Comments on: Dave Smith Prophet 08 is Here: All Analog, All Modern Synth Shipping

By: chris

chris — Fri, 23 May 2008 12:51:45 +0000

was not for the dude above..

By: chris

chris — Fri, 23 May 2008 12:49:22 +0000

well my music style is so far digital. i bought the prophet 08 one week now,and i m fascinated with that toy.i even prefer it from the virus ti i also have.so i believe that if anybody wants wood he can just go buy some furniture for his house. i believe that musical instruments are not made to decorate only it s what inside that maters dude.

By: wave

wave — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 13:30:32 +0000

Dave Smith is genius, but I’m love in my P5….

By: dude

dude — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 18:01:49 +0000

umm, still no oscillator FM (or osc as mod source) wtf?
like when DSI said that the evolver is like the Pro One…uhh, nope, no FM.
same thing here, it seems.

By: The Prophet 08 is out : The Dual Nature of Matter

The Prophet 08 is out : The Dual Nature of Matter — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 17:11:03 +0000

[...] From Dave Smith, comes the all new Prophet 08. Find out all about it from Create Digital Music [...]

By: jdm

jdm — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 00:13:02 +0000

I bought one, sight unseen, and while it sounds better than any of my v-synths, I’m really really really annoyed by the continuous encoders - you really need LED rings with those, ala Nord Lead 3, or have regular pots, ala P5 or even Moog Voyager (which I have, too). The Voyager is unquestionably a more solid machine and sounds a lot better, but as Dave points out, it’s not really fair to compare a $2000 8-voice with a $3500 mono synth. That said, I don’t think normal pots or LED rings on the encoders would have added that much $$, nor would more buttons - I don’t like having to dial an encoder to select Osc waveforms - esp since you have to dial all the way from 0-50% to get a square wave. Worse, you can’t get saw + pulse. Since the LCD can only display one param at a time, you have to remember each value to understand the patch - you can’t just look at the position of the pots you’ve touched. Worse, you have to mentally map the range of the param (usually 0-127, but not always - eg. the filter cutoff is 0-164) to 0-100%

In short, it sounds pretty good (VCAs are very noisy) but the interface leaves a lot to be desired.

I haven’t decided whether I’m keeping it….

By: Peter Kearney

Peter Kearney — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 22:51:07 +0000

The surface is not a “cheap” sticker but a fairly complicated (and expensive) plastic laminate which includes the graphics, the lcd window and a textured surface.

But I do a agree.. he should really hire Axel Hartmann or similar experienced interface designer and Dave’s taste in fonts is remedial at best.

By: Alex

Alex — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 09:49:53 +0000

Special editions are marketing tricks to suck peoples money! Moog did it, and now DSI too. How pathetic.. No one serious musician cares about stupid glowing leds under the pitch bend and mod wheel (which make the synth ugly IMO!) and the totally ugly Dave Smith signature (Hey people, call a graphics artist, or put the bloody signature at the back!). And as i can see from the photos, this synth doesn’t even compares to an original prophet 5 from the aesthetics view. It seems cheap compared to the original, as it has much less wood around it, and the text seems printed on a surface sticker!!! I wouldn’t expect such a thing if i was a collector. The original had text printed directly on it. I would never pay more money for this cheap implementation of special “eye candy features”. I would prefer to pay 200 or 300$ more and buy one that is made exactly or with the same quality and aesthetics as the original.More wood please! No sticker printed text please…no special edition bullshit please…

By: BirdFLU

BirdFLU — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 06:08:28 +0000

I’m not desiring the P 08, but that’s just becasue I’m not in the market.

A modern AND affordable AND analog synth and people will still bitch about something. It’s worth the money just for the modern componenets that you know aren’t going to fail anytime soon. I’ve got a Moog Source and Yamaha CS-15, both in perfect shape, that stay in a climate controlled, surge protected environment. They both have had little problems to be fixed in the last year or so because they’re 25-30 years old.

A P 08 captures that analog synth sound and will be good for decades to come.

By: Adrian Anders

Adrian Anders — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 03:15:17 +0000

@poopoo

You’re right… you would think with the popularity of unison sounds these days they would make it a big selling point for this synth.

Now I REALLY want it!