Dave Smith DSI Prophet REV 2 – 16 voice
In January I got a DSI Tetra and immediately loved the sound. Soon after they announced the REV 2 and I decided that was the one I needed to get. It arrived here at Cosmo Music much sooner than I expected so I drove up there and tried it out. Right away it seemed pretty amazing so I brought it home.
It definitely has an amazing set of features and with the snappy envelopes can be very punchy but so far I’m not convinced it’s as nice as the Tetra. Like other DSI synths it has a very brittle sound with a lot of higher harmonics and some nice low frequencies but not a lot of low mids that are usually supply the warmth of an analog synthesizer. I would swear they are intentionally filtering them out but I can’t imagine why they would do that. Or maybe they are just boosting the highs. Either way, I have to say that the old 1978 Korg MS-10 I just got sounds significantly warmer than the REV 2.
The problem with having all the higher harmonics is that when you have a thick sound and play a chord it sounds like white noise. There is just far too much going on up there and the sound is too thick. The Prophet 600 sounds thinner in comparison but it also sounds warmer and more musical. I’m finding it best to use mostly just one oscillator and only add a tiny bit of oscillator 2 for that thickness or that slightly out of tune sound.
The factory presets are mostly pretty cool sounds but like the Prophet 12 presets I can’t think of a way to use most of them. I’ve already edited several of them to make them more useful but there will need to be a lot of programming before I really know if this synth is a solid “analog” synth or if it is again more of a niche instrument only really good for certain sounds. I am quite disappointed that I’m not liking it as much as the Tetra right out of the box, but again, maybe it’s just the patches that are currently in it.
I will say that this synth has most of the features I’ve always wanted so if I can get it sounding right this may become my main synth!