KORG Prologue

[Pro5]

Prologue 16 is amazing. Sounds way better than Rev 2. Up there with OB6 soundwise

[clubbedtodeath]

VA? (Are we listening to the same demo?)

It's a lovely sounding synth. BUT - and not wanting to turn this into a DSI thread - one thing I've appreciated with the Rev2 is the complexity of sound that the lfos and modulation matrix offer. Perfect for pads. If Korg had managed to integrate those into Prologue - well, it'd be worth every penny, possibly a touch more.

Cheers

[meatballfulton]

Same single target mapping for the LFO as the Minilogue. Modulation and AT fans should stick with DSI Rev2 for the same price. I hope they fixed the damn EG retrigger issue that both Minilogue and Monologue had.

The ability to code you own oscillators and FX is interesting but is it just a solution in search of a problem?

Still waiting for someone to come up with something really exciting in a new analog, too many vanilla instruments hitting the street.

[Tidda]

I hope they fixed the damn EG retrigger issue that both Minilogue and Monologue had

With 16 voices, when a next key is pressed, the running EG would complete its stages and the EG of the next voice that is triggered by that key would start from zero. No retriggering unless all voices are exhausted?

[Jabberwalky]

^ Explaining the envelope issue is really hard to do for some reason. Even when I messaged Korg about it, they didn't quite understand me. Its my #1 issue with the Monologue. Makes playing slow attack leads sound terrible.

[HalloweenJack]

Still waiting for someone to come up with something really exciting in a new analog, too many vanilla instruments hitting the street.

I totally agree...I still consider the Evolver "family" the most interesting and exciting machines of the last years, even though has always been hard for me to accept the limited 4 voices polifony in the Poly Evolver...here in Italy in the last few months there's been lots of Poly Evolver on sale in the used market, I think they're selling them in order to purchase the Rev2 and now maybe the Prologue, mmmmhhhh looks like it's time for me to purchase a couple of modules and polychain them

[adamstan]

^ Explaining the envelope issue is really hard to do for some reason. Even when I messaged Korg about it, they didn't quite understand me. Its my #1 issue with the Monologue. Makes playing slow attack leads sound terrible.

Yeah, it's pretty bizarre, as they seem to not get the difference between "retrigger" and "retrigger from zero" - and the issue with new Korg envelopes is the latter.

BTW - DX7II has switch for it, called "Forced EG damp on/off". When set to "off", envelopes retrigger from their current level, whatever it is (like analogue ones), while in "on" position they always reset to zero - like Mini/Monologue.

[Jabberwalky]

I can't discern from any demos weather the new ones have the EG Zero reset thing going on. Being polyphonic helps mask that. @Adamstan What would be advantage of designing them that way? Is it just more idiot proof/better for blippy sounds? There's a lot of expression in the old EG design.

I find it odd that they skipped the synth I'd be interested in....a 6 voice! Minilogue isn't enough for my poly needs, and 8 is making them cost prohibitive. I really thought 6 would be the magic number (cmon korg... polysix, poly61, dw6000, juno6-60. They worked just fine!)

[adamstan]

@Adamstan What would be advantage of designing them that way?

With "always return to zero"? It's just a little easier to code - few lines less than retriggering from current level. But nothing big. It can be sometimes useful, that's why DX7 has switch for it, but I dislike it as default behaviour on analog synth.

[Walter Ego]

Still waiting for someone to come up with something really exciting in a new analog, too many vanilla instruments hitting the street.

I totally agree...I still consider the Evolver "family" the most interesting and exciting machines of the last years, even though has always been hard for me to accept the limited 4 voices polifony in the Poly Evolver...here in Italy in the last few months there's been lots of Poly Evolver on sale in the used market, I think they're selling them in order to purchase the Rev2 and now maybe the Prologue, mmmmhhhh looks like it's time for me to purchase a couple of modules and polychain them

I would say the Waldorf Quantum looks pretty exciting. I'm not sure I even fully understand the architecture. What Rolf seemed to say in the demos is that the three OSC sections have traditional waveforms but can also be used as three separate granular oscillators or as three samplers, with included 500mb of samples and a 1 or 2gb SD card for samples. It also has an analog filter section but a complimentary digital filter section with loads of digital options. It's expensive but in terms of performance and synth power, it seems pretty hefty--not designed as a do-it-all workstation but as a performance powerhouse with enormous potential. Capable of PPG, traditional subtractive synthesis, granular synthesis, sampling, and everything from their Wave software, not to mention an elegant look. Not exciting?

[HalloweenJack]

Still waiting for someone to come up with something really exciting in a new analog, too many vanilla instruments hitting the street.

I totally agree...I still consider the Evolver "family" the most interesting and exciting machines of the last years, even though has always been hard for me to accept the limited 4 voices polifony in the Poly Evolver...here in Italy in the last few months there's been lots of Poly Evolver on sale in the used market, I think they're selling them in order to purchase the Rev2 and now maybe the Prologue, mmmmhhhh looks like it's time for me to purchase a couple of modules and polychain them

I would say the Waldorf Quantum looks pretty exciting. I'm not sure I even fully understand the architecture. What Rolf seemed to say in the demos is that the three OSC sections have traditional waveforms but can also be used as three separate granular oscillators or as three samplers, with included 500mb of samples and a 1 or 2gb SD card for samples. It also has an analog filter section but a complimentary digital filter section with loads of digital options. It's expensive but in terms of performance and synth power, it seems pretty hefty--not designed as a do-it-all workstation but as a performance powerhouse with enormous potential. Capable of PPG, traditional subtractive synthesis, granular synthesis, sampling, and everything from their Wave software, not to mention an elegant look. Not exciting?

Yes the Quantum is exciting, from my personal point of view probably the most exciting machine since the Roland V Synth came out (which for me is a great and innovative synth), but it's not yet "clear" what it is actually, the YouTube videos doesn't really fully explore it...anyway I didn't mention it because Meatballfulton was referring to analog synth and the Quantum is definitely in the hybrid league, and much much more...well actually also the Evolver is an hybrid synth ...

Anyway, here in Italy I can have a PolyEvolver keyboard + PolyEvolver rack for about 3.000 euros, more or less the same price of the Quantum (based in what I've read online), both solutions will give me 8 voices poly but obviously with two very different synths...

[HalloweenJack]

Ok now there's the price of the Prologue 16 voices in euro, it's 2.000 euros, 300 euros less than the Rev2 16 voices, this could be a "plus" point, mainly for the musicians not interested in modulations "power" which is obviously lacking in the Prologue respect to the Rev2...

The Prologue 8 voices is 1.500 euros, about 200 euros less than the Rev2 8 voices...

[minime123]

We recently became an authorized US Korg dealer because I really loved the Monologue and Minilogue. We own and use both of these. The Prologue is similar, so we pre-ordered one for ourselves. If you're looking for just one synth, then I can understand being really critical over specs, but at the end of the day, the overall tone of the instrument is often more important than how many LFOs it's got, especially these days when you can create LFOs in your DAW and route them to the MIDI CC number of the parameter you're trying to modulate. As someone who has tons of synths, I know the pros and cons of each synth and focus on the pros. To me, the digital oscillator and decimator effects in the demo seemed interesting, and the overall tone sounds great, so I'm sure I'll love it like the other recent Korgs. I'm excited about the Quantum too, which is also distributed by Korg here in the US.
Mini

[Jabberwalky]

I'm definitely interested. It's like a modern Polysix/Dw8000. Why does everything need to be incredibly deep in modulation? Most of my favorite synths only have 1 LFO.

[vladimotor]

I'm definitely interested. It's like a modern Polysix/Dw8000. Why does everything need to be incredibly deep in modulation? Most of my favorite synths only have 1 LFO.

Agree.