I also noticed that the triangle wave in particular (perhaps other waves too) has a voice-to-voice variation in shape. Depending on the conditions, it seems to start slightly deformed and then get into a steady triangle shape. This is more noticeable in low frequencies.

- If I hold the a key for a little while (say a couple of seconds), every single voice seems to produce the consistent result of this slight deformation settling into a triangle shape.

- Now, if I use shorter duration (< 1 s), then some notes start with no deformation, others with.

The deformation seems to be a slight straight edge at the top of the triangle (like a resync with a master clock) and causes a buzzy sound as you would expect. To get a clear picture, I put the oscillator at 1/4 volume. Such inconsistencies would be magnified by hard sync. I think there is something funny going on in the waveshaper. It is peculiar that it seems to be dependent on gate time. I guess that kind of thing is part of the VCO territory.

Yeah, I wonder if there is consistency, that is the Shape on specific VCOs are always offset around the same, so if one where given the calibration possibility to set each waveshaper yourself on your own personal Prologue one might fix this...

Now to the sound of the Prologue which I am a fan of. Feeding very low levels into the filter makes a whole different sound because of gainstaging overall - biggest mistake in: Outboard, Amps, Synths, Gear in general.... it reacts differently to signal strength and sometimes more isn't better

yes, that seems to be the key to get a good sound, the filter appears to be sensitive to high levels. Just playing around as I checked the waveshapes I got a lovely single-osc1 (with a tad of a subosc by osc2) that seems to be nice hark back to the single osc polys of yesteryear.

I think one of its strengths is its simplicity.

Guys is there any subharmonic content (noise, low frequencies etc) anywhere below the note fundamental such as what synthpark was describing earlier with the spectrum image he had?

Thanks! Maybe that's what I'm hearing in this particular hard sync preset.

New Sinevibes Oscillator! Node 4OP FM

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Yes, they are there. If it is Crosstalk as Synthpark said, as the OSC going at a low VC tone and the one you press as a high tone next to the Low playing OSC leaks through, or if it is something else I don't know.

Now, I never noticed it since it is quite low volume, but quite audible, I don't find it a 'no go' for keeping my P16. It is sad that there is this crosstalk and problem with the waveshaper not being calibrated but the sounds I get out of this and the price I paid make it a keeper.

My next synth investment will be the Arturia PolyBrut, but that is something completely different and I will still keep the P16 as I know how to coax the exact tones I want out from it - that is I am gelling with it...

Most vintage gear is praised for what it does wrong, rather than how it was right :-)

Right. Unfortunately the error doesnt sound musical in this case . Tomorrow I finally have some time left to show two units. Normally analog stands for spectral purity and realism.

Any analog vintage synth sounds cleaner. A short look in the spectrum analyzer will prove. Only digital synths like Prophet VS would not. I keep my Prologue anyway. The error is gone for longer release time.

To me it looks like there might be a mute mechanism foe each voice to reduce the noise floor and cross talk, because the Prologue has very little noise floor and closes unused voices well. And this mute mechanism might fail in certain circumstances (short release). Just an idea.

Just a heads up, Tim Shoebridge has got 50% off his user oscillators for a couple of days. Not sure how well publicised it is, haven't seen it mentioned anywhere. Picked up a couple of the latest ones.

An odd thing I've noticed on my P16, is when I'm using certain sounds with the arpeggiator, the higher range notes tend to 'squeal' in an unpleasant way. I'll have to note down some specific patch examples next time I have it on.

When I first got my Prologue, I thought it was plagued with problems. After a while the problems either 'went away', or I figured out what I was doing wrong - of course this is just me and my experience - but mostly I've just learned to live with it, and love what it does, not what it doesn't do.

I bought it for the 16 voice digital programmability. It just happens to have analog voice's in there.

In all honesty the only thing I really do miss is an extra LFO so I could modulate more than one thing at once. Or perhaps the ability to use the existing onboard LFO and by switching between the different destinations (cutoff, shape etc) be able to set the speed an intensity of the modulation to each destination independently. If Korg could retrofit that somehow I'd be happy. Is the LFO digital or analog? If it's digital perhaps that would be possible via a firmware update...if it's analog probably not easy.

Otherwise I think it's a great synth and as you say the digital side is amazing and is a gift that keeps on giving. I emailed Sinevibes a question about the SVF and in their response to me they said that they'd even had thoughts of building an entire mini-synth as a user oscillator with 2-3 oscillators and its own filter(s). Think it's probably not much more than a thought bubble at the moment but it's a pretty cool idea. You'd effectively end up with a purely digital synth with its own filter which could be run in parallel with the analog engine up to the effects or with a digital synth with a 2 stage filter plus analog voices.

It's been done to whatever extent it's meaningful. The user Oscillator only present 8 controls. Every 8 knob synth I've played, got boring pretty quick.

More than anything else about the implementation, the minimal control presentation is what limits the possibilities such as these.

In fact, if you watch interviews with the developer, the intentionally didn't want folks building entire synthesizers inside the user oscillator.

Even so, very sophisticated expression is possible with the digital oscillator. It's an entirely underrated synth, and folks developing for it come up with some really interesting stuff!

Ok,
here a two Prologues in comparison. For the Preset 4, the P16 distorts, it cannot handle the resonance for this preset like the golden unit probably could. Both units show the crosstalk. The sequence in the beginning is just to tune the quiet oscillators to low notes. The some stupid playing is needed to get the error, one note played at a time. In practical cases this error might not show up so clearly, especially if release is long or low notes are played together with high notes, but this sense of "dirty sound" remains in some cases. P16 is going back.

i must be proper fawkin deaf boyo cuz it sounds fine to me

and trust me before you bite, i know i am likely deaf as F, decades behind and in front of 1200s and PA systems mainly playing hard core techno does that to a man

fair play having an 8 and 16 though,

WTF !


£777 @ THOMANN!!

OMG why did i even look that is insane value

I have been testing the Preset 4 in my Prologue 16. It is an unison patch. In my opinion, you are comparing a 16 voice unison with an 8 voice unison, hence the slight distorsion due to a higher relative volumeof the 16 voice version. However it is very simple to correct. I tried to force my Prologe 16 to 8 voices unison using a subtimbre with volume 0. And the result is equal to the Prologue 8 example that you posted. Also, reducing the preset 4 volume in the Prologue 16 from -1.6dB to -6dB also eliminates the distortion, at least in my unit.

I dont think the P16 uses more voices in this case, doesnt sound like it. Or am I wrong?

Ok I just looked it up in the manual, yes it uses 16 voices at once, you are right. But Korg should have reserved another 6 dB headroom or so in this case.

Unfortunately this P16 here has also another issue, sometimes I get a strange attack behavior for one voice or so.

What about lowering the individual oscillator levels in the mixer to not oversaturate the analog filter?

Not so clear what is actually oversaturated. Sounds more like clipping.

After a while meaning to do this, I've finally written an oscillator for the Prologue. However now I am finding a problem trying to load it in the Prologue.

It seems the Korg MIDI driver won't work on MacOS 10.15 (Catalina) and the Prologue librarian can't find the synth. I tried reinstalling the driver and it fails. I actually thought I had last updated the firmware using 10.15 but not too sure now.

Can anyone confirm this should/should not work on MacOS 10.15?

So, I figured it out. I had to remove the Korg MIDI driver and restart the computer. Now it worked and I have my oscillator in. And it works. But it needs some refinement.

Congrats!!

If you say there is little headroom for the filter, lowering the oscillator levels may help.

That was before Sam Marks pointed out that the unison uses 16 voices and the gain reduction would help which sounds like a sumation headroom problem. If you reduce osc levels it will help but you loose some character.

Woohoo! Let the fun being!

In my opinion the preset 4 sounds better with the slight overdrive from the filter in its 16 voice version. I even think that this was the true intention of the sound designer of this preset. As it gives the bass a very interesting edge, at least in my opinion. I would not consider it a limitation or problem. A powerful and big 16 analog voice bass is something that I like. In the Prologue 16 delivers

By the end of the morning I had it generating a nice formant. Then I had to go home, but I wrote the rest of the in the afternoon. I'll try out tomorrow.

If I can fit a couple more carriers in this, I'll write a version that emulates some vowels.

i can't find the prologue 8 anymore on thomann. would be strange if korg cut it. it's proper competition for the other affordable polys out there. although the 16 is same money as the rev28v. i know everyone here says to get the 16 but i think there's a lot of ppl out there for whom 500 euros is a big stretch and could mean an 8 voice today versus in one year from now. who knows. i just went and took a look because someone posted the 770 gbp price.