I picked up a Prophet Rev2 last week, and I’ve been absolutely obsessed with it ever since. In almost every aspect, it’s exceeded my expectations—and sonically, it’s nothing like what some online reviews call “harsh” or “digital.” It has the sound that I've been dream hearing all these years, and having it is like a dream come true for me.
That said, there’s one thing that’s been bothering me all week: the way oscillator pitch (OSC FREQ) is adjusted.
It’s a love-hate relationship. On one hand, I appreciate the incredibly wide range of the control—it’s unlike anything I’ve seen on other synths. On the other hand, the fact that it only adjusts in semitone steps, combined with the wide range, makes it extremely sensitive. Even the slightest turn of the knob can drastically shift the pitch. I checked the manual but couldn’t find any way to switch to a different adjustment mode.
Yes, you can technically reach any frequency you want using a combination of OSC FREQ and Fine Tune, but this approach feels very different from what I’m used to. My other synth, the Moog Subsequent 37, has a far more intuitive setup: an octave switch, a continuous knob for ±7 semitones, and a fine-tune knob. With that setup, I can dial in the pitch I hear in my head in about five seconds. On the Rev2, however, I have to move the knob very carefully, and I can’t glide through an interval range—it only jumps by semitones. This really breaks my creative flow.
What confuses me most is: if the OSC FREQ knob is only meant to step through semitones, why not make it a stepped encoder like the Value knob? Why use a smooth-turning knob to control discrete pitch values?
Aside from this one issue, I genuinely love everything else about the Rev2. If anyone here knows a way to change how the pitch adjustment works (or if I somehow missed it in the manual), please let me know. If not, I hope someone from the Sequential design team sees this and considers adding a more flexible pitch control mode in a future firmware update—something like what I described on the Moog.
For example: maybe holding down the Shape button could turn the transpose panel on left side of the synth into an octave selector for the oscillator, the OSC FREQ knob could become a continuous ±7 semitone control centered at 12 o’clock, and the Fine Tune knob could stay as is. If something like that were implemented, the Rev2 would be, for me personally, the perfect polyphonic analog synth—with absolutely no compromises in sound design.
Thanks for reading my post!
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