The Prophet '08 Among Prophets

Sacred Synthesis

Re: The Prophet '08 Among Prophets
« Reply #280 on: October 14, 2016, 04:51:13 PM »
tumble2k-

i tweaked the X-strings patch too.  Attached are a couple of examples.  It's just a test piece.  The performance is not that great, but i think it gives the flavor of an OB-X type string patch.  One is dry and the other has a little reverb and chorus added on for good measure.  Enjoy!  If you like it, I'll give you some of the tweaks I did.

Yes, that's an excellent string patch.  It's more than merely Oberheim-ish; it's also sounds much like a vintage string machine.

Re: The Prophet '08 Among Prophets
« Reply #281 on: October 15, 2016, 04:21:36 PM »
Thanks Tumble2k and SS.  Here is the patch - at least the parts that matter.  I didn't touch anything else of the X-String patch.  So you can start from there.


OSC
          Freq.          Fine          Wave           MIX     SLOP
1           C2            +9           PW 33           60       5
2           C2             -6           Saw

Low Pass Filter - 2 Pole NOT 4 Pole

Freq.        Res        Env          Vel          Key Amt
88            0             7             53           5

D          A        D          S           R
4          33       85        127       64

AMP

VCA Lev        ENV AMT        VEL        PAN      VOICE VOL
0                    98                    0             3          127

D          A          D          S          R
0          56         93        88         71

LFO
          Freq      Amt     Shape       Dest
1        83         3           Tri            OscAllFreq
2        40         47         Tri            Osc1PulseWidth
3        -            -         
4        23         7           Tri            OutputPan
 
Jim Thorburn .  Toys-  Dave Smith: Prophet 5, Rev 4; Prophet 08; Pro 2; Prophet 12 module; EastWest Orchestral soft synths; Yamaha S-90; Yamaha Montage 8, Yamaha DX-7; KARP Odyssey; Ensoniq ESQ-1.  All run through a Cubase DAW with a Tascam DM-24 board.

eXode

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Re: The Prophet '08 Among Prophets
« Reply #282 on: October 16, 2016, 04:05:55 AM »
So I made the measurement. I played a D below middle C, which has a frequency of approximately 147 Hz. The minimum beat frequency I could generate was around 1/14 Hz or around .07 Hz. This gives a frequency resolution of around 0.04%. I'd expect that the total noise on the control voltage of a VCO would be in this ballpark, which would mean that the modulating a DCO with noise would not result in a normal frequency distribution as we'd expect with a VCO. Instead we'd get three spikes, one at 147 - 0.07 Hz, 147 Hz, and 147 + 0.07 Hz. Based on that I think that the DCO would have a lot of trouble sounding like a VCO just as eXode says. Darn!

Don't know which bit is currently used in the P'08, but I am curious what kind of impact using 64 bits (with high frequency clocks) would have on the frequency resolution of a DCO.

Re: The Prophet '08 Among Prophets
« Reply #283 on: October 17, 2016, 03:33:05 AM »
Moinmoin,

tumble2k asked
Quote
Don't know which bit is currently used in the P'08, but I am curious what kind of impact using 64 bits (with high frequency clocks) would have on the frequency resolution of a DCO.

If this is meant as resolution of the DCO control signal, it would be pretty useless:
The human ear/brain-combination will not be able to resolve 64 Bit resolution, which equals to 2-64 = 5,4 * 10-20 = 5,4 * 10-18% = 0,000 000 000 000 000 005 4%.
One cent BTW makes a difference of 0,000 577 789 5 = 0,057 778 95%

As a comparison some maximum deviations of pretty common instruments:
Hammond B3 (largest deviation being contra G# with 0,71 cent): 0,041 023 054 5%
M086 (one of the more accurate TOS-chips used in the eighties): 0,069%

The sensitivity of human ear/brain-combination depends on the human individual, of course. But more on the sound's purity - whether exact sine or not - level, and duration. Under optimal conditions, which never occur when listening to music, involving a talented, healthy, and even trained person under test, also using an exact sinewave of ideal level and duration, it may be given as:
Less than 3Hz for frequencies < 500Hz, resulting in 0,000 06% in the ultimate best case. For frequencies above 1kHz, this reduces to about 0,6%.
But as 1000Hz sits in between B5 and C6, which already are fairly "high" notes, we will ignore this bad value, throwing bad light on us humans compared to possibly higher developed beings in this universe...

We mehums (mere humans, does anybody remember the Illuminatus trilogy?) will never need 64Bit resolution, as this results in an accurracy 14 decades higher than necessary. Even DCOs designed by morons will never use up this reserve  ;)

In order to get reasonable binary resolution for DCOs, You might calculate backwards: 2-x < 0,000 06%, which would result in a resolution of 21Bit (0,000 0476 837%).
As we normally do not like to listen to pure sinewaves, prefer some chords over single notes, and usually have some other noises involved (excuse me, drummers 8)), this still remains overkill. So take 16Bits and happily get 0,001 525 879%, which is 45 times more accurate as the M086 and its siblings, which were used in numerous organs and string machines of the seventies.

Martin

chysn

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Re: The Prophet '08 Among Prophets
« Reply #284 on: October 17, 2016, 05:36:42 AM »
(mere humans, does anybody remember the Illuminatus trilogy?)

Ha! Yes, I'm near the end of the first book now.
Prophet 5 Rev 4 #2711

MPC One+ ∙ MuseScore 4

www.wav2pro3.comwww.soundcloud.com/beige-mazewww.github.com/chysnwww.beigemaze.com

he/him/his

eXode

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Re: The Prophet '08 Among Prophets
« Reply #285 on: October 17, 2016, 12:29:12 PM »
Moinmoin,

tumble2k asked
Quote
Don't know which bit is currently used in the P'08, but I am curious what kind of impact using 64 bits (with high frequency clocks) would have on the frequency resolution of a DCO.

If this is meant as resolution of the DCO control signal, it would be pretty useless:
The human ear/brain-combination will not be able to resolve 64 Bit resolution, which equals to 2-64 = 5,4 * 10-20 = 5,4 * 10-18% = 0,000 000 000 000 000 005 4%.
One cent BTW makes a difference of 0,000 577 789 5 = 0,057 778 95%

As a comparison some maximum deviations of pretty common instruments:
Hammond B3 (largest deviation being contra G# with 0,71 cent): 0,041 023 054 5%
M086 (one of the more accurate TOS-chips used in the eighties): 0,069%

The sensitivity of human ear/brain-combination depends on the human individual, of course. But more on the sound's purity - whether exact sine or not - level, and duration. Under optimal conditions, which never occur when listening to music, involving a talented, healthy, and even trained person under test, also using an exact sinewave of ideal level and duration, it may be given as:
Less than 3Hz for frequencies < 500Hz, resulting in 0,000 06% in the ultimate best case. For frequencies above 1kHz, this reduces to about 0,6%.
But as 1000Hz sits in between B5 and C6, which already are fairly "high" notes, we will ignore this bad value, throwing bad light on us humans compared to possibly higher developed beings in this universe...

We mehums (mere humans, does anybody remember the Illuminatus trilogy?) will never need 64Bit resolution, as this results in an accurracy 14 decades higher than necessary. Even DCOs designed by morons will never use up this reserve  ;)

In order to get reasonable binary resolution for DCOs, You might calculate backwards: 2-x < 0,000 06%, which would result in a resolution of 21Bit (0,000 0476 837%).
As we normally do not like to listen to pure sinewaves, prefer some chords over single notes, and usually have some other noises involved (excuse me, drummers 8)), this still remains overkill. So take 16Bits and happily get 0,001 525 879%, which is 45 times more accurate as the M086 and its siblings, which were used in numerous organs and string machines of the seventies.

Martin

My post was in relation to the information in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqY6cVJS9fo

Considering that older DCO's based synths had lower resolution in relation to their clocks my question was whether you could get a more natural sounding drift emulation from a DCO if you used more bits with a higher clock. The problem isn't with static sounds that are slightly detuned imho, but with emulating an oscillator that varies in pitch over time.

Neither an electrical organ nor a string machine is expected to drift in the same way so I don't think they are relevant.

I can't help wonder if resolution was an issue with the Prophet 08, or why they never implemented a more coarse slop setting, or implemented a manual detune setting for all the voices when played in unison (there are just a handful of "set" choices iirc).
« Last Edit: October 17, 2016, 12:43:48 PM by eXode »

Re: The Prophet '08 Among Prophets
« Reply #286 on: October 17, 2016, 08:39:49 PM »

The sensitivity of human ear/brain-combination depends on the human individual, of course. But more on the sound's purity - whether exact sine or not - level, and duration. Under optimal conditions, which never occur when listening to music, involving a talented, healthy, and even trained person under test, also using an exact sinewave of ideal level and duration, it may be given as:
Less than 3Hz for frequencies < 500Hz, resulting in 0,000 06% in the ultimate best case. For frequencies above 1kHz, this reduces to about 0,6%.
But as 1000Hz sits in between B5 and C6, which already are fairly "high" notes, we will ignore this bad value, throwing bad light on us humans compared to possibly higher developed beings in this universe...


This is a little like the argument that humans can't hear sine waves above 20kHz therefore humans can't tell if a signal has been band limited to 20kHz.

I was easily able to resolve (using just my ears) a frequency differences of 0.04% which is much better than the 3Hz in 500 Hz (0.6%) that we're supposed to be able to resolve. This is because I was listening to two waves beating against each other, which amplifies the effect of the frequency difference.

I think it's worth investigating that more frequency resolution might help the DCO sound like a VCO if it's combined with the proper modulation.

Having said that I agree with your conclusion that 64 bits is overkill for this purpose. I sat down and calculated that the number of bits used on the Prophet 08 DCO is approximately 18. 32 bits should be quite sufficient to get VCO type frequency jitter from a DCO.
« Last Edit: October 17, 2016, 10:03:03 PM by tumble2k »

Re: The Prophet '08 Among Prophets
« Reply #287 on: October 17, 2016, 10:51:44 PM »
Having said that I agree with your conclusion that 64 bits is overkill for this purpose. I sat down and calculated that the number of bits used on the Prophet 08 DCO is approximately 18. 32 bits should be quite sufficient to get VCO type frequency jitter from a DCO.

Correction: it looks like the lowest frequency that the P'08 can play is about 8 Hz, so the the number of bits is more like 15 with a base frequency of approximately 300kHz.

eXode

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Re: The Prophet '08 Among Prophets
« Reply #288 on: October 18, 2016, 01:18:29 AM »
I'm more interested in if using a higher number of bits would have an impact, regardless of whether 64 bits would be overkill or not. Also, if I understood correctly, it's not the bits alone that determine the resolution, it also depends on the master clock, as explained in that video.

Re: The Prophet '08 Among Prophets
« Reply #289 on: October 18, 2016, 06:06:42 AM »
Moinmoin,

sorry for the long post(s), but one of my most sensitive spots has been hit  ;)
I want to apologize if I seem a little bit eager, even sometimes react incensed regarding things right in principal but out of range in practice: Unfortunately I am not only musician, but also an engineer in signal transmission and processing...

The musician performs as a (fretless) bass player for 30 years. He is of course able to distinguish notes better than in 3Hz increments (Although meanwhile at the age of 58, I definitely can tell and play the difference between unstopped E-string and 1st fret F 8)).

The engineer knows, that letting two frequencies beat against each other is a very common method of measuring slight frequency deviations otherwise not possible with enough resolution. And yes, the human reception also will be more sensitive. Every bass- or guitar player tunes his instrument this way, even if he is totally def and relies on electronic tuners exclusively, as these devices use the very same effect.
This method has a drawback however: You will have to measure (listen) long enough to be able to realize that beating: Perfect match even needs infinite time (Attention: It's theory again...) So if the frequency-difference is let's say 0,2 Hz, You will have to hear 5 seconds for a full circle. If it is not about precision (tuning!), You will not have to wait for a full circle or even more to complete in order to hear an effect, but it will surely take a second or so.

We need not discuss at all, whether life above 20kHz in the sonic domain will have any impact on human beings, especially of the older-than-15-years-and-regularly-practicing-as-well-as-performing-musician-type: For the P'08, which I bet is controlled by MIDI internally as well as externally, there is a hard restriction. MIDI note numbers [0, 127], representing a key range of [C0, G8], will result in a range of [16,356Hz,  6,27192kHz].
As the designer may handle modulation of +/- one octave in a constant way for the entire range, we will generously enlarge this to finally [~8Hz, ~12,5kHz]. And as the control of DCOs has to be done for the fundamentals, we need not care for harmonics or bat-ears.

Beating with ~0,1Hz (one full circle in 10 seconds) in this frequency range will result in deviations of ~1% and ~0,00001% at the low/high end respectively. As even those of us with bat-ears may not really enjoy listening to string sounds with fundamentals at 12kHz, we may restrict the higher end to practical values in the 1kHz region, resulting in minimal deviations of about 0,01%.
This would be possible with 20Bit resolution, gaining 2-20 = 0,0095%.

The engineer having said all that, this is a very academic discussion: MIDI teaches us, that even 7Bit are enough as control signal width. All the rest said here may be handled DCO-internally: As DCOs are digital, two or more of them would react exactly the same, if digital calculations are made before the very control of the analog part.
I do not know, where DSI generates this "real thing" controlling the analog part of the DCO, but there are so many ways to achieve this.

The musician also has to put his feew cents in: Tuning of wide frequency ranges has some psychoacoustic impacts, that every piano tuner knows of. Electronic oscillators should not need stretched tuning, as their harmonic content should be precise, but You never know how exact Your analog sine/saw/rectangle ist at which frequency...

All I want(ed) to tell is that brute force aproaches - and using 64Bit is exactly that - will neither help nor even lead to the right direction, they never do.

Martin
« Last Edit: October 18, 2016, 06:11:18 AM by MartinM »

eXode

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Re: The Prophet '08 Among Prophets
« Reply #290 on: October 18, 2016, 06:42:28 AM »
All I want(ed) to tell is that brute force aproaches - and using 64Bit is exactly that - will neither help nor even lead to the right direction, they never do.

Martin

I just want to make clear that my suggestion of 64-bit was just a number in my post. It could have been any number that is more than 16-bit really (i.e. like your 20 bit example).

What I am interested in is whether using more bits would allow for finer variations (if the goal is to emulate VCO style drift) or not. :)
« Last Edit: October 18, 2016, 06:56:31 AM by eXode »

Re: The Prophet '08 Among Prophets
« Reply #291 on: October 18, 2016, 07:00:02 AM »

Beating with ~0,1Hz (one full circle in 10 seconds) in this frequency range will result in deviations of ~1% and ~0,00001% at the low/high end respectively. As even those of us with bat-ears may not really enjoy listening to string sounds with fundamentals at 12kHz, we may restrict the higher end to practical values in the 1kHz region, resulting in minimal deviations of about 0,01%.
This would be possible with 20Bit resolution, gaining 2-20 = 0,0095%.

The engineer having said all that, this is a very academic discussion: MIDI teaches us, that even 7Bit are enough as control signal width. All the rest said here may be handled DCO-internally: As DCOs are digital, two or more of them would react exactly the same, if digital calculations are made before the very control of the analog part.
I do not know, where DSI generates this "real thing" controlling the analog part of the DCO, but there are so many ways to achieve this.


A well-reasoned post definitely by an engineer!  The only thing I take issue with is that the control channel resolution of 7 bits is a bit of a red herring, isn't it? You can bend the pitch as well as detune it by as little as 1 cent in the P'08 user interface. This would mean that the DCO resolution would need much higher than the MIDI resolution.

eXode, I agree it would be very interesting to see whether using a higher resolution DCO would help it sound more natural. The digital timers/counters on modern SOCs have 32 bit resolution and typically run at the system clock speed which could be in the tens of megahertz range. Additionally, the Prophet 12 generates its waveforms digitally, which allows for extremely fine frequency resolution at all pitches if designed properly. So that is perhaps the better synth to use for emulating a VCO. Kind of ironic, huh?  ;)

eXode

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Re: The Prophet '08 Among Prophets
« Reply #292 on: October 18, 2016, 07:14:21 AM »
eXode, I agree it would be very interesting to see whether using a higher resolution DCO would help it sound more natural. The digital timers/counters on modern SOCs have 32 bit resolution and typically run at the system clock speed which could be in the tens of megahertz range. Additionally, the Prophet 12 generates its waveforms digitally, which allows for extremely fine frequency resolution at all pitches if designed properly. So that is perhaps the better synth to use for emulating a VCO. Kind of ironic, huh?  ;)

Yeah, I have thought along those lines too, because the Prophet 12 also has the same, or similar depth to it's slop as the Prophet 6, as far as I know. That DCO video also helped me understand more about DCO's, esp the frequency division part that I hadn't considered or fully grasped before. Really interesting.

eXode

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Re: The Prophet '08 Among Prophets
« Reply #293 on: October 18, 2016, 07:18:56 AM »
I shouldn't derail this thread about the excellent Prophet 08 any further, so I give you Marc Melià :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpYfuUX9hVM

Sacred Synthesis

Re: The Prophet '08 Among Prophets
« Reply #294 on: October 18, 2016, 07:36:17 AM »
I shouldn't derail this thread about the excellent Prophet 08 any further, so I give you Marc Melià :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpYfuUX9hVM

Thank you.  Granted, this chat has more or less remained about the Prophet '08.  But I would suggest that one of you start a new thread on resolution or whatever has become the actual theme here.  Things have drifted away from the original topic, which is a direct hands-on general use/appreciation of the Prophet '08, together with various ideas in applying its musical/sonic capabilities.  Less technical, more practical.
« Last Edit: October 18, 2016, 09:11:52 AM by Sacred Synthesis »

eXode

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Re: The Prophet '08 Among Prophets
« Reply #295 on: October 18, 2016, 07:54:08 AM »
One thing I love about the Prophet 08 and it's many LFO's is the type of modulation you can do. One trick in particular that I like is setting OSC1 to Saw and OSC2 to Pulse - LFO modulating OSC1 Pitch @ approx. 4.5 Hz and LFO modulating OSC2 PW at approx. 3 Hz (both set to triangles). The two oscillators can be slightly detuned. It creates a very nice beating and lush sound. Especially if combined with the 2-pole mode. Mmm. :)

Sacred Synthesis

Re: The Prophet '08 Among Prophets
« Reply #296 on: October 18, 2016, 07:57:23 AM »
Sounds nice.  Any samples?

Re: The Prophet '08 Among Prophets
« Reply #297 on: October 18, 2016, 08:20:29 AM »
Moinmoin,

sorry for the long post(s), but one of my most sensitive spots has been hit  ;)

Very interesting post.  Thank you.  Definitely helps with the programming of my P-08 as well as my other synths!
Jim Thorburn .  Toys-  Dave Smith: Prophet 5, Rev 4; Prophet 08; Pro 2; Prophet 12 module; EastWest Orchestral soft synths; Yamaha S-90; Yamaha Montage 8, Yamaha DX-7; KARP Odyssey; Ensoniq ESQ-1.  All run through a Cubase DAW with a Tascam DM-24 board.

Re: The Prophet '08 Among Prophets
« Reply #298 on: October 18, 2016, 10:31:06 AM »
Thank you.  Granted, this chat has more or less remained about the Prophet '08.  But I would suggest that one of you start a new thread on resolution or whatever has become the actual theme here.  Things have drifted away from the original topic, which is a direct hands-on general use/appreciation of the Prophet '08, together with various ideas in applying its musical/sonic capabilities.  Less technical, more practical.

My bad. I've been considering creating a tumble2k rant thread about my Prophet'08 discoveries. Some of what I've contributed to this thread I've later found to be untrue or at least not the whole story. This is a testament to the depth of this instrument.

Over the course of the VCO and DCO investigation, I have a new appreciation for DCOs. When you're looking for purity of tone they are second to none. VCOs may have some natural movement and digital oscillators may have more flexibility, but the Prophet'08 has some beautiful pristine oscillators especially in the high frequencies. Ahhh!

Sacred Synthesis

Re: The Prophet '08 Among Prophets
« Reply #299 on: October 18, 2016, 11:03:26 AM »
Thank you.  Granted, this chat has more or less remained about the Prophet '08.  But I would suggest that one of you start a new thread on resolution or whatever has become the actual theme here.  Things have drifted away from the original topic, which is a direct hands-on general use/appreciation of the Prophet '08, together with various ideas in applying its musical/sonic capabilities.  Less technical, more practical.

My bad. I've been considering creating a tumble2k rant thread about my Prophet'08 discoveries. Some of what I've contributed to this thread I've later found to be untrue or at least not the whole story. This is a testament to the depth of this instrument.

Over the course of the VCO and DCO investigation, I have a new appreciation for DCOs. When you're looking for purity of tone they are second to none. VCOs may have some natural movement and digital oscillators may have more flexibility, but the Prophet'08 has some beautiful pristine oscillators especially in the high frequencies. Ahhh!

No problem.  I'm guilty of getting other threads off track as well.  Your idea about another thread on P'08 discoveries sounds like it actually belongs right here.  I think this thread is quite broadly about such things.

I feel the same way about DCOs.  I'm instinctively a VCO guy, but I've slowly come to appreciate the DCO as the best of the analog/digital worlds.  First, I like the actual tone of the P'08 oscillators.  I don't find the P'08 to be thin, even if it isn't a Model D.  It's close to an ARP sound, which was always my favorite.  Second, I'm really pleased with the tuning stability and exact oscillator-keyboard tracking.  I want the oscillator beating to have the exact same rate at the bottom of the keyboard as at the top, and DCOs wonderfully achieve this.  On VCO synthesizers, you tune the oscillators as you like, but then expect the beating rates to be different, depending where you are on the keyboard.  But what's the point of setting them with the utmost care on one note if, only a few notes away, they'll be different?  I've always been amazed and amused that synthesists actually like this old school shortcoming, and that manufacturers are more than happy to indulge them.  It was the one thing I truly disliked in my old VCO synthesizers.

So, I'm thoroughly happy with the tone and performance of DCOs.  But I do wonder if DSI will offer another DCO instrument, or if they've moved on to digital oscillators passed through analog filters.  I just don't hear these newer instruments achieving the P'08 character that I've come to like so much.  And of course, the Prophet-6 and OB-6 are an entirely different topic.
« Last Edit: October 18, 2016, 11:34:35 AM by Sacred Synthesis »