The New Sequential Prophet-5 and Prophet-10

[LoboLives]

My take:

The name "Prophet '08" probably made sense, and was arguably even clever at the time, because of the voice count and timing of release.  And I'm sure it made sense in late 2007 because, who knew how this analog resurgence thing was going to go in the late 2000s when it was conceived?  Problem is, the name doesn't scale well to the next revision, something I'm sure Dave was probably cringing over during the naming process for the Rev2.

So, the Prophet Rev2 dropped the year indicator (which is almost certainly a good idea), but made it sort of weird because there was a Prophet 5-Rev2 many decades back, and with voice count not being part of the name (it can't because there is a 8 and 16 voice version), it sort of comes across like the Prophet Rev 2 is *the* Prophet or flagship Prophet synth (when of course it is not).

This also creates a quandry for the Prophet 12, which did choose to include voice count in the name (but becomes a potential source of confusion when you release a Prophet 10 many years later, which is upmarket from the P12).

I'll just say, I don't have all the answers.  I understand the challenges that went along with all this.... there's a saying among computer scientists that naming things is the hardest part (often sung in Tom Petty's voice), and I know marketing types like to think they have it all worked out, but after 40 years in technology product engineering, I'm say I'm REALLY glad Sequential is not a marketing-driven company, and it's one of the primary reasons they're still making great products.

In terms of naming Prophet 5 and Prophet 10, things seem to be on the right track to me here... I'm not sure these synths should ever see a "Rev 5", because reissuing vintage gear was their reason for existence.

For future product naming.. questions remain.  What should the Prophet 12 successor be named?  Maybe Propholver?  Or Polyphet Digital Deluxe?

Prophet X line, from a sheer naming perspective, is in pretty good shape (could be Prophet X2, X3, etc)..  It's just that the word is that Dave's samplers (however good I'm sure they are) do not appear the be the big seller for the company, so who knows where this will go.

Tempest2, 3, etc. (should they choose to go that route)  I don't see a problem there.

Hopefully success of P5/10 leads to successful remakes of Oberheim units, just use the old name.

...One guy's opinion anyway.

Unfortunately Gibson didn’t own the Oberheim name when they gave it back to Tom as a “gesture of good will” or whatever it was just them trying to save face from the whole “Play Authentic” PR disaster. So unfortunately I don’t think Tom has the trademark for it. I actually think Uli does from what I’ve read.

As far as the Prophet X goes. Sadly as sentimental as I am about the instrument and as much as I love it, it was likely a disaster for Sequential in terms of sales and 8Dio not pulling their weight with the collaboration. As much as I would love a Prophet XS (Desktop Model) I think Dave is done venturing outside his comfort zone because of the PX and also likely not interested in collaborations on future instruments. I really don’t see Tempest X happening ever.

As far as a P12 successor....I really like Paul Dither’s design for the Sequential Waves

[Shaw]

As far as the Prophet X goes. Sadly as sentimental as I am about the instrument and as much as I love it, it was likely a disaster for Sequential in terms of sales and 8Dio not pulling their weight with the collaboration.

Sequential really should’ve been more careful on the front end with their dealings with 8dio.... and I lay the blame at the feet of the attorney who negotiated this on behalf of Sequential. Such a deal should have been written with specific performance obligations and penalties for failure to meet those obligations.

[LoboLives]

As far as the Prophet X goes. Sadly as sentimental as I am about the instrument and as much as I love it, it was likely a disaster for Sequential in terms of sales and 8Dio not pulling their weight with the collaboration.

Sequential really should’ve been more careful on the front end with their dealings with 8dio.... and I lay the blame at the feet of the attorney who negotiated this on behalf of Sequential. Such a deal should have been written with specific performance obligations and penalties for failure to meet those obligations.

Agreed. Part of the blame is also on Sequential for really awful demos as well. Gerry Basserman is a super nice dude but he really didn’t appear familiar with the instrument until the PXL rolled along and I think that really hurt the first impression of the instrument for people. Like the Sweetwater demo was embarrassing and even the brief No talking/all playing demo at Kraft music is literally just using synth sounds.

I almost feel Sequential would have been better off partnering with David Rossum.

I actually think they removed the 8Dio logo off of the synth’s front panel now.

[A Thousand Eyes]

I actually think they removed the 8Dio logo off of the synth’s front panel now.

They did.

[LPF83]

As far as the Prophet X goes. Sadly as sentimental as I am about the instrument and as much as I love it, it was likely a disaster for Sequential in terms of sales and 8Dio not pulling their weight with the collaboration.

Sequential really should’ve been more careful on the front end with their dealings with 8dio.... and I lay the blame at the feet of the attorney who negotiated this on behalf of Sequential. Such a deal should have been written with specific performance obligations and penalties for failure to meet those obligations.

My experience with west-coast startup culture has been that sometimes a little too much is done based only on a handshake, not enough Ts crossed and Is dotted.  And I can only speculate, but my hunch is that what likely happened here was that (because obligations are usually bilateral), Dave didn't want to be on the hook to pay 8Dio X amount of money over Y amount of years, so he probably just carved out a small royalty for Sequential on each sample pack that's sold.  It's not a bad concept, because it incentivizes the content producer to not only produce more content, but to produce quality content that would make customers want to buy more packs.   Doing it any other way would just create incentive for the content producer to crank out poor quality content, only to meet their quantity obligation.

The question is, what happens when the primary product doesn't meet certain sales numbers, and the backbone for incentive isn't there for the content producer?  I feel this is what happened.

[A Thousand Eyes]

Some racket was made about the LFO so far, but I for one like it (& also OSC2 lo freq) a lot better than the ones featured on the P6 and OB-6. You can get some pleasantly broken sounds when combining the shapes and also mixing in noise as a source. The only time I ever used random was at high frequencies to turn it into noise anyhow.

[LoboLives]

As far as the Prophet X goes. Sadly as sentimental as I am about the instrument and as much as I love it, it was likely a disaster for Sequential in terms of sales and 8Dio not pulling their weight with the collaboration.

Sequential really should’ve been more careful on the front end with their dealings with 8dio.... and I lay the blame at the feet of the attorney who negotiated this on behalf of Sequential. Such a deal should have been written with specific performance obligations and penalties for failure to meet those obligations.

My experience with west-coast startup culture has been that sometimes a little too much is done based only on a handshake, not enough Ts crossed and Is dotted.  And I can only speculate, but my hunch is that what likely happened here was that (because obligations are usually bilateral), Dave didn't want to be on the hook to pay 8Dio X amount of money over Y amount of years, so he probably just carved out a small royalty for Sequential on each sample pack that's sold.  It's not a bad concept, because it incentivizes the content producer to not only produce more content, but to produce quality content that would make customers want to buy more packs.   Doing it any other way would just create incentive for the content producer to crank out poor quality content, only to meet their quantity obligation.

The question is, what happens when the primary product doesn't meet certain sales numbers, and the backbone for incentive isn't there for the content producer?  I feel this is what happened.

They should have just hired me to demo it lol

[Shaw]

They should have just hired me to demo it lol

This forum really needs a “like” button.

[jok3r]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaTDmYh3Ilo

Could they really sound that different? Or has he done something wrong?

[LPF83]

Could they really sound that different? Or has he done something wrong?

Initially it just sounded to me like the cutoff wasn't opened enough on the Rev4, but reading the comments it appears to not be the case, and that others are reporting similar issues.  Hopefully some sort of early production issue.  My other Sequential synths don't sound flat like that Rev4, nor does the Rev4 sound like that in all vids I've seen.

[Shaw]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaTDmYh3Ilo

Could they really sound that different? Or has he done something wrong?

GS has literally exploded over this... My suspicion is that it is either a) a few guys got faulty units, or more likely b) user error.


There are simply too many videos where this thing sounds deadly accurate (Inhalt, J3PO, Matt Johnson, Paul Schilling, James Terris) and guys whose ears I trust saying it is spot on (Matt Johnson and others).


Mine hasn’t shipped yet, but I’m sure as hell not cancelling or reconsidering my pre-order based on this.  One of the luxuries of dealing with SW (and some other great retailers out there)... if I don’t like it for any reason, I can send it back.  I think I could literally tell my SW guy that it doesn’t smell right, and they’d take it back.  So it is zero risk at this point.

[jok3r]

I didn't want to make anybody overthink his pre-orders. ;-)

It was just the first comparison video to an older P5 I saw and posted it, before watching until the end. I edited my post and added my question then. I think it has to be user error or a faulty unit, too.

[AlainHubert]

Could they really sound that different? Or has he done something wrong?

This seems to confirm what I suspected all along (by listening carefully to many demo videos). This new P5 REV4 is not up to the task of matching the sound of an original P5. It seems to be missing the "bite" and "sizzle" of the original.

[LPF83]

Could they really sound that different? Or has he done something wrong?

This seems to confirm what I suspected all along (by listening carefully to many demo videos). This new P5 REV4 is not up to the task of matching the sound of an original P5. It seems to be missing the "bite" and "sizzle" of the original.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.  My Prophet 6 sounds more like the P5-Rev3 than the P5-Rev4 does in that video... hell, my soft synths sound more like a real analog synth than that one does.  I think it must be some sort of temporary production problem, hope they can get it worked out quickly.  I decided to get a P6 some months back rather than to hold out and see what the new synth announced would be, because I don't like to be an unpaid tester.  Prefer to buy after the bugs are worked out.

[A Thousand Eyes]

hell, my soft synths sound more like a real analog synth than that one does.

What's your definition of more like "real" analog? I don't have time at the moment to watch the entire vid, but what little I did watch, it sounded like the filter is not opening up all the way on the Rev 4...

[S_A_P]

And here I registered to avoid the noise of the GS thread only to see it has infected this forum... Oh well my P10 is due to arrive Wednesday. I will know more then...

[Sacred Synthesis]

And here I registered to avoid the noise of the GS thread only to see it has infected this forum... Oh well my P10 is due to arrive Wednesday. I will know more then...

Don't worry, that's very rare around here.

[Shaw]

And here I registered to avoid the noise of the GS thread only to see it has infected this forum... Oh well my P10 is due to arrive Wednesday. I will know more then...

It's pretty good over here... more helping, less bitching.

[jok3r]

And here I registered to avoid the noise of the GS thread only to see it has infected this forum... Oh well my P10 is due to arrive Wednesday. I will know more then...

I'm not even a member on GS and read it 3 times in a year at max. Sequential forum is the best synth community out there... at least for my taste.

[LoboLives]

GS is a boil on the ass of music websites.