Prophet 12 Has Arrived!

Saturday I decided it was time for something new. Something really new, not just another old synth. I really like the old ones and would love to pick up a few more, like say a Roland SH01 or 02, and of course, a Yamaha CS-70 or 80 but the problem is repairs. Old stuff breaks down and it’s expensive/time consuming to keep fixing it.

The good news is, if you haven’t already heard, Korg is going to be making the Arp Odyssey again and it will be available in September! That one just may be on my list! It’s really good to see the old analogs being produced again with modern parts that will last longer than 30 years.

But I also wanted a new analog, partially for the newer technology and ideas that go into them and also so I had anew controller keyboard. My D50 doesn’t have pressure sensitivity any more, and my DX-7d has someone iffy pressure and the velocity never did go all the way up to 127 for some reason. I really wanted a Prophet 08 but then he went one step further sooooo… All hail the Prophet 12!!

It sounds fantastic! Very clean, similar to the Tom Oberheim SEM Pro, but still very punchy (snappy envelopes) and fat and powerful! With 4 oscillators that include wavetables per voice (plus a sub oscillator) you have a lot of sound generating options right from the starting point. But you also get more with some very unique adjustments like Decimation and Girth and Air, and also Drive and Distortion.

The display is very well laid out and you have tons of modulation routing possibilities. You can also stack sounds or split the keyboard, just like the OB-Xa or OB-8. And the arpeggiator is pretty cool too.

You also get 2 ribbon controllers (that have LEDs under them that light up as you slide your finger up and down) that can be routed to anything you want, so you can be very expressive while playing this thing.

And the keyboard itself is semi-weighted and feels absolutely superb!! This thing is an absolute joy to play both for feel, expressiveness and the sound. I am very happy with this purchase. Usually it takes time to warm up to something new, to discover it’s strengths and figure out how to fit it into your workflow, but this thing had me wanting to write new songs every 5 minutes as I went though the factory presets.

Hopefully this inspires me to really get going with writing and recording so I can get another CD finished soon!