The third synth dilemma!

[Ljudmakaren]

Hi!
I’m about to expand my synth setup for composing. I already have a Minimoog Voyager Old School with a lot of moogerfoogers and the Pro2.
I had the Rev2 but it sounded distant, like it was held back. The oscillators sounded quite similar to my Pro2s basic waveforms but as soon as I touched the filter it lost a lot of magic. I loved the Prophet 08 and the Tempest so i know that the filters should be to my liking. That leads me to think that there is a gain staging issue.

Well.. I make all sorts of music, from hip hop, jazz to metal and folk music. I like the sound to be organic an lively, imperfect and lo-fi if needed. I plan on moving from just tunes to games and maybe indie film. Of course it depends on the project but i like soundscapes and great themes. Mandalorian and Metroid are two great inspirations.

I’m moving from itb to mainly hardware because I’m fed up with the constant updating and cost maintaining the plugins. Right now I’m working on a computer where I cannot even use youtube caus I’ll loose so many plugins if i update the OS... I’m moving to use the IPad as a multi track recorder and I’ll make most of the sound design on the way to “tape”.



The synths I’m looking at:


OB-6. Dark and super organic poly.
Pros- Great sound. Polyphonic. No menu diving. Fast to work with. Save patches. Filter!
Cons- Limited sound designing (lfo routings etc). Maybe to overwhelming sound? Super expensive.


Matriarch. Paraphonic beast.
Pros- Great sound. Love the way the paraphony works. Fast to work with. No menus. Awesome for sound design. Analog delay.
Cons- Cant save patches. Competes with my VOS and my Pro2. No polyphony.


Summit. Rich sounding poly.
Pros- different filter. 16 voice. Nice size. Effects. Wavetables and fm. Great gain staging.
Cons- mainly compared to the prophet 12. Three osc. Limited mod matrix? Only two dedicated lfo’s per voice (two global).


Prophet 12. Sound designers dream.
Pros- love the morphing. Wavetable and fm. Character section. Mod matrix. 12 voice. Awesome for sound design
Cons- might overlap to much with my pro2. Bulky hardware (might get the module). Iffy with programming/unforgiving.


Digital and analog is less of a concern, the important thing is sound and that i connect with the instrument.
Here is a tune i made:

[Ljudmakaren]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CMkFDQm3nKE

[SynthHead]

Have owned (sequential wise as it's relevent here - not to mention  nearly 100 other synths from various makers old and new) 08/rev 2, ob-6, prophet 6 and prophet 10 rev 4. Only got the Prophet 10 rev 4 left here from those now- the rest weren't worth it.. though OB-6 is cool but it's not very organic vs the Prophet 5/10rev 4. Prophet 6 is pretty bland, and rev 2/08 is weak as **** and would avoid at all costs. OB-6 can sound really beautiful at times though (like Prophet Rev 4 can but in a different way)

Summit sounds horrible to me, basically digital sounding - get that from software. Prophet 12 has the same horrible filters are rev 2 and honestly GRATES on my ears everytime I hear it in a song, avoid... forget 'sound designer's dream' , no it's not if it sounds horrible doing it. More basic synths with great tone can get you anywhere if you know what you're doing (i.e MIDI CC for infinite modulation, DAW multitracking, DAW FX etc) THAT is where true beauty comes from not having 10 LFOs and cheap sounding FX built into a synth.

Prophet 5/10 rev 4... or maybe the moog but if you already have moog, uhm.... (FTR the only moogs I've had were slim phatty and sub 37... former had nice tone - latter was a touch hollow and nowhere near as lively and beautiful as the Prophet 5/10 rev 4s - of course it had a cool filter though).

While I personally don't like it the polybrute might be what you're after, worth a demo at least... but for me it's overloaded with gimmicks and the base tone isn't 'awesome' (though it's much better than P12/Rev2/Summit at least)... but I'm now spoiled by the Prophet 10 rev 4.. everything else sounds kinda weak (except the Prologue 16 which REALLY stands its ground against much bigger synths and can do some amazing weird atmospheres with 16 voice VCO and layers etc for a seemingly 'simple' synth),  maybe look at a Prologue 16 too (used ones are bargains and they are now rock solid after FW update fixed tuning issue) - all metal build inc pots, as well built as my Prophet 10 basically - way better build than my other sequentials.

I voted OB-6 (even though my Prologue easily replaced it and bettered it tone wise) as it's the ONLY synth I Like from the polys you mentioned, matriarch is cool but not for me... I can't be doing with patching etc.