Pioneer Toraiz AS-1

[cbx]

All I know is it sounds fat and blows away any TB-303 anyday :-)

[cbx]

Well I said that wrong and can't delete it. It sounds very good. When I first got started with synthesizers everyone wanted a TB-303. I wanted a mini moog. I somehow came across a Sequential Circuits Prophet-10 and Oberheim Matrix 12. Never found a mini moog. TB-303 is fun but it only does one thing: acid. This is a far more versatile instrument and sounds great.

[BobTheDog]

Arrived today - and really quite good!

I still firmly believe that THIS is the modern equivalent of the Pro-One, relative to the Prophet-6. The unit is built very solidly (on Pioneer DJ's behalf, in Malaysia) and sounds the part.

The lack of built-in reverb effects is actually a plus, as it shows off its naked strengths without any sonic sugar-coating.

Hi David,

I have been thinking of getting one and now that the honeymoon is over I'm wondering what do you think of it?

Cheers

Andy

[DavidDever]

Arrived today - and really quite good!

I still firmly believe that THIS is the modern equivalent of the Pro-One, relative to the Prophet-6. The unit is built very solidly (on Pioneer DJ's behalf, in Malaysia) and sounds the part.

The lack of built-in reverb effects is actually a plus, as it shows off its naked strengths without any sonic sugar-coating.

Hi David,

I have been thinking of getting one and now that the honeymoon is over I'm wondering what do you think of it?

Cheers

Andy

It feels like a gateway drug to a proper Prophet-6, to be honest ; I've got a Prophet-600 that it rides sidecar to, but I'm seriously considering the idea of building a keyboard housing for the AS-1, a la the old Roland SH units of the 70s (parking the module at left).

[BobTheDog]

Yeah I did worry about the progression to a P6.

[Fuseball]

Yeah I did worry about the progression to a P6.

I went the other way. Owned a P6 for a year or so but eventually couldn't justify keeping such an expensive instrument that I didn't quite bond with.  The majority of my favourite P6 sounds were actually monophonic, much to my surprise, and after a few months without the P6 I found myself missing that sound.  The AS-1 gets me 90% of what I liked about the P6 at a price I can afford and a form factor I can accommodate in my limited studio space.

There are actually things that I prefer about the AS-1 too.  The extra headroom is nice and I love having an OLED screen with patch names and visible parameter values. The slider is great too and makes it easier to dial in subtle LFO modulation, which is something I struggled with on the P6.

Without doubt the P6 is a beautiful instrument but I didn't love it as a poly, far preferring my P'08 with its varied modulation options in that role. If money and space were no object then I would have kept it. As it is, with the AS-1 drafted in to replace it, I don't miss the P6 at all.

[BobTheDog]

Interesting. So is the AS-1 a straight P6 voice or is anything missing?

[DavidDever]

Interesting. So is the AS-1 a straight P6 voice or is anything missing?

The available effects section is different (no reverbs, etc.) but the rest looks to be a straight-up P6 voice.

[DavidDever]

Yeah I did worry about the progression to a P6.

I went the other way. Owned a P6 for a year or so but eventually couldn't justify keeping such an expensive instrument that I didn't quite bond with.  The majority of my favourite P6 sounds were actually monophonic, much to my surprise, and after a few months without the P6 I found myself missing that sound.  The AS-1 gets me 90% of what I liked about the P6 at a price I can afford and a form factor I can accommodate in my limited studio space.

There are actually things that I prefer about the AS-1 too.  The extra headroom is nice and I love having an OLED screen with patch names and visible parameter values. The slider is great too and makes it easier to dial in subtle LFO modulation, which is something I struggled with on the P6.

Without doubt the P6 is a beautiful instrument but I didn't love it as a poly, far preferring my P'08 with its varied modulation options in that role. If money and space were no object then I would have kept it. As it is, with the AS-1 drafted in to replace it, I don't miss the P6 at all.

There's something about a VCO-based unison stack that feels right, compared to a DCO-based voice, though it only fits into a mix a certain way–in that respect, the P6 could be considered a more-expensive monosynth!

For many applications, though, you can get away with just one (two-oscillator + sub) voice, which sounds pretty good, even with the reduced number of modulation destinations of the P6-style voice (relative to the P8/Rev2 one).

[Fuseball]

Yeah.  I found anything over 2 or 3 unison voices of the P6 just too heavy to fit into my mixes.  I was never entirely sure whether Slop in unison mode was a genuine fixed detune either.

The single P6/AS-1 voice seems plenty weighty enough to hold its own in a mix. The chorus and phaser effects go some way to providing some tonal modulation too.

[MPM]

Anyone with the Prophet-6 and AS1?

I use the Prophet-6’s bass patch 357 (VBass) pretty much as my standard bass sound (mono/no unison).
I saw that VBass is on the AS1 voice list too.

Can anyone comment on their similarities? Is it a perfect match to the same patch on the Prophet-6, is it weaker or otherwise not of the same quality?
Thanks 

[Robot Heart]

The AS-1 is literally a single voice out of the Prophet-6. There are some slight differences in the effects implementation between the two instruments but otherwise they sound very similar.

[MPM]

The AS-1 is literally a single voice out of the Prophet-6.

Thanks. I’m going to order one.
It’ll be nice to just have a dedicated Bass mono synth. I never realised how cheap the AS-1 was.

I’m not to concerned about the effects tbh. I have an ElCapistan gathering dust so I’ll probably hardwire it to the AS-1 for all delay and spring Reverb needs. 

[MPM]

Arrived yesterday, so quick.
That VBass patch is identical on both the AS1 and Prophet 6, as were all the other patches I compared.
Working from the Basic Patch, I picked an easy target and whipped up Yazoo’s Bass from Don’t Go in a minute. No menu diving. I feared there would be, but no. I didn’t even touch the dedicated knobs. Anyway, it’s my new sequencer driven Bass synth. Brilliant.

My only complaint about it is that I didn’t know about it earlier than 2weeks ago!

[MPM]

Is it possible to reset the calibration table on this?

I use it almost every day (as a bass synth) and every day it goes out of tune and I have to recalibrate it. Even on single oscillator patches.
It’s been a few months now.
Pioneer have not responded to a dozen emails.

[Signifier]

Is it possible to reset the calibration table on this?

I use it almost every day (as a bass synth) and every day it goes out of tune and I have to recalibrate it. Even on single oscillator patches.
It’s been a few months now.
Pioneer have not responded to a dozen emails.

Try the Pioneer forum. They’re pretty responsive on such queries.

[Robot Heart]

Is it possible to reset the calibration table on this?

Didn't see your followup question, apologies.

You can clear the calibration table from the debug menu. Hold Transpose Up + Transpose Down and press Global to enter debug.

[MPM]

Thanks for that, I’ll give it a go.

I also found out that my AS1 was a returned B stock unit. 

[pulsn]

Here is a little Demo, i Put together Out of preset Sounds.

https://youtu.be/96wkCct50a8