No analogue controls for analogue filter or oscillators

[DavidDever]

I played a gig yesterday in ridiculously hot direct sun; it was so hot I was having trouble even touching the keys. The prophet was not able to maintain anything near a constant pitch, and that's not a criticism; I think that's a positive quality about this instrument- it actually responds to the conditions of it's environment, which is what I want in an instrument. Often the role of a prophet is to be a canary in a coal mine; in this case, it was affirming that it was too hot for any living thing to be playing on an uncovered stage. I told the promoters "if you want us to play again, cover the stage."

You're a braver man than I. I'd would have used a DCO-based synth for an outdoor gig, though I suspect that the amplification would have suffered long before the keyboards' pitch would have wandered!

[chysn]

What I would love to see is something like a "true bypass" computer control. The computer would save your spot, but when you pressed the "panel" button, the computer would literally shut off, and the pots would be actual voltage controls. I don't know what the circuitry would have to look like to make that work, but I'm sure it's possible.

That's exactly how the Moog Little Phatty works. Control is directly linked to the hardware when you move a pot. The expense of that approach is probably why it had only four parameter knobs. On later synths, Moog switched back to ADC scanning.

[dsetto]

What's ADC scanning? I suspect it is, or is related to Analog-Digital conversion.

[kisielk]

What's ADC scanning? I suspect it is, or is related to Analog-Digital conversion.

The pots are connected to an analog to digital converter and read by the microprocessor. The microprocessor then controls a digital to analog converter which sets the control voltages. There's no direct connection between the pots and the things they control.

[wetfood]

 yeah, I'd have to agree that while it is certainly a great instrument, there are some truly frustrating limitations.

It's frustrating that I get a smoother filter sweep on a digital synth like my waldorf blofeld than I do on an analog synthesizer that cost 10 times the price. And I've seen it addressed in these very forums as well as on others more than a mere handful of times. Every synthesist I've ever played with with my P6 comments on how terrible it is that there isn't a workaround for the chromatic stepping to the filter. The 0hz modwheel idea is brilliant and would make so many P6 owners fall in love again with the instrument, yet I guess it's clear that the instrument is too "mature" to fix its failings.

I've had such frustration getting "alternative scales" loaded in the synth - never works as it should and even support seems to lack the understanding of how to load user scales onto the P6. I sprung for the P6 largely for the microtonal capabilities, but sadly it doesn't really pan out in practice as an easily tunable instrument. Curious to try that Alt tuner with it, but I'd rather not have to have it tethered to a PC to tune the thing...

anyhow, I find it shocking that there are any owners who are truly pleased with the fact that you cannot take advantage of the beautiful analog filter and do a manual filter sweep without audible stepping...

when robot heart says "If you turn the knob at a reasonable speed you will not hear it."  I just find that terribly tone deaf in more than one way. what is a reasonable speed?   it's just hogwash. It's like a car dealership telling you to just drive at a reasonable speed if you're car is wobbling when you hit 40. yeah, just ignore it. it's designed to be that way... I'm sorry, I just expect more from a synth of this price point, and it's weird that I find myself getting jealous of my friend's smooth filter sweeps on her little korg monologue.  I mean yeah, I can spring for one of those.. not a bad synth. but it just seems a bit insane to have the filter there in the Prophet and only be able to access its beauty through the sadly limited LFO or envelope sections.

wouldn't it be feasible to access finer gradation than semitones via NRPN messages??

[dslsynth]

The smooth filter sweep challenge is actually a very interesting technical problem. It would be interesting to learn what is going on inside the instrument and see if a better filtering of the timed events received from controls and MIDI can be processed in ways that would give a better user experience. And who knows maybe more than one variant of the filters could be offered via the pot mode global parameter?

Unfortunately I am not very good at analytical math so I am not able to serve a better solution. However it could be interesting if there are people with the right skills in the community to make some experiments in order to arrive at a better user experience than the current implementation is delivering.

[blewis]

I'd still like a technical answer on why the OHz LFO solution wouldn't work. Not that I deserve one or am entitled to it, I'd just like it.

[wetfood]

the answer I've heard thus far is that Dave didn't want any hidden functions with these synths.

But in my mind this would not be any more "hidden" or awkward than some of the other workarounds in the P6 architecture, such as the transpose sequence function (holding the record button) or voice stacking (holding down unison and stepping through values).

further, it would add a simple and elegant means to access to the true beauty of the superb filter at the heart of the synthesizer!

if it is a hardware limitation, I'd love to know.. but if it's simply that they don't wish to stray from the way they've always designed synths, well then that's just willful indifference to the people who are paying their salaries (ahem... their customers)

[T-Punk]

+100

Please let us disable quantization, for some things it is essential

[msflsim]

Moderator edit: please don't spam other boards with off-topic posts.

If you have a technical support issue, please contact us directly: support (at) davesmithinstruments.com

[mattyp]

hi All, im a recent purchaser of the Prophet 6 keyboard and have really been enjoying the unit. modern classic. however this particular feature of quantized pitch of the oscillators and quantised filter steps is something that i wish could be selectable. I understand what the moderator is mentioning in regards to that the operation is the same across the other synths, i have previously used the PRO2 and noticed the same stepping. However, the range of control that i would i love in this machine to achieve manual non-stepping oscillator tuning beyond fine tune and also manual non stepping smooth filter control. the stepping is particularly obvious with high resonance and a slower but not ridiculously slow filter sweeps. please can we start this conversation again. maybe it is something that can be worked on whilst the world is in lockdown. love you all. matt

[LoboLives]

Question but didn’t the original Prophet 5 have quantized tuning?

[Kja]

Question but didn’t the original Prophet 5 have quantized tuning?

Yes, however the prophet 5 was not able to change to a larger number of steps like the prophet 6. When you use cc on prophet 6 it steps in musically useful way but if you switch to nrpn you will get finer steps.
 But to answer your question yes it did.. funny nobody ever complains about that, as this synth is a modern nod to the five. There is allot of complaining about a vco poly under three grand that is actually stable and dependable.

[LoboLives]

Question but didn’t the original Prophet 5 have quantized tuning?

Yes, however the prophet 5 was not able to change to a larger number of steps like the prophet 6. When you use cc on prophet 6 it steps in musically useful way but if you switch to nrpn you will get finer steps.
 But to answer your question yes it did.. funny nobody ever complains about that, as this synth is a modern nod to the five. There is allot of complaining about a vco poly under three grand that is actually stable and dependable.

I agree. It's really odd to complain about a synth operating in a manner that's similar to the original synth that inspired it. If it was on the P-5, it should be on the P-6. If people don't want it to be, they can find another synth.

[Pym]

This has been a constant battle with analog gear from the beginning. If you have detented encoders/pots you have the advantage of quickly recalling specific values. If you leave it unquantized the movements feel more smooth.

Dave made a decision a LONG time ago to do pitched values on the filter parameter on the Evolvers. That has carried through all our instruments. It allows you to pitch the resonance of the filter to fixed note values, which is a useful tool in many situations. It also allows you to track it to the notes you are playing, again, very useful. To that end, we need 0-164 steps on the parameter to cover the entire note range the filter is capable of. Each of those values represents a semi-tone.

0-164 is already on the upper end of the viability of the combination of the physical pots and the ADCs that we were using to recall the information cleanly. You may see things like '12 bit ADC' but in reality that isn't close to what you get, 0-255 is pushing it. Not to mention the fact that as you turn, small movements will jump past the edge of those values and it becomes difficult to jump back to the position you want as the resolution increases.

So the cutoff parameter itself is only 0-164... but the LFOs are running at quite a bit higher resolution, so when the LFO controls the parameter we don't have the limitation of the semi-tones and can do it smoothly. This is not the case with the mod wheel, or even the incoming CVs on the pedals, so we quantize to the param values in those cases, with the same tradeoffs as mentioned above.

But, you may say, if you have access to increased resolution internally, why doesn't it sound smooth when you move the pot?

Actually, it does... there is a small amount of slew being applied to the param changes so it doesn't jump immediately. If we remove that, you get nasty clicks when changing parameters too quickly. This is also a tradeoff. The more slew we put on the parameter, the slower it transitions... which means if you send a MIDI message, or even a CV, you start to get latency as you move the param. So we're back to the same problem, you could increase the slew and make it smoother for people doing sweeps, but for people doing jumps (and that includes ANY mod that affects the filter on a new note on event, like key tracked filters) you will get a small jump. Determining which one the user expected is pretty difficult and since one of the most common complaints of older instruments is the snappiness of the envelopes, we decided it was better to err on the side of quick and accurate.

That being said...

The Pro3 now has a greatly expanded parameter range for the cutoff, so you will not hear as much stepping. We have also solved some of the problems, hardware, software and design based and although it increases the cost of the hardware, and thus the instrument, we will likely be using this to improve the smooth response of instruments in the future. In fact, I rewrote the entire mod and sequencer section to handle a 14 bit range in ALL parameter modulation cases, so the future is bright!

Everything is a trade off

[Kja]

This has been a constant battle with analog gear from the beginning. If you have detented encoders/pots you have the advantage of quickly recalling specific values. If you leave it unquantized the movements feel more smooth.

Dave made a decision a LONG time ago to do pitched values on the filter parameter on the Evolvers. That has carried through all our instruments. It allows you to pitch the resonance of the filter to fixed note values, which is a useful tool in many situations. It also allows you to track it to the notes you are playing, again, very useful. To that end, we need 0-164 steps on the parameter to cover the entire note range the filter is capable of. Each of those values represents a semi-tone.

0-164 is already on the upper end of the viability of the combination of the physical pots and the ADCs that we were using to recall the information cleanly. You may see things like '12 bit ADC' but in reality that isn't close to what you get, 0-255 is pushing it. Not to mention the fact that as you turn, small movements will jump past the edge of those values and it becomes difficult to jump back to the position you want as the resolution increases.

So the cutoff parameter itself is only 0-164... but the LFOs are running at quite a bit higher resolution, so when the LFO controls the parameter we don't have the limitation of the semi-tones and can do it smoothly. This is not the case with the mod wheel, or even the incoming CVs on the pedals, so we quantize to the param values in those cases, with the same tradeoffs as mentioned above.

But, you may say, if you have access to increased resolution internally, why doesn't it sound smooth when you move the pot?

Actually, it does... there is a small amount of slew being applied to the param changes so it doesn't jump immediately. If we remove that, you get nasty clicks when changing parameters too quickly. This is also a tradeoff. The more slew we put on the parameter, the slower it transitions... which means if you send a MIDI message, or even a CV, you start to get latency as you move the param. So we're back to the same problem, you could increase the slew and make it smoother for people doing sweeps, but for people doing jumps (and that includes ANY mod that affects the filter on a new note on event, like key tracked filters) you will get a small jump. Determining which one the user expected is pretty difficult and since one of the most common complaints of older instruments is the snappiness of the envelopes, we decided it was better to err on the side of quick and accurate.

That being said...

The Pro3 now has a greatly expanded parameter range for the cutoff, so you will not hear as much stepping. We have also solved some of the problems, hardware, software and design based and although it increases the cost of the hardware, and thus the instrument, we will likely be using this to improve the smooth response of instruments in the future. In fact, I rewrote the entire mod and sequencer section to handle a 14 bit range in ALL parameter modulation cases, so the future is bright!

Everything is a trade off

Yes, there is a synth maker near you actually named Mike who made a synth for me, called the artisan trentasette, he put 14 bit resolution on all parameters and everything is smooth as butter.. but truthfully, I really like the old schoolness of Dave's stuff.. sure that will be awesome in the future, but for stuff like the prophet 6 and evolver, I think it really suits these synths the low resolution and I really appreciate it in a old school way, is actually rare and a cool feature. I think people just like to complain and you guys really do great!!
 Now if you guys can add racheting to the prophet 6, now then I would be in heaven!!

[LoboLives]

This has been a constant battle with analog gear from the beginning. If you have detented encoders/pots you have the advantage of quickly recalling specific values. If you leave it unquantized the movements feel more smooth.

Dave made a decision a LONG time ago to do pitched values on the filter parameter on the Evolvers. That has carried through all our instruments. It allows you to pitch the resonance of the filter to fixed note values, which is a useful tool in many situations. It also allows you to track it to the notes you are playing, again, very useful. To that end, we need 0-164 steps on the parameter to cover the entire note range the filter is capable of. Each of those values represents a semi-tone.

0-164 is already on the upper end of the viability of the combination of the physical pots and the ADCs that we were using to recall the information cleanly. You may see things like '12 bit ADC' but in reality that isn't close to what you get, 0-255 is pushing it. Not to mention the fact that as you turn, small movements will jump past the edge of those values and it becomes difficult to jump back to the position you want as the resolution increases.

So the cutoff parameter itself is only 0-164... but the LFOs are running at quite a bit higher resolution, so when the LFO controls the parameter we don't have the limitation of the semi-tones and can do it smoothly. This is not the case with the mod wheel, or even the incoming CVs on the pedals, so we quantize to the param values in those cases, with the same tradeoffs as mentioned above.

But, you may say, if you have access to increased resolution internally, why doesn't it sound smooth when you move the pot?

Actually, it does... there is a small amount of slew being applied to the param changes so it doesn't jump immediately. If we remove that, you get nasty clicks when changing parameters too quickly. This is also a tradeoff. The more slew we put on the parameter, the slower it transitions... which means if you send a MIDI message, or even a CV, you start to get latency as you move the param. So we're back to the same problem, you could increase the slew and make it smoother for people doing sweeps, but for people doing jumps (and that includes ANY mod that affects the filter on a new note on event, like key tracked filters) you will get a small jump. Determining which one the user expected is pretty difficult and since one of the most common complaints of older instruments is the snappiness of the envelopes, we decided it was better to err on the side of quick and accurate.

That being said...

The Pro3 now has a greatly expanded parameter range for the cutoff, so you will not hear as much stepping. We have also solved some of the problems, hardware, software and design based and although it increases the cost of the hardware, and thus the instrument, we will likely be using this to improve the smooth response of instruments in the future. In fact, I rewrote the entire mod and sequencer section to handle a 14 bit range in ALL parameter modulation cases, so the future is bright!

Everything is a trade off

Yes, there is a synth maker near you actually named Mike who made a synth for me, called the artisan trentasette, he put 14 bit resolution on all parameters and everything is smooth as butter.. but truthfully, I really like the old schoolness of Dave's stuff.. sure that will be awesome in the future, but for stuff like the prophet 6 and evolver, I think it really suits these synths the low resolution and I really appreciate it in a old school way, is actually rare and a cool feature. I think people just like to complain and you guys really do great!!
 Now if you guys can add racheting to the prophet 6, now then I would be in heaven!!

LOL but if they did that then you wouldn't buy the Pro 3 to sequence the P6.

[OceanMachine]

Sadly I've been told that the P6/OB-6 have "likely" been put out to pasture in regard to updates. The meaty P12/Pro 2 linear FM update will continue to be the shining exception and not the rule. 

My personal lockdown consideration vote would have gone towards a decent reverb, as the super-plate algorithm being transferred seemed feasible...

[Kja]

Sadly I've been told that the P6/OB-6 have "likely" been put out to pasture in regard to updates. The meaty P12/Pro 2 linear FM update will continue to be the shining exception and not the rule. 

My personal lockdown consideration vote would have gone towards a decent reverb, as the super-plate algorithm being transferred seemed feasible...

On another forum they said it's not possible to add the reverb. I think they will still do another update because they current one is still beta. I think they will do one more update and add some things. Racheting would be easy to add and would not compete with pro3. I'm not gonna buy that anyway, I have other synths too much in that vain. It's not like racheting is gonna turn the simple phrase sequencer on the p6 into a sequencing powerhouse.. it would just be a nice little fun added ability.

[Pym]

OK... so let's do an exercise about what that would entail so you understand why we don't port things back often:

Ratchet per step, at its most simple form, would require one ratchet param per step. Makes sense since it's a chord based polyphonic sequencer, not individual timbres.

If we conservatively say 2-8 ratchets we could get away with 4 bits per step. For a 64 step sequencer, that requires 32 8 bit params if we pack them. Since we didn't save room for params (because we were fairly certain we would not be adding large features due to the simplicity of the architecture) I didn't put unused params in the list, so we would have to expand it. The sound file would have be versioned and handled correctly. Not hard to do, we've done it on most of our more current instruments, but takes time when it wasn't baked into the code.

More importantly, what does the UI look like? Even if we could think of a simple way to indicate how many ratchets there are per step... how do you edit it on the front panel? How do you ratchet vs. no ratchet? Even if you can figure out a somewhat clean way of doing it this will feel clunky and un-intuitive. Not what the instrument is designed for.

And then the sequencer itself. It is low resolution, which means I would have to kick up the processor time and make sure that it runs smoothly faster to do clean ratcheting, at least 96ppqn. That would take a while. Anything over 24ppqn is a LOT more complicated because it runs faster than MIDI clock rate. That means you have to interpolate and run internal and external clock at the same time. That would take a while to port back to an older and slower processor. I rewrote everything from scratch on the Pro3 to handle all these new features, on a new chip, with a new faster OS.

How many extra would we sell? I can't imagine we'd sell any just because of this feature honestly, and we already have it working on new products so it wouldn't give us technology we didn't already have. As an economical decision it makes very little sense.

That's the short answer of why it won't happen on the P6/OB6

Sadly I've been told that the P6/OB-6 have "likely" been put out to pasture in regard to updates. The meaty P12/Pro 2 linear FM update will continue to be the shining exception and not the rule. 

My personal lockdown consideration vote would have gone towards a decent reverb, as the super-plate algorithm being transferred seemed feasible...

On another forum they said it's not possible to add the reverb. I think they will still do another update because they current one is still beta. I think they will do one more update and add some things. Racheting would be easy to add and would not compete with pro3. I'm not gonna buy that anyway, I have other synths too much in that vain. It's not like racheting is gonna turn the simple phrase sequencer on the p6 into a sequencing powerhouse.. it would just be a nice little fun added ability.