Next New Sequential Instrument

[Paul Dither]

Is this from a blog post, or....?

Facebook and Twitter. The Pro 2 has now officially been retired.

[Shaw]

Is this from a blog post, or....?

Facebook and Twitter. The Pro 2 has now officially been retired.

We kinda saw that coming... and that raises some questions -- 2 synths retired before a replacement is announced for either.  That's gonna drive some speculation for sure! 
 

[Paul Dither]

Is this from a blog post, or....?

Facebook and Twitter. The Pro 2 has now officially been retired.

We kinda saw that coming... and that raises some questions -- 2 synths retired before a replacement is announced for either.  That's gonna drive some speculation for sure! 
 

Either way, the Pro 2 is destined to remain a modern classic

[Shaw]

Is this from a blog post, or....?

Facebook and Twitter. The Pro 2 has now officially been retired.

We kinda saw that coming... and that raises some questions -- 2 synths retired before a replacement is announced for either.  That's gonna drive some speculation for sure! 
 

Either way, the Pro 2 is destined to remain a modern classic

No doubt.

[LoboLives]

Holy crap! Did not expect the Prophet 12, Pro 2 And the DSI Modular stuff to be discontinued all one after another in the same year. Hmm wonder if they read my post about the Pro 4 idea like they read my Prophet X post.

[Quatschmacher]

Holy crap! Did not expect the Prophet 12, Pro 2 And the DSI Modular stuff to be discontinued all one after another in the same year. Hmm wonder if they read my post about the Pro 4 idea like they read my Prophet X post.

Imagine a 5-octave, FPGA poly version of the Pro 2. I’d buy it in a heartbeat.

[LoboLives]

Holy crap! Did not expect the Prophet 12, Pro 2 And the DSI Modular stuff to be discontinued all one after another in the same year. Hmm wonder if they read my post about the Pro 4 idea like they read my Prophet X post.

Imagine a 5-octave, FPGA poly version of the Pro 2. I’d buy it in a heartbeat.

Nah. I see zero logic in a five octave mono synth. Paraphonic or otherwise.

[Razmo]

It's just another cue that something with a digital front end is coming up... They are rewamping their digital lineup, except the X... I'm certain of it... Hope it will be an FPGA front end, and please... No monosynth!... I wonder if the P12 will remain in module form still...

[LoboLives]

It's just another cue that something with a digital front end is coming up... They are rewamping their digital lineup, except the X... I'm certain of it... Hope it will be an FPGA front end, and please... No monosynth!... I wonder if the P12 will remain in module form still...

Or it may be something completely unexpected. While we are all expecting a P12 successor, we might get an analog oscillator/digital oscillator hybrid OR a larger VCO based synth that isn’t Moog One style pricing. With the Super 6 And Novation Summit, Sequential might feel the market for digital front/analog back synths are satisfied. Dave has always been about leading the market or doing something no one else is doing. He might not see a point in bringing out a synth with wavetables, FM, FPGA oscillators now when people already have access to one at a decent price. Likely why he never brought out an analog mono synth when everyone else was.

[Razmo]

It's just another cue that something with a digital front end is coming up... They are rewamping their digital lineup, except the X... I'm certain of it... Hope it will be an FPGA front end, and please... No monosynth!... I wonder if the P12 will remain in module form still...

Or it may be something completely unexpected. While we are all expecting a P12 successor, we might get an analog oscillator/digital oscillator hybrid OR a larger VCO based synth that isn’t Moog One style pricing. With the Super 6 And Novation Summit, Sequential might feel the market for digital front/analog back synths are satisfied. Dave has always been about leading the market or doing something no one else is doing. He might not see a point in bringing out a synth with wavetables, FM, FPGA oscillators now when people already have access to one at a decent price. Likely why he never brought out an analog mono synth when everyone else was.

Well... if not something with a digital front end, then what? ... there is no other choice but to make the front end either digital or analog, and as FPGA will work for any kind of digital innovation, I could easily see this coming...

Now I'm not interested in just a P12 made with an FPGA front end if that is what you thought that I wanted... digital is the most flexible, and you could do anything with it at lightning FPGA speeds, so anything could be done, not just wavetable/VA stuff...

I still believe we'll see a new take on a digital front-end synth from Sequential because their whole lineup right now has an open space for such a device... but I certainly cannot guess what It'll be... just have to wait and see.

If it's a hybrid like the Evolver, fine with me... as long as it's FPGA in the digital front end, has at least 8voice polyphony, is at least dual timbral and has internal FX.

[OceanMachine]

The market is full of analog, so that's not going against the grain in any way. Korg has a VCO/digital oscillator lineup, which I'm sure Dave and co could outdo, though that's not too interesting either. A knobby FM synth would certainly be something no one has ever really pulled off before. Nor are there any good examples of knobby physical modeling synths. The Quantum is capable of both in some way, but not focused around either. The Nonlinear Labs C15 is another interesting synth, yet it's not knobby.

[LoboLives]

The market is full of analog, so that's not going against the grain in any way. Korg has a VCO/digital oscillator lineup, which I'm sure Dave and co could outdo, though that's not too interesting either. A knobby FM synth would certainly be something no one has ever really pulled off before. Nor are there any good examples of knobby physical modeling synths. The Quantum is capable of both in some way, but not focused around either. The Nonlinear Labs C15 is another interesting synth, yet it's not knobby.

I was thinking a Prophet FM type synth with a focus on DX style FM synthesis but not sure.

Dave first did an analog/digital oscillator synth with the Evolver line.

Actually four part multitimbrality would be interesting with an analog/digital oscillator based synth. Right now the most Seqential has is two parts. Moog One has three....why not four?

[LoboLives]

As far as another VCO based synth from Sequential....maybe something like Paul Dither’s Prophet 8 design which is an extension of the Prophet 6 design ....or perhaps Prophet 20 with an external lower manual extension (instead of a module) like the Prophet 10. So you essentially could get two 10 voice VCO synths at your disposal with two key beds. We don’t really have a large analog flagship from Sequential.


Perhaps something with multitimbrality. Dave did say they are looking into that as well as MPE.

[OceanMachine]

Dave first did an analog/digital oscillator synth with the Evolver line.

Actually four part multitimbrality would be interesting with an analog/digital oscillator based synth. Right now the most Seqential has is two parts. Moog One has three....why not four?

It doesn't matter who did it first, it's about what's currently on the market. Nor is a more modern version of something you did prior all that innovative and possibly not even fresh anyway. Same goes for simply adding more stuff. I'd like to see Dave do at least one more synth that no one had ever really attempted.

[Razmo]

The reason no one does multitimbrality anymore is that people making music is getting used to recording audio with their synths... they like to be able to record as many tracks as they want with audio from the same synth, thus needing less physical synths... i bet this is why multitimbrality is phasing out with many companies.

The main reason for some being dual or even a third layer is that performing musicians need stacks/splits and thus more than 3 would be more or less useless. multimode in many of these synths is a simple bonus where you can control the layers independently via their own MIDI channel, and code wise it's pretty easy to include when you've already got stack/split functionality.

A third reason may be that any synth with analog parts in the signal chain is always limited to about 8-16 voices ... if you had 4 parts on a REV2 16-voice you'd be down to 4 voices per part... we're reaching a polyphony that's becoming insufficient for anything but leads, basses and other short release sounds now, and when you use multitimbral you all know that the first question will be "does it have separate outs!?" which further increase the cost of the synth, and complicates any built in FX that will usually be routed to only one output, otherwise the FX engine have to be duplicated for each output as well, further increasing cost.

With a fully digital synth, it's much more feasible to have multitimbrality, especially these days with the horsepower the CPU's give you... probably also why the KYRA have 8 part multitimbrality... it also has 128 voices giving you 16 voices per part because of this.

[OceanMachine]

Here's another idea that no one has ever done:


A module keyboard platform like the KB Waldorf except one that works within a digitally controlled ecosystem. Meaning it would have savable patches and digitally controlled mod matrix section, so say goodbye to silly patch cables. The keyboard/digital control section remain the same while modules could be swapped at whim. You could possibly even open things up to where other companies could license (free or otherwise) the ability to integrate into said ecosystem. I'm no engineer and it might be impractical to do something of this nature, but it seems possible.

[Paul Dither]

The reason no one does multitimbrality anymore is that people making music is getting used to recording audio with their synths... they like to be able to record as many tracks as they want with audio from the same synth, thus needing less physical synths... i bet this is why multitimbrality is phasing out with many companies.

The main reason for some being dual or even a third layer is that performing musicians need stacks/splits and thus more than 3 would be more or less useless. multimode in many of these synths is a simple bonus where you can control the layers independently via their own MIDI channel, and code wise it's pretty easy to include when you've already got stack/split functionality.

A third reason may be that any synth with analog parts in the signal chain is always limited to about 8-16 voices ... if you had 4 parts on a REV2 16-voice you'd be down to 4 voices per part... we're reaching a polyphony that's becoming insufficient for anything but leads, basses and other short release sounds now, and when you use multitimbral you all know that the first question will be "does it have separate outs!?" which further increase the cost of the synth, and complicates any built in FX that will usually be routed to only one output, otherwise the FX engine have to be duplicated for each output as well, further increasing cost.

There's another reason, related to the user experience. Multitimbrality always requires additional menu diving, or it's at least another feature dependent on display use. Particularly for those synth designers who aim to create an easy to use hands-on instrument that's a no-go. Also because the panel settings quickly don't correspond to the sound you're currently working on in case you work on multiple layers. If you only have 2 layers there's less confusion. And of course multitimbrality has become less popular because we have moved on from the typical MIDI bedroom studios of the 1980s and 1990s, which you indicated in your first point.

[Razmo]

The reason no one does multitimbrality anymore is that people making music is getting used to recording audio with their synths... they like to be able to record as many tracks as they want with audio from the same synth, thus needing less physical synths... i bet this is why multitimbrality is phasing out with many companies.

The main reason for some being dual or even a third layer is that performing musicians need stacks/splits and thus more than 3 would be more or less useless. multimode in many of these synths is a simple bonus where you can control the layers independently via their own MIDI channel, and code wise it's pretty easy to include when you've already got stack/split functionality.

A third reason may be that any synth with analog parts in the signal chain is always limited to about 8-16 voices ... if you had 4 parts on a REV2 16-voice you'd be down to 4 voices per part... we're reaching a polyphony that's becoming insufficient for anything but leads, basses and other short release sounds now, and when you use multitimbral you all know that the first question will be "does it have separate outs!?" which further increase the cost of the synth, and complicates any built in FX that will usually be routed to only one output, otherwise the FX engine have to be duplicated for each output as well, further increasing cost.

There's another reason, related to the user experience. Multitimbrality always requires additional menu diving, or it's at least another feature dependent on display use. Particularly for those synth designers who aim to create an easy to use hands-on instrument that's a no-go. Also because the panel settings quickly don't correspond to the sound you're currently working on in case you work on multiple layers. If you only have 2 layers there's less confusion. And of course multitimbrality has become less popular because we have moved on from the typical MIDI bedroom studios of the 1980s and 1990s, which you indicated in your first point.

I definitely agree... for me even dual layers are confusing when using the interface... that's exactly why I want editors

[Razmo]

Here's another idea that no one has ever done:


A module keyboard platform like the KB Waldorf except one that works within a digitally controlled ecosystem. Meaning it would have savable patches and digitally controlled mod matrix section, so say goodbye to silly patch cables. The keyboard/digital control section remain the same while modules could be swapped at whim. You could possibly even open things up to where other companies could license (free or otherwise) the ability to integrate into said ecosystem. I'm no engineer and it might be impractical to do something of this nature, but it seems possible.

If you wanted exchangeable modules, yes... then that would actually be a fun thing... but it would be troublesome to do I think... saveable patches then only means anything when you have a STEADY setup of modules, otherwise presets would not work when modules are exchanged... if this should give any meaning presetwise, then it has already been done and is called Nord Modular

[OceanMachine]

I already thought about presets, but I don't think that would be an insurmountable obstacle. For one, even the independently created OB6/P6 Expander has a way around this by allowing separate synth banks, which granted, there's enough memory to do so & you'd need many more for all the configurations. Perhaps have an SD card slot or whatnot. Supposedly the Moog One has such a vast amount of preset slots that the total is unkown, so memory shouldn't be too much of an issue these days. If not you could always have the option of SysEx dumps when changing things out. Some type of smart formatting would be required considering the vast amounts of possible configurations eventually, but seemingly possible with a closed ecosystem & also the ability to update. I don't think anyone at Sequential is up to this task, so more adept programmers would need to be brought on board probably.

One real obstacle I see is getting consumers on board with a limited amount of modules at launch. It would probably take cannibalizing several sections of their prior tech put into module form like DSI has done in the past. In other words, a ton of work for the entire enterprise, yet it would be revolutionary I think. Dave could do for the world of modular what he did for the world of polysynths.