Sequential Prophet X

Dave Smith’s new flagship uses a ‘sample + synthesis’ digital engine with new stereo analogue filters. Dan ‘JD73’ Goldman gets seriously Xcited!

CONTACT WHO: Sequential WEB: www.sequential.com KEY FEATURES 61-note keyboard with aftertouch/velocity, 8-voice stereo/16-voice mono engine, bi-timbral. 4 oscs per-voice. 150GB samples included from 8DIO, 50GB space for ‘add-on’ packs/user samples. 4 envelopes, 16-slot mod matrix, stereo analogue 24dB filters, dual effect engines per-layer Dimensions: 976 x 343 x 109mm Weight: 10.8kg

DSI’s hybrid products such as the Prophet VS, Poly Evolver, Tempest, Prophet 12 and Pro 2 still deservedly have numerous users and in many ways the Poly Evolver is the prequel to DSI’s latest hybrid, the Prophet X.

Badged as a Sequential product, the Prophet X looks menacing with its dark grey metal case and chassis, grey-stained wooden end cheeks, warm orange backlit wheels and switches and dual assignable touchstrips. Build quality is solid; all the switchgear and knobs feel tank-like and very roadworthy. Prophet X’s 61-note velocity/aftertouc-henabled keybed also feels very high-quality and, although it’s a little more stiffly sprung than the Prophet 6, this does give you more detailed control over the acoustic instruments and velocity-switched samples! I do think 73 or 88-note weighted options would be appropriate here. Generally speaking though, anyone with previous DSI experience (and new users too) will feel at home – the X is intuitive despite its complexity.

Accurately described as a Sample+Synthesis product by its makers, the X features a hybrid 16-voice mono/8-voice stereo engine with four oscillators per-voice. The first two oscs are labelled Instrument 1 and 2 and are 16-bit/48kHz sample playback oscs which instantly stream/load multisamples (no delay on load which is great) from the built-in SSD drive. 150GB of the included content is dedicated to multisamples provided by Sequential’s ‘deep-sample’ partner 8DIO, with a further 50GB of space available for user samples and ‘add-on’ libraries from 8DIO. You can import these additional libraries or your own samples via the sample import connection using a USB stick, although user-sample import isn’t due to become available until December 2018. Rest assured though, there’s plenty of high-quality content included and with all the many synthesis/processing features onboard, you can mangle all this content up beyond recognition easily.

Loading sampled instruments is instant and easy using the dedicated instrument OLED screen/knobs – this screen is handily split in half, with the top half for Instrument 1 and the lower half for Instrument 2. Turn the Type knob and you can select from the 17 sample categories (pianos, cinematic, synth, keyboards etc) and then scroll through the instruments available in each category (to hear them, turn up the Instrument 1 or 2 knobs in the mixer section). There are also dedicated sample-edit knobs to tweak the start, end and size/centre of the looped area within any sample in real time (all modulatable), plus there’s dedicated loop and reverse buttons, along with ‘sample stretch’ for each instrument too which allows you to freeze the last played note/ velocity and instantly map it across the keyboard (so you can grab a snare out of a multi-mapped drum set, for example). In addition, you can choose whether your samples route through, or bypass the analogue LPF.

Talking of layers, the X is 2-part multitimbral and can be addressed over MIDI as two separate synths. Like the REV2/P12, you can stack both layers (each with four oscillators running simultaneously), or place each layer either side of a userdefined split point. Notably, a single layer with two samples and two synth oscs panned/detuned/modulated/ effected can sound huge on its own, so layering isn’t essential by any means. However if you do layer, be aware that if you want to run the X as an 8-voice stereo synth (the filters/ signal path are stereo and each filter can be moved to the left or right in the stereo spectrum), once you split or stack a sound, you are effectively halving each layer’s polyphony to four voices which can result in voicestealing when playing bigger chords (and you can’t allocate voice flexibly per-layer). Thankfully, the ‘16-voice’ button allows 16 voices simultaneously in mono when you require more polyphony from layered/ split patches, though you do lose the beautiful stereo filters and stereo panorama of the stereo samples here (though the effects still remain stereo). With this in mind, I’d love a Prophet XL with 32-voice mono/16voice stereo voices but having said all

There’s plenty of high-quality content and you can mangle it up quickly and intuitively