A Tour Inside The Dave Smith Instruments Prophet 12 Keyboard Synthesizer
Here’s a quick video tour, via markusfuller, of the inside of the Dave Smith Instruments Prophet 12 keyboard synthesizer.
15 thoughts on “A Tour Inside The Dave Smith Instruments Prophet 12 Keyboard Synthesizer”
To answer your question at 6:41: the internal power supply is 13.5V DC.
looks wonderfly built and designed.
j
0=0
Love DS face on the circuit board!
bah the vision of a pcb is not really a vision of pleasure oO some paraphilia are weird and DCO are shorted in Curtis Circuit , no one can hack them or reverse this state .. P12 is not interesting .
I don’t care whats inside I bought one of these last year and yes its powerful, but the basic sound is very unmusical, thin, boring and you have to put all the modulation etc on the sound to make it sound amy good, but I just really hated the mush that came out. I tried for days to get a really ‘lovely’ sound but failed, its harsh, metallic, plastic, may as well use software…the digital oscillators killed this for me…otherwise the lay out is amazing and you have amamzing possiblities but nasty initial sound makes it something i just really didn;t connect with
A synth in that price range from DSI and it sounds like sh*t?
Sorry,I don’t believe you.
I find it really odd how DSI constantly gets a free pass on any criticism. the guy made a valid remarks and there are instantly twelve people shouting him down about it. really weird. I mean DSI makes boutique priced instruments but often takes blatant short cuts in the designs that comeback to haunt the user. Yet any time I see any criticism of the products… people are so quick to defend.
DSI gets a ‘free pass’ on criticism?
Then why does every post about the Tempest end up with someone complaining about the OS missing some feature that wasn’t there when the Tempest was introduced?
The thing with Prophet 12 criticism is that it always is the same “the oscillators are DCO’S” – a complaint that is synonymous with “I dont’t know how to create a patch.”
Something I learned from motm designer Paul Schreiber – you can always make a clean stable oscillator sound unstable, noisy or out of tune, but you can’t do the opposite.
Bingo…They either bitch about the price or their inability to understand something that Dave put all his life’s passion into…The shame is on them! That Flux guy, nobody cares for his critique! I once watched a crappy vid he made on a patch for MatrixBrute and I could not believe how bad he made that thing sound…I returned it the next day!
Whether you like it or hate it, it’s not going to be a favorite for techs to work on.
If DSI folds, many of those parts are going to be hard to get or replace.
gosh, if I had a machine like that, the last I’d do is open it ! I’d be too unscrew it ’cause it could screw it !
To “Hate…” ….I’ll gladly take it off your hands ! 🙂
The “digital oscillator” vs analog debate is BS….it’s what you DO with it that matters!
FYI, it’s SHARC Digital Signal processors not “Shark”
Agree with those who say it does Not sound nice, i have a VS and i thought the 12 would of deemed it useless, really glad I still have it as I am just not liking the tone/sound that comes from the 12, sorry thats just my honest opinion, the VS sound a Lot more musical and interesting, though i am sure the 12 will have found a niche for it’s sound with some people.
I don’t know about the sound, but this has definitely got my attention and yearnings. I would love to try it. My respects to Mark for opening this machine for us to see. I don’t really have any understanding of electronics in these sense, but it sure was very interesting.
I tried both Pro2 and P12 and was supriced by the limited upper frequency range of the osc’s also the early bandwith limitation on wave forms. For a SHARK running at 250Mhz one for each voice this should in reality if osc software programmed with some effors outperform a VS and be on par with the best PC based VST but supricingly its not. The waves is clean altought but start to fold into sines way to early due to the mentioned BLIT routine.
To answer your question at 6:41: the internal power supply is 13.5V DC.
looks wonderfly built and designed.
j
0=0
Love DS face on the circuit board!
bah the vision of a pcb is not really a vision of pleasure oO some paraphilia are weird and DCO are shorted in Curtis Circuit , no one can hack them or reverse this state .. P12 is not interesting .
I don’t care whats inside I bought one of these last year and yes its powerful, but the basic sound is very unmusical, thin, boring and you have to put all the modulation etc on the sound to make it sound amy good, but I just really hated the mush that came out. I tried for days to get a really ‘lovely’ sound but failed, its harsh, metallic, plastic, may as well use software…the digital oscillators killed this for me…otherwise the lay out is amazing and you have amamzing possiblities but nasty initial sound makes it something i just really didn;t connect with
A synth in that price range from DSI and it sounds like sh*t?
Sorry,I don’t believe you.
I find it really odd how DSI constantly gets a free pass on any criticism. the guy made a valid remarks and there are instantly twelve people shouting him down about it. really weird. I mean DSI makes boutique priced instruments but often takes blatant short cuts in the designs that comeback to haunt the user. Yet any time I see any criticism of the products… people are so quick to defend.
DSI gets a ‘free pass’ on criticism?
Then why does every post about the Tempest end up with someone complaining about the OS missing some feature that wasn’t there when the Tempest was introduced?
The thing with Prophet 12 criticism is that it always is the same “the oscillators are DCO’S” – a complaint that is synonymous with “I dont’t know how to create a patch.”
Something I learned from motm designer Paul Schreiber – you can always make a clean stable oscillator sound unstable, noisy or out of tune, but you can’t do the opposite.
Bingo…They either bitch about the price or their inability to understand something that Dave put all his life’s passion into…The shame is on them! That Flux guy, nobody cares for his critique! I once watched a crappy vid he made on a patch for MatrixBrute and I could not believe how bad he made that thing sound…I returned it the next day!
Whether you like it or hate it, it’s not going to be a favorite for techs to work on.
If DSI folds, many of those parts are going to be hard to get or replace.
gosh, if I had a machine like that, the last I’d do is open it ! I’d be too unscrew it ’cause it could screw it !
To “Hate…” ….I’ll gladly take it off your hands ! 🙂
The “digital oscillator” vs analog debate is BS….it’s what you DO with it that matters!
FYI, it’s SHARC Digital Signal processors not “Shark”
Agree with those who say it does Not sound nice, i have a VS and i thought the 12 would of deemed it useless, really glad I still have it as I am just not liking the tone/sound that comes from the 12, sorry thats just my honest opinion, the VS sound a Lot more musical and interesting, though i am sure the 12 will have found a niche for it’s sound with some people.
I don’t know about the sound, but this has definitely got my attention and yearnings. I would love to try it. My respects to Mark for opening this machine for us to see. I don’t really have any understanding of electronics in these sense, but it sure was very interesting.
I tried both Pro2 and P12 and was supriced by the limited upper frequency range of the osc’s also the early bandwith limitation on wave forms. For a SHARK running at 250Mhz one for each voice this should in reality if osc software programmed with some effors outperform a VS and be on par with the best PC based VST but supricingly its not. The waves is clean altought but start to fold into sines way to early due to the mentioned BLIT routine.