAL/DSI => Prophet => Prophet Rev2 => Topic started by: discorules on May 27, 2018, 06:06:16 AM
-
Hi,
I've been using a Moog Voyager for years and always loved the 'fatness' of its sound. But as we know, Moogs are monophonic so i can't create chords and harmony with it. I use it a lot on my tracks, but basically for making basslines and before the Rev2 i used mainly VSTs for the other elements.
In an effort to move away from VSTs, i tried first a Minilogue as my polyphonic resource. Hated the small keys and the lack of voices (only 4), and some months ago replaced it for a Rev2 16-voice. Since then i've been exploring it, it's a fantastic synth, with a lot of space for creativity.
But (always there is a 'but' ;)) i don't know if is my limited synthesis knowledge, but i'm struggling to get the sounds i want from the Rev2.
I'm into funky / italo / disco / house music, with lots of influence of 70s and 80s. And the main problem i'm having with the Rev2 is that every sound i try to create somehow sounds 'thin'. Ok, i know the Moog is all analog and it would sound creamier. But i expected to get something like these sounds from the Rev2 :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiOSNgtpUvA
This video is from a Prophet 6 and the sounds are a lot more into the timbral area i'm looking for. Is the Rev2 capable of such sounds or maybe i chose the wrong Prophet ?
Thanks
-
I assume that when you’ve created a unison mono patch that you’ve increased the number of voices? Having done that you can then start to detune them a little and maybe add a little oscillator slop etc.
You can then get into stacking layers A and B and adding a bit of Sub oscillator into the equation.
You might have already tried these things though?
-
The Distortion effect on the prophet rev 2 is actually quite handy. It isn't polyphonic (per voice) but it is actually very transparent in how the gain pot is applied up until the highest quarter turn. One thing that is especially useful about it is it has a low end boost. I have used the Distortion and also the high pass filter effect to significantly thicken up my sounds without having to muddy them up. The results may surprise you.
Also, try to avoid setting osc mix pot to 12 oclock. There is a volume reduction from mixing the osc volumes 50:50. 60:40 should give you some extra volume
-
The distortion effect suggestion is a good one.
But the REV2 is not a polyphonic Moog. The Prophet 6 would be a little closer in sound to it than the REV2, in my humble opinion.
The OB6 is much closer to my Minimoog D (as far as fat goes, whatever that is lol), than my REV2.
But that's not to say that it can't sound rich, too. Careful programming, and attention to details (don't forget that Slop parameter) can yield very good results. You just have to "work" a little harder at it to obtain satisfaction than on some other synths.
The REV2 doesn't offer the instant gratification of an OB6 or Minimoog D. But it is a very powerful synth nonetheless. Use the matrix (no, not the Oberheim Matrix-6, the onboard modulation matrix). BTW, the Oberheim Matrix-6 also "suffers" from the same "this is not a Moog synth" behavior. Probably because it uses the same Curtis chips based oscillators and filters as the REV2.
Only a Moog is a Moog. And even then, some Moogs are better than others at being "fat".
There a guy in France who was tired of waiting for Moog Music to produce a modern polyphonic synth, and created his own, based on clones of the Moog The Source, of which he put 8 of them inside a box and added modern digital controls and software. His company name is called Baloran and the synth is called The River.
Having heard it, it sure sounds like a polyphonic Moog, because it IS. Unfortunately, it is a One-Man company and he builds them by hand, one at a time, and he's flooded with demand despite the price tag (around $5K). He's currently building the first batch of 20. And, no, I didn't reserved mine yet because of shipping concerns...
Just search Baloran in google.
-
In addition to the slop parameter and the standard detuning of oscillators to get them beating against one another, I find introducing some subtle, LFO controlled modulation of the shape mod parameter on each oscillator to help. At the very least, this will inject some movement into the raw oscillator wave.
If you layer the same patch on both engines, detune the four oscillators against one another, and add some subtle wave shape movement to each oscillator independently, you can get it to start sounding pretty big . . . not Moog big, but a bit closer to the fat poly sound you're probably looking for.
-
The Rev2 can be fat but it takes a little work to get there. Subtle and not so subtle modulation of the osc shapes and frequencies using multiple sources at different rates and amounts. This will get the oscillators themselves moving. Try modulating the same parameter from multiple sources. Osc Shape is good for this. I usually have at least 2 lfos doing something to the shape.
(edit) 4dubs beat me to it.
-
The distortion amount can also be modulated via an envelope, which is useful especially on mono patches or single line playing by thickening via a bit of growl. Also avoid resonance, especially in 4 pole mode.
And don't ignore the fact that thin isn't a bad thing. If everything in a mix is thick, it just gets muddy.
-
There a guy in France who was tired of waiting for Moog Music to produce a modern polyphonic synth, and created his own, based on clones of the Moog The Source, of which he put 8 of them inside a box and added modern digital controls and software. His company name is called Baloran and the synth is called The River.
Having heard it, it sure sounds like a polyphonic Moog, because it IS. Unfortunately, it is a One-Man company and he builds them by hand, one at a time, and he's flooded with demand despite the price tag (around $5K). He's currently building the first batch of 20. And, no, I didn't reserved mine yet because of shipping concerns...
Just search Baloran in google.
Thanks for the hints guy, i'll give all them a try ! I'm sure i'll get closer to the sound i'm looking for. I'll post some examples later.
This 'The River' really sounds big ! Thanks for the hint.
-
The Rev2 can have plenty fat bass, but it has to be approached a little differently than the moog. (Disclosure: I have a P-08 not a Rev2. So my experience is based on the P-08.) All the previous suggestions are good. Here's another - Bring down the cutoff filter a little more than you probably do right now and add a little resonance filter. By doing so, you will emphasize the frequencies at the cutoff. Use the 4-pole to tighten the emphasis, but don't add so much resonance as to make it self-resonate.
Also, there is nothing that prohibits you from adding a little eq to bring up the lows. Take a parametric eq with about a 50-100 hz span, and play with it in the 80-250 hz range. In my studio days, the engineer was always dialing in (or out) some lows or highs to make the sound better fit the track. EQ is your friend.
Another thought is to layer the patch. One layer controls the low frequencies. The other layer controls the "grit". There's no limit on the lows using that approach.
Another trick is in the bass percussion put around the bass track. Depending upon the style of the music a bass drum or djembe can make the bass track sound really fat. So much so, the lows of the synth often have to dialed back to not overpower the track.
BTW, at least for recording, bass sounds are often multi-tracked. Do experiment with that approach.
The Rev-2 is not a Voyager. It won't be able to do what the Voyager does, and vice versa. However, the sonic pallette is pretty intense. You'll be really happy with what you can get out of the Rev2.
-
The Rev2 can have plenty fat bass, but it has to be approached a little differently than the moog. (Disclosure: I have a P-08 not a Rev2. So my experience is based on the P-08.) All the previous suggestions are good. Here's another - Bring down the cutoff filter a little more than you probably do right now and add a little resonance filter. By doing so, you will emphasize the frequencies at the cutoff. Use the 4-pole to tighten the emphasis, but don't add so much resonance as to make it self-resonate.
Also, there is nothing that prohibits you from adding a little eq to bring up the lows. Take a parametric eq with about a 50-100 hz span, and play with it in the 80-250 hz range. In my studio days, the engineer was always dialing in (or out) some lows or highs to make the sound better fit the track. EQ is your friend.
Another thought is to layer the patch. One layer controls the low frequencies. The other layer controls the "grit". There's no limit on the lows using that approach.
Another trick is in the bass percussion put around the bass track. Depending upon the style of the music a bass drum or djembe can make the bass track sound really fat. So much so, the lows of the synth often have to dialed back to not overpower the track.
BTW, at least for recording, bass sounds are often multi-tracked. Do experiment with that approach.
The Rev-2 is not a Voyager. It won't be able to do what the Voyager does, and vice versa. However, the sonic pallette is pretty intense. You'll be really happy with what you can get out of the Rev2.
Nice, great hints, thank you !
Would be great if somebody could share some 'fat' presets here ;D
I'll post some with the using the techniques of this post, soon.
-
Try Photoshop :D
-
Try Photoshop :D
Now that was a good one!
-
Turn up the bass a bit, turn down the treble a bit, instant fatness, it responds to EQ well, it's an easy way to change the character, I have my permanently hooked up to a graphic EQ now, it's the character that I want, sounds more like vintage analog. A parametric might be more precise, but pretty expensive, it's easy to find affordable graphic EQs, liking the used Rane Constant-Q 15 band that I found, 30 bands is too fiddly for me. It doesn't take much, boost the lows by 1db, cut the highs by 2dB, it's more enjoyable to listen to, over the full range of patches.
-
The single best way to thicken and liven up the sound (that I have found) is to run it in true stereo in the way that Sacred Synthesis does. Run one layer completely to the Left, and run the other layer completely to the right. An easy way to try this is to use both the A and B outputs. Making the layers slightly out of tune helps. It's not a subtle difference; it's a huge improvement. Once you hear the difference and potential for this type of setup, it is difficult to go back. Unfortunately, this arrangement means that you cannot use layers and splits. I used my Rev2 like that until I was able to get a Rev2 module, and now the Module goes to one side and the keyboard version goes to the other.
-
What I have found is that full stereo splits does not work well for a bass sound with the type of music Discorules is trying to produce. The Bass gets lost in the mix. It does work well for higher pitched instruments, however.
-
Piggybacking here off what jdt above spoke of Multitracking, I get huge bass in my tracks by doing so... I will make a bassline, record it into Logic, then put the same bassline onto 2 separate tracks, and eq out the high end on the track I want to have just the bass frequencies, make that track mono, process it with Waves RBass to really big up the sound, and on the other track I will eq out the bass frequencies and give the track width in stereo. End result becomes one full sound across all frequencies and sounds as if it’s the same patch, just huge and tight. If playing out live is the goal where multitracking is not possible then a hardware EQ unit with the low frequencies boosted up would absolutely do the trick to fatten up any sound.
-
Question for Jason...that sounds pretty awesome what you say about using both the A and B outputs of the Rev2 and panning one sound to the left and then panning the same patch out of output B to the right..I would really like to try this technique and as I recently sold my Mackie 8 bus mixer and just am using my Antelope Audio Zen Tour audio interface, ( 8 inputs) I figure it would be as simple as running output B into another pair of inputs on the Antelope and in Logic I would pan the track from outputs A hard left and pan the track from outputs B hard right? And this you are saying would be a huge difference in the fatness and spatial width of the sounds of the Rev2?
-
The single best way to thicken and liven up the sound (that I have found) is to run it in true stereo in the way that Sacred Synthesis does. Run one layer completely to the Left, and run the other layer completely to the right. An easy way to try this is to use both the A and B outputs. Making the layers slightly out of tune helps. It's not a subtle difference; it's a huge improvement. Once you hear the difference and potential for this type of setup, it is difficult to go back. Unfortunately, this arrangement means that you cannot use layers and splits. I used my Rev2 like that until I was able to get a Rev2 module, and now the Module goes to one side and the keyboard version goes to the other.
Yep, my Rev2 replaced a Poly Evolver, which has stereo filters, but the Rev2's polyphony plus stereo panning just sound massive. The Pan Spread works really well for this as well if you don't want to mess with 4 cables.
To make it even richer: Set up a gated sequence, set Mode to Keystep, Destination: Filter, Depth: 40 for the first step, 60 for the 2nd and Reset for the 3rd. You now have variations for each new note. (And of course you can apply this to Env Amount, pitch, etc. as well.) Now copy/paste that to Layer B, detune B, and set the steps so step 1 is 30 and step 2 is 50. Now you have some interesting variations to each note in the stereo field. Now add a super short Mono Delay to Layer A and a Stereo Delay to B. At this point it's so huge you may not have room for other instruments in the mix!
-
Here’s a couple of suggestions (picked up along my almost 15 years synthesis journey)
On multitimbral synths, same layer/patch, twice in multi, slightly detuned.
Yeah the true stereo thing is good as well (Matrix 6R some years back)
Ok here’s a good one:
has to do with the Master Transpose and it’s correlation with the Filter Tracking (Resonance)
you want to transpose the oscillators up and finally play the keyboard lower down, resulting in a deeper resonance (lower in octave) vice versa if you to ‘move’ the resonance up (brighter).
Also another layer function: just put a fat, low triangle or any sub type sound on one layer (think of it as lower and upper, using lower for the sub bass so to speak)
-
Using the same patch on both layers works well too, creating a type of 2 voice unison mode.
Also, using a high pass set low with a high resonance will boost the low end nicely. Not as good on the rev 2 admittedly being only an effect high pass filter, but is a neat trick on the P12 with it’s true high pass.
-
in Logic I would pan the track from outputs A hard left and pan the track from outputs B hard right? And this you are saying would be a huge difference in the fatness and spatial width of the sounds of the Rev2?
Yes, that sounds right. After you try it, experiment with slight differences between the two layers, such as tuning and time based effects.
-
After spending weeks with the Rev2 and a Rane ME15S graphic EQ, that's been permanently attached and enabled, this is my favorite way of making the Rev2 more fat, more analog, more warm, a complete pleasure to use across all patches.
25Hz: +0.75
40Hz: +0.75
63Hz: +0.75
100Hz: +0.75
160Hz: +0.3
250Hz: -0.3
400Hz - 10k: flat
16kHz: -1.8
So pump up the bass just a touch, notch out a little high bass, keep the mids flat, and notch out the highs a bit. There's also something euphonic going on with my Rane where it's creating a wider stereo field that sounds incredible (YMMV), and it sounds the same in mono, with no phase cancellation, so I'll take whatever the heck it's doing.