P12 Tricks and Tips

Re: P12 Tricks and Tips
« Reply #40 on: January 27, 2019, 09:32:20 AM »
I'm no expert, but I'll try and share what I have learned over the last couple years with the prophet 12.
 Cheers!
https://youtu.be/K7hp9Ut9nQs

 

Re: P12 Tricks and Tips
« Reply #41 on: February 10, 2019, 10:15:50 PM »
I'm no expert, but I'll try and share what I have learned over the last couple years with the prophet 12.
 Cheers!

Great video! I like that the focus is on, now that you bought the thing, how do you make musical sound with it? Nice to hear the sound as you work on it.
« Last Edit: February 10, 2019, 10:20:27 PM by Processaurus »

Re: P12 Tricks and Tips
« Reply #42 on: February 11, 2019, 06:42:51 AM »
I'm no expert, but I'll try and share what I have learned over the last couple years with the prophet 12.
 Cheers!

Agreed, I subscribed after the first of these and they have given me some useful stuff. I definitely need to think more about gain staging.
Prophet 12, Modal 002, MFB Dominion 1, Behringer DeepMind 12D, Korg Polysix & EX-8000, Roland JX-8P, Ensoniq SQ-80, Kawai K3m and now an OB-6!

Re: P12 Tricks and Tips
« Reply #43 on: June 29, 2019, 10:11:58 AM »
Does anyone know how to get the Prophet 12 (or the Pro 2 for that matter) to power up with a specific patch?  The power-on patch seems to change from time to time, but I'm super perplexed on how to control that behavior, or if it's even possible!

Re: P12 Tricks and Tips
« Reply #44 on: June 29, 2019, 05:38:31 PM »
Does anyone know how to get the Prophet 12 (or the Pro 2 for that matter) to power up with a specific patch?  The power-on patch seems to change from time to time, but I'm super perplexed on how to control that behavior, or if it's even possible!

Hi, hit Global 2 times to "remember" it.

Re: P12 Tricks and Tips
« Reply #45 on: July 06, 2019, 05:24:19 AM »
Here's a couple of tips I've found so far after spending ~1 week with the machine. Forgive me if some of these may be duplicates from earlier posts.

If you want to assign more than one mod slots from the same source, like the modwheel, the "Assign Mod Source" button wont let you assign the same source (to avoid creating duplicates I assume) a quick trick is to hold "Assign Mod Source" and press a key right next to the modwheel and then touch the modwheel, that way the slot will first be assigned to velocity and then directly to modwheel.

Even though there's tons of arguments online about how the Prophet 12 doesn't sound like the P5 or P6 etc, it sounds close enough that it's quite easy to replicate patches across and get pretty close. I've taken some of my Repro 5 presets and ported them over to the P12 with relative ease.

Something I've missed until recently is to do filter movement with zero resonance, just something to not forget as an option, I've always dialed in resonance without thinking about it in the past. This turned out for me to be the door to get the "Roland" sound.

Kind of a tangent, but if you've ever used the plugin Soothe for sound design, you may have noticed that the sound it creates is similar to brining the resonance down to zero, and then even adding in a bit of noise. I use this to get close to that sound without using the plugin.

This is an easy +1 on the previous points. On existing patches, try turning Resonance down to zero and you may discover a new sound/variation from the same patch "for free".

Looking at the waveform through an oscillioscope gives lots of ideas on new creative directions for sound design. For example seeing what happens with the waveform when engaging the character section.

Richer base OSC sound: Activate Osc 1 and 2 with the same waveform and dial in a small amount of fine tune on one of them, even +1 is enough to get phasing and pulse width effects going due to phase cancellation between the waves. Also works with different waveforms.

Re: P12 Tricks and Tips
« Reply #46 on: July 11, 2019, 12:52:20 PM »
Does anyone know how to get the Prophet 12 (or the Pro 2 for that matter) to power up with a specific patch?  The power-on patch seems to change from time to time, but I'm super perplexed on how to control that behavior, or if it's even possible!

Hi, hit Global 2 times to "remember" it.

Genius - thanks!

Explains how my default power-up patch seemed to have changed at 'random' from time to time!  This should really be in the manual.

Re: P12 Tricks and Tips
« Reply #47 on: July 21, 2019, 01:26:28 PM »
Astonishing what u people came up with, i love the idea of sidechaing CCīs to shift a program into a different mood for transitioning between songs.

Instead of the default "tremolo" I found an organic sweetspot for vibrato using analog shapes by doing this:
OscSlop set to 0 ; If desired detune slightly (max +/-4)

LFO1 Square FREQ 140 AMOUNT 0 SLEW 12 DEST OscAllFreq
MOD1 Aftertouch          AMOUNT 7              DEST Lfo1Amount
MOD2 Aftertouch          AMOUNT 1              DEST OscAllSlop
MOD3 Velocity              AMOUNT 2              DEST OscAllSlop
MOD4 Pitchbend           AMOUNT 2              DEST Mod2Amount
MOD5 Modwheel           AMOUNT -3             DEST Lfo1Freq

Try it with any number of OSC set to square and/or saw. At least to me itīs subtle and alive at the same time and I enhanced many of the factory programs with it.

Re: P12 Tricks and Tips
« Reply #48 on: July 26, 2019, 06:35:38 AM »
Thanks for the vibrato tip, Mr.Dezent. I'll give that a try.
I just found a very nice shimmer delay. This will also work for what Korg calls Submarine in their Minilogue XD.
Assign an LFO to delay time, choose either ramp up or down. Adjust the amount to taste. From the default patch the LFO amount won't go to an octave. You have two choices: either increase the LFO rate or assign the LFO again to delay time through the mod matrix.
Turn up the delay's feedback for more of the shimmer.
With good HP filtering of the delay you get a pleasant effect. If you take two delays with slightly different delay times panned hard left and right you also get a beautiful width.
You can add another LFO with triangle, very little amount and slower rate to introduce slight chorussing.
If you only want the delay at the end of a note, assign an aux envelope to delay amount. Turn the delay amount up, set the mod amount of the envelope to maximum negative, turn up the sustain and adjust the release to taste.
Enjoy... :)

Re: P12 Tricks and Tips
« Reply #49 on: August 07, 2019, 03:43:49 AM »
Anybody know a way to manually retrigger one of the envelopes?
Example: tap the slider to restart envelope 3...

A simple, but fun tip in return...

Gestural crossmixing with 4 oscillators using the sliders:

Set the oscillators to different shapes.
Osc 1 and 3 volume=127
Osc 2 and 4 volume=0

Slider 1 -> Osc 1 volume = -127
Slider 1 -> Osc 2 volume = 127
Slider 2 -> Osc 3 volume = -127
Slider 2 -> Osc 4 volume = 127

Modify as needed :)





« Last Edit: August 07, 2019, 03:45:50 AM by dreamsynthesist »
Finishing songs is for loosers... *Cue overproduced 8-bar loop made entirely from a processed sample of my tears splashing aganst my empty wallet.

Re: P12 Tricks and Tips
« Reply #50 on: August 31, 2019, 11:51:00 PM »
Ok this one is a bit of a P12 "lifehack" that I just discovered, I wish I got ASAP as it saves time and keeps you in the creative flow. Most of you probably got this one early as its probably mentioned in the manual (I should probably re-read it now that I've gotten more into the basics) but for those that didnt: To assign mod destination for LFO and ENV's you can hold the LFO/ENV selector button and wiggle the destination (instead of scrolling through a huge menu with a knob like I used to do). You can also use those selector buttons when holding the assign mod source button for OSC's, LFO's & ENV's.

Using this I've been more inclined to use the delays for chorusing effects and just in general, being a bit more playful and trying things out with the LFO and ENV. Btw, a tip for creating chorus effects (here's some captn obvious stuff:) is to play with the delay and then start turning the time knob as if an LFO was moving it, once you're happy with the sound, you can now assign the LFO to do a similar movement of the same knob.

Bonus tip that probably already mentioned is holding the selector button to select all of them at once.

Ok here's a tip I've been using from pretty much Day 1. Create your own Init patch. I've got one main init patch with just a couple of changes, such as setting pitch bend range to 2 instead of 12 and probably a couple of others. I'm thinking of creating a new one that has a stereo chorus setup. So the idea being having different init patches to start from.

Ok this is just a quick thought, I've wished the Distortion knob was assignable in the mod matrix, did I miss something, I'm assuming it's not assignable. I'm assuming it's because the Distortion is applied on the master mix instead of per voice, so it woudn't make sense to mix that in with the per voice stuff.


Re: P12 Tricks and Tips
« Reply #51 on: September 01, 2019, 01:59:14 AM »
Thanks for that mrj1nx. a timely reminder for me not to live in the mod matrix. I tended to build my voices the slow way, using all the controllers to make the subtle (or not so subtle) voice changes that worked best. The next stage in my development was to change additional temporary aspects of the voices using the knobs in real time whilst playing (I recommend holding the edit layer A and B button for things like brutal envelope cuts).
I had completely forgotten that I also have speedy access to mod matrix changes. This will prove especially useful to the improvised side of my playing.

Re: P12 Tricks and Tips
« Reply #52 on: September 09, 2019, 11:54:03 AM »
...
Ok this is just a quick thought, I've wished the Distortion knob was assignable in the mod matrix,
It is not, there are two distortion circuits, each covering six voices at once.
...

Re: P12 Tricks and Tips
« Reply #53 on: September 10, 2019, 10:50:05 AM »
Morph from square to sawtooth, with some kind of funny PWM.
set OSC1 wave to pulse/square
set OSC2 to sawtooth, one octave +12 semitones up
set both OSC1 and OSC2 to phase lock (tab two display knob 3
set OSC2 volume to half of OSC1
assign OSC2 level/volume to a controller. The more you lower OSC2 level the more pulse/square it is.
for PWM: control both OSC1 and OSC2 sdhapemod with the same controller, maybe in different amounts. It's not the same as sawtooth shapemod.
Why? It's from additive synthesis. If you stack up lots of sinewaves in the harmonic series: note, one octave up (note frequency times 2), one octave and a fifth (note frequency times 3) and so on, you get typical wave spectra. Wave forms differ in the volume of the harmonics and to some degree in the phase of the harmonics.
A sawtooth wave has all harmonics with a volume of 1/n, n being the harmonic: note = 1/1 = full volume, harmonic two (one octave up): volume = 1/2 = half volume, then 1/3 of full volume and so on.
A square wave only has the odd harmonics: the first, third, fifth and so on. Though at the same levels so at 1/3, 1/5 and so on of full volume.
If you pitch a sawtooth one octave above a square, it's basic pitch will be the second harmonic to the square. At half the volume it is correct for the sawtooth (second harmonic, volume = 1/2 of full volume). The next harmonic of the sawtooth is the fourth harmonic to the square wave. So the saw will cover harmonics 2, 4, 6 and so on. It will also have the correct volume.
I tried it and it works well. :)

Re: P12 Tricks and Tips
« Reply #54 on: September 16, 2019, 08:58:35 AM »
Sivian,  So am I interpreting this right that the goal is to get an intermediate between the pulse and saw?   I've messed around with using 8 oscillators on P12 (layer A and B) for attempting some sine wave additive.  I had some success, but really found that the key was how you would set the volumes, especially on the first few multiples.  The slightest difference in such adjustment changes the whole flavor of the patch.
Sequential/DSI Equipment: Poly Evolver Keyboard, Evolver desktop,   Pro-2, Pro-3, OB6, P-12,
 

https://Soundcloud.com/wavescape-1

Re: P12 Tricks and Tips
« Reply #55 on: April 22, 2020, 06:33:25 PM »
Mind is blown!  This is what I've been needing to know for a long time now, thanks everyone for sharing!
I can see that I'm just getting started.

Re: P12 Tricks and Tips
« Reply #56 on: June 07, 2020, 01:23:46 AM »
Hi, everyone. I'm a new P12 owner and this forum is a godsend! I love this synth and am super excited to learn all the ins and outs of it as I think it's one of the most powerful hybrid synths ever made. Anyway, I won't bore you with the fine details of my life or why I wanted a P12, but I just wanted to say "hi" and introduce myself to the forum. I'll be checking back regularly for new ideas, and if I run across anything useful to the group, I'll be sure to share it (although don't count on that happening anytime soon - I'm still pretty much of a novice when it comes to sound design). But what I've found here so far will keep me busy for weeks to come!
Proud owner of:
DSI Prophet 12
Yamaha MOXF 8
Korg Minilogue
Korg MS-20 Mini

Re: P12 Tricks and Tips
« Reply #57 on: June 07, 2020, 01:25:59 AM »
Does anyone know how to get the Prophet 12 (or the Pro 2 for that matter) to power up with a specific patch?  The power-on patch seems to change from time to time, but I'm super perplexed on how to control that behavior, or if it's even possible!

Hi, hit Global 2 times to "remember" it.

Thank you! I've been wondering the same thing myself.
Proud owner of:
DSI Prophet 12
Yamaha MOXF 8
Korg Minilogue
Korg MS-20 Mini

Re: P12 Tricks and Tips
« Reply #58 on: June 09, 2020, 11:16:02 AM »
Welcome to the forum RezRocks
Sequential/DSI Equipment: Poly Evolver Keyboard, Evolver desktop,   Pro-2, Pro-3, OB6, P-12,
 

https://Soundcloud.com/wavescape-1

Re: P12 Tricks and Tips
« Reply #59 on: August 12, 2020, 08:34:20 AM »
I've been busy with my second Prophet 12. I originally bought it as a backup, as you are not making them any more.
 I have posted elsewhere about using 4 Boss FV 500L pedals - 2 for volume - (stereo outputs A and B) and 2 for expression. Now I have the second P12 I was looking for pedal shortcuts, and discovered that I can use both the twin volume channels AND the expression channel simultaneously on each pedal. With very little tweaking of my voices I am now using 4 pedals for 8 audio channels (4 stereo) and 4 expression channels. So instead of being swamped by pedals I have the same number. OK I have slightly less control as Adjusting a pedals volume affects the expression on one of the synths, but in practice I have not found it too problematic, whereas 8 pedals would be silly.