second-hand Prophet 6

[tempest303]

Hello,

I have a chance to buy a second-hand Prophet 6 tomorrow.  I wanted to ask you what I have to pay attention to when buying this beauty. Is there a self-test in the Prophet 6, and if so, where can I find it? (I found nothing about a self-test for the Prophet 6 in the web).

Unfortunately I haven't so much time to test the Synth extensively. Therefore, I would be very grateful about tips.


Thank you very much!!!

[Hannibal Lektra]

Never heard of a self-test mode.

At this point I think it's safe to say that the P6 does not have any inherent faults that you have to look out for. And from what I've seen, DSI support will treat you just like the original owner in case you do.

My advice when buying used gear is to test every knob, button and key. Bring your own headphones to the swap and plan on spending an hour to go over it. Don't be put off by wonky knobs on a P6 but do make sure that the irregularity is not due to a bent post.

Definitely cycle through the voices and listen for irregularities from voice to voice. If you do hear anything unusual put the P6 into calibration mode and test it again. A bad voice card is a pretty easy fix that you can do yourself so an issue there shouldn't be a deal-breaker if you can haggle the price down a little bit.

When I haven't played my P6 in a while, some buttons will not engage at first and the keys get sticky but everything will function normally in a short amount of time so warm it up before you criticize any part of it's functionality.

Don't forget to test the spring-reverb with a good smack to one of the wooden cheeks!

[DaveP6guy]

Hello,

I have a chance to buy a second-hand Prophet 6 tomorrow.  I wanted to ask you what I have to pay attention to when buying this beauty. Is there a self-test in the Prophet 6, and if so, where can I find it? (I found nothing about a self-test for the Prophet 6 in the web).
Unfortunately I haven't so much time to test the Synth extensively. Therefore, I would be very grateful about tips.
Thank you very much!!!

Did you buy it? Do you love it?
One reply said: Don't be put off by wonky knobs. There has been some stuff on that issue. I found when I saw my (pre-owned and incredibly well taken care of_ Prophet-6 that I now possess (or maybe it possesses me - it's a bit like cats - you don't own them, they own you), it took me a whole 6 months to notice that a couple of the knobs arwe slightly eccentric and that was only on taking a close up photo along the line of the controls and seeing it by accident.
One thing I noticed on actually seeing the P6 for the first time is that it looked better than any of the photos I had seen: darker in colour, nearer to black and not some kind of mid-grey, very smart. Also I thought the feel of the controls, especially the potentiometers was very agreeable, a lovely amount of smooth resistance on the knobs giving a feel of the ability to fine tune the pots and settings.
Anyway, check it's in tune. Hit a note multiple times and see if any voice sounds different form the others. Or start the arpeggiator and hit one note, same thing happens. You might hear the voices sound just a little different but they shouldn't be too different. You can try the basic patch which is accessed using PRESET+WRITE (hold present and press write) and twiddling Oscillator1 up and oscillator 2 up to see if the tones are in unison.
The other thing is the calibration routing using PRESET+0.  Ask the seller how many time they have calibrated it. Invite them to do it again while you're there. It should display that it goes through the 6 voices, then the high pass and low pass filters and ends with "don" on the LED display (meaning "done") if it is OK and should sound very nicely in tune afterwards.