> The Sequential where you work for today is not the same business entity that made the famous synths of yesteryear.
The first synth I ever played was a "vintage" Prophet 5 in the 90s, now I have a reissue Prophet 10 from this "not the same business entity", as you very much are correct to call them. Even if they are not the same business entity, I know a lot of the people involved in making my Prophet 10 are (or where) the same people making the famous synths of yesteryear. When you play the Prophet 10 you can also tell.
I am really sad I can't say the same thing about my Moogs.
And I am sure that long experience goes deeper into Sequential’s talent pool.
Having veteran leadership who hat been through it all before might be why the new Prophet won’t follow the old.
The current Sequential is also an established company, so it is better positioned to launch new products, negotiate with suppliers and customers and to sell gear at higher prices even if not at higher margins meaning it needs fewer sales to survive.
Oh mine can sound as vintage ones alright if it's working and if one of the very weird MIDI implementation idiosyncrasies or deeply hidden global parameters is not getting in the way, and then my 30 minutes of practice include 15 of diving in the manual. The later happens so often that I'm seriously thinking about flipping my Matriarch for a Pro 3, and the Matriarch is one of the things that gave me the most fun in my life up there with my ski gear.
My Matriarch is also my second unit, the first one broke. Some uC decided it was not working anymore and the delay and some of the other buttons would randomly switch state. It did that after I had had it for three months while I was playing live for a small group of people, it was the first time it was on for more than an hour or so but besides that nothing had happened to it. I didn't even moved it and I'm religious with dust covers and all that.
I had a Moog One for a few weeks! I figured it was so backordered that I could buy it and try it an flip it, which I did after three weeks of utter frustration.
Unless you just use it as something like a poly memorymoog, it's rough. I can see how a really virtuoso synth player with the right programming can probably play the score for Blade Runner on it or something without any other instrument, but the programming is a PITA. I think it's kind of like a engineer-designed instrument. For the semi-modulars you can tell they had input from really good players for most of the features and ergonomics, but the One is just "let's do everything we can on a single instrument" and it just doesn't fit.
It also really does everything. There's a guy on Reddit that has like just a One and a laptop and that's his studio in a tiny apartment. If you are working in the box but want to record analog sounds and have an ADC that will do the Moog low end justice, I guess it's great. I can't justify that money on something that doesn't give me utter joy when I'm playing it like the Prophet 10 does, the One feels more like I'm playing with an Elektron box, which I do enjoy but when I want to play synth I want to play synth.
Damn, yeah that's unfortunate. Yeah, I was going to say, if you were looking for sound, a rev 4 or an OB-X8 can't be beat... But if you're looking for a synth with deep functions but not a One, the Polybrute is growing on me. At first, the SP filter seemed too harsh for me, but their ladder actually does a pretty good Memorymoog sound. Arturia also hired the guy (sorry I forgot his name) that built mod matrix tables to make synths sound more analog, and it really can nail it.
As someone eagerly waiting for his Prophet5 Rev4 to arrive by mail by the end of the week, this reassures me :) Been playing on software versions of the Prophet5 for years and I finally made the jump and bought "the real thing".
After I got mine I had like four months where the only thing I wanted to to was sit down and play it, it just feels great. I had like an impasse with it but the mere fact that it exists in my room inspires me to try new musical things every once in a while. I suppose you saw the J3PO videos? If you have the money and the skills for it I really recommend you take lessons with him: https://www.julianpollack.com/lessons
The first synth I ever played was a "vintage" Prophet 5 in the 90s, now I have a reissue Prophet 10 from this "not the same business entity", as you very much are correct to call them. Even if they are not the same business entity, I know a lot of the people involved in making my Prophet 10 are (or where) the same people making the famous synths of yesteryear. When you play the Prophet 10 you can also tell.
I am really sad I can't say the same thing about my Moogs.