Sequential Pro 3

[unease]

It’s hard to make out exactly what you mean when you say that the pitch is going up and down, like filter is modulated. An audio clip showing what you mean would helt. Is it really the pitch that goes up and down?

Since you say that the VCOs sound fine on their own and that it’s only when you combine them together that you hear this fenomenon, that makes me think that what you hear is actually the chorusing effect (usually called beating) of oscillators that are detuned from eachother. That might sound as if there is some cyclic filtering going on. Does the this modulation get faster when you detune the oscillators just a few steps?

The thing with VCOs is that there is always some minor variation in pitch so there will always be some chorusing going on. This is exactly why many people prefer VCOs over DCOs or digital oscillators.

Does the modulation get a bit less pronounced of you set the oscillators to different octaves? Usually it does.

[Wavtekt]

I Have a question for those of you that own this synth I have recently acquired one for myself. I think there’s a problem. Each VCA sounds fine when played individually. When both are played at the same time, pitch slowly goes up and down within a wide range, periodically with something that sounds like a sine wave at a hogher pitch. Its like the filter is being modulated, but of course this does not fully explain the problem.

I have all mod sources disabled, fine tune knobs at their neutral positions, and the slop for both is set at zero.

What is happening here? Does anyone else have their synth with this problem? My retailer told me that it is normal for VCAs to behave this way. However, IMO the specifics of this matter point in another direction.

Thanks!

Bob

. . . . . .

First of all, Pro 3 only have 1 VCA, but a VC mixer that can kinda act as VCAs.

When you play two or three notes together, the oscillators are beating against each other (different oscillators are in different phases, so sometimes they caused constructive interference, sometimes destructive interference, thus beating), because each of them are slightly out of tune and out of phase. This is usually preferred in analog VCO for its 'organic' quality.

Of course, with Pro 3 you have the luxury to turn it off by setting slop to 0 and wave reset to on. You can turn on wave reset once, then turn it off if you don't like the clicky sound. Nevertheless, after some time you might need to do this again to make sure the oscillators are in phase.

Note that the phasing effect will be unnoticeable, but won't be completely gone unless you use just intonation tuning instead of equal temperament tuning (thats related to the harmonic relationship of the oscillators).

[SPIKE the Percussionist]

need a bit of help...

while sequencing the Pro-3 from an external sequencer...
i had to kill the Ext MIDI Clock on the Pro-3 otherwise it's internal sequencer plays...and...if it's not stopped then i can't get any sound from the Pro-3 via Ext MIDI if the notes on the Pro-3 sequencer are Muted.

so...
is there a way to play/sequence notes from Ext MIDI and also have the benefits of the Pro-3 sequencer for it's Mod capabilities?

thanks for any help!

[strettara]

I’ve had the same issue when sending clock to the pro3 from reaper. I’m really a midi noob but it seems the daw sends its transport control messages to the synth and I haven’t found a way of stopping it doing so.

Oh yeah I get the same issue when clocking the pro3 with the keystep pro.

[unease]

There are different options for MIDI Clock Mode, one is ”Slave no s/s” (no start/stop). Did you try this setting?

[Sinamsis]

There are different options for MIDI Clock Mode, one is ”Slave no s/s” (no start/stop). Did you try this setting?

I believe this is it, which is true for many of the newer sequential synths (and maybe even the older DSI synths). There are many ways for the sequencer to operate depending on your needs.

[dubonaire]

There are different options for MIDI Clock Mode, one is ”Slave no s/s” (no start/stop). Did you try this setting?

I believe this is it, which is true for many of the newer sequential synths (and maybe even the older DSI synths). There are many ways for the sequencer to operate depending on your needs.

Yep under MIDI Click Mode in Global Settings

[blipson]

I don't have a Pro-3 yet. My aim is to trigger the sequencer to advance to its next step only when I send it a MIDI clock while at the same time I sequence notes externally or play the keyboard. In other words, I'd be using the sequencer to sequence anything but notes while doing the notes in the ordinary ways. I posted this question at Elektronauts, but then I found this thread is recently discussing related issues:

Page 115 of the user’s guide is the section “Syncing the Sequencer with an External MIDI Device.” If I do that setup, can I then control the sequencer’s progress by sending it external MIDI clock beats? I'd meter the sequencer by metering the beats, and the Pro-3 doesn’t need to know what the BPM actually is. I’d send the beats separately from any MIDI start, stop, or continue.

[flashheart]

MIDI clock isn't beats. How would you start and stop the clock? MIDI clock is a continuous clock based on tempo. Run/stop is used to start/stop devices, but the clock runs contnuously, there's no direct concept of a beat.
Your first phrasing is correct, you need to 'trigger' the sequencer to move to the next step. MIDI sends 24 PPQN, I can't how you'd use this to advance 1 step.

[blipson]

Yeah, it can't be done via MIDI. By a beat, I meant 24 ticks. I could send ticks as needed or 24 all at once. I thought that maybe the sequencer waits until 24 ticks have accumulated, then proceeds to its next step and executes everything there, then waits for another 24, etc. Sequential finally got back to me with " You cannot use external MIDI ticks to advance the sequencer. You can use the trigger mode function to advance the sequencer on a per step basis."

[strettara]

Well I'm still experiencing the Pro 3 just locking up if it hasn't been touched for a while (like powered on, but the keyboard not played for half an hour or so). It seems to be the keyboard that's the culprit here - it still plays over midi. It's an intermittent problem which only makes it worse. I'm hoping to put together a performance of Glassworks and other music with friends next year so I suppose I'll just have to power cycle it between pieces to make sure it doesn't freeze

I have to say that as much as I like this synth (and I really do!) this problem is really making me wonder about selling it and getting a Prologue or something similar in its place. But I even more really don't want to get into a gear acquisition cycle again. I'm very aware of how wonderful and versatile my existing equipment is.

Anyway it's not the end of the world, but it is annoying.

Actually I think I may have found the cause of the problem. If I don't play the keys for a while, I may be accumulating a static charge and then when I touch a control button or the slider, I transfer a shock to the front panel which locks out different sections of the synth dependent on where I've touched it. Sometimes it just locks out the slider/octave section, sometimes, if I touch the master control section (globals and so on) it locks that out, causing the entire synth to freeze up. It was happening occasionally before, but now that I've installed new PVC flooring I may be accumulating more charge. And in fact I am getting more static shocks and the synth is locking up more frequently. If this is the issue, then I have a real problem. At a minimum I need to change my house slippers or just go barefoot? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Temporary solution: with the panel raised, touch the bottom frame of the synth where the panel folds down. That earths the static discharge without affecting the controller panel. Seems to work.

[tdel]

Well I'm still experiencing the Pro 3 just locking up if it hasn't been touched for a while (like powered on, but the keyboard not played for half an hour or so). It seems to be the keyboard that's the culprit here - it still plays over midi. It's an intermittent problem which only makes it worse. I'm hoping to put together a performance of Glassworks and other music with friends next year so I suppose I'll just have to power cycle it between pieces to make sure it doesn't freeze

I have to say that as much as I like this synth (and I really do!) this problem is really making me wonder about selling it and getting a Prologue or something similar in its place. But I even more really don't want to get into a gear acquisition cycle again. I'm very aware of how wonderful and versatile my existing equipment is.

Anyway it's not the end of the world, but it is annoying.

Actually I think I may have found the cause of the problem. If I don't play the keys for a while, I may be accumulating a static charge and then when I touch a control button or the slider, I transfer a shock to the front panel which locks out different sections of the synth dependent on where I've touched it. Sometimes it just locks out the slider/octave section, sometimes, if I touch the master control section (globals and so on) it locks that out, causing the entire synth to freeze up. It was happening occasionally before, but now that I've installed new PVC flooring I may be accumulating more charge. And in fact I am getting more static shocks and the synth is locking up more frequently. If this is the issue, then I have a real problem. At a minimum I need to change my house slippers or just go barefoot? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Temporary solution: with the panel raised, touch the bottom frame of the synth where the panel folds down. That earths the static discharge without affecting the controller panel. Seems to work.

Email Sequential.

[GuyaGuy]

Email Sequential.

Yup their support is great and Sequential has done a good job addressing bugs in FW updates

[strettara]

Yeah it’s not a bug. Anyway I’ll update in a few days but I think the problem’s solved.

Hopefully this is of value to someone else because as I recall I wasn’t the only person experiencing this problem.

[logan mkii]

Yeah it’s not a bug. Anyway I’ll update in a few days but I think the problem’s solved.

Hopefully this is of value to someone else because as I recall I wasn’t the only person experiencing this problem.

yeah i definitely get that problem too. the back of my keyboard chair has a metal frame that i touch to discharge static, and it has been freezing up less than since it was at my house and i didn't do that. unless there's some correlation i can't think of

in general i love this synth and it feels like a spiritual successor to the evolver. it's my favorite synth to use with eurorack since it has 4 cv ins/outs and a great mod matrix. it can free up a lot of modules (both dedicated and assignable slots)

[wayne greenhaw]

Has anyone else had problems with there pro 3..on my second one.. first one had a key go bad . just got a new one.. yesterday.. already crashed .. started with crackling noise ..now not functioning at all .. about to be done with sequential .. not only absolutely pissed.. but crushed

[logan mkii]

Has anyone else had problems with there pro 3..on my second one.. first one had a key go bad . just got a new one.. yesterday.. already crashed .. started with crackling noise ..now not functioning at all .. about to be done with sequential .. not only absolutely pissed.. but crushed

i’ve had a couple issues with the pro 3 but their support is responsive and helpful (though i’m still really upset over their non-fix of deoxit for early evolver keyboards). aftertouch didn’t work for me but it was just a loose ribbon cable. the newest firmware improved crashes. i still get them, especially if i leave it on for a while. i might get a crash otherwise once every 6 hours or so. still not dependable for performance. i can live with that considering i like the synth so much. hoping that can eventually fixed with a software upgrade too. but i’m guessing if it doesn’t function then you can’t upgrade it?

[strettara]

Well just to update my previous post - I've developed the good habit of touching a grounded metal surface before I touch any of my other equipment now and the problems i was experiencing with the Pro 3 have completely gone away. I don't enjoy the shock, but if you use a knuckle rather than a finger tip it doesn't hurt so much

[DonovanDwyer]

I’m looking hard at one of these. Does anyone know if you can sequence a vintage MS-20 (hz/oct) from it?

[h4ndcrafted]

I had my pro3 since day one , it’s standard edition , has been rock solid , save the bugs which have been fixed early on. Same with Take 5. (Touch wood)

My only want at this stage is a choice of different envelope curves.

I mainly use it for running sequences and bass , which it excels at , it’s def got some grunt and the wave tables give it a modern sound if you need it.

[DonovanDwyer]

Just got mine… glorious sounding.

4DB18821-5617-4416-A151-364F2DBDB2FA.jpeg

[namelikehismaster]

I picked up the Pro 3 a few weeks ago. These are the presets that I made. I may post an updated video as I make more. I've been surprised at the broad range of sounds you can get out of this. I've been a Pro 2 owner for a few year, and maybe it's because I own the Prophet 12 as well, this has really been a breath of fresh air and ultimately made me decide to sell the Pro 2.

[stikygum]

I picked up the Pro 3 a few weeks ago. These are the presets that I made. I may post an updated video as I make more. I've been surprised at the broad range of sounds you can get out of this. I've been a Pro 2 owner for a few year, and maybe it's because I own the Prophet 12 as well, this has really been a breath of fresh air and ultimately made me decide to sell the Pro 2.

I'm curious about your surprised comment. My thinking was that the Pro 2 would have a much more diverse range of sounds being that you have 4 digital Osc that each have many waveforms to choose from instead of just the standard Sine, Saw, Square and Pulse waves analog Osc. I always liked the Evolver because it had a great balance of analog digital Osc. So I don't doubt I would enjoy a Pro 3, but I'm more interested in the more digital and off the wall patches like you created, than I am in bread and butter analog mono sounds. And it seems like you as well, which is why I'm surprised to hear you say the Pro 3 is breath of fresh air. But maybe you mean that you've had the same sound in the Prophet 12 / Pro 2 for so long that it's nice to mix those digital Osc with something different like VCOs. I was originally thinking the Pro 3 would basically take away the diversity you could get in sound and replace it with typical VCO stuff. With the Pro 3 having only 1 digital Osc, the weirdness factor seemed to decrease, but it sounds like it hasn't as much as I might have thought.

[Sinamsis]

I picked up the Pro 3 a few weeks ago. These are the presets that I made. I may post an updated video as I make more. I've been surprised at the broad range of sounds you can get out of this. I've been a Pro 2 owner for a few year, and maybe it's because I own the Prophet 12 as well, this has really been a breath of fresh air and ultimately made me decide to sell the Pro 2.

I'm curious about your surprised comment. My thinking was that the Pro 2 would have a much more diverse range of sounds being that you have 4 digital Osc that each have many waveforms to choose from instead of just the standard Sine, Saw, Square and Pulse waves analog Osc. I always liked the Evolver because it had a great balance of analog digital Osc. So I don't doubt I would enjoy a Pro 3, but I'm more interested in the more digital and off the wall patches like you created, than I am in bread and butter analog mono sounds. And it seems like you as well, which is why I'm surprised to hear you say the Pro 3 is breath of fresh air. But maybe you mean that you've had the same sound in the Prophet 12 / Pro 2 for so long that it's nice to mix those digital Osc with something different like VCOs. I was originally thinking the Pro 3 would basically take away the diversity you could get in sound and replace it with typical VCO stuff. With the Pro 3 having only 1 digital Osc, the weirdness factor seemed to decrease, but it sounds like it hasn't as much as I might have thought.

I have a Pro2 and I still ordered a Pro 3. I haven't received it yet so take it with a grain of salt. But I don't think I'll sell my Pro 2 because of the flexible filter routing, 4 oscillators and the paraphonic nature. That said, I think the weak point of the Pro 2 is the oscillators. You really don't have THAT many oscillator shapes, which to me is the strength of a wave table oscillator. I just feel like the over all raw sound of the synth is just ok. It's the reason I sold my P12. The modulation is what brings life to it for me, and I think that's what can make both of these synths "weird." I think the Pro 3 will shine like the Evolver series because of the analog and digital oscillator combination. It also has more effects. I think the option of importing wavetables will take it beyond the Pro 2 for me, and the morph feature will be interesting. Still I'm a Sequential fanboy, and I've pretty much committed to keeping all my DSI/Sequential synths moving forward. So I'll keep the Pro 2, and I suspect I'll still reach for it for the simultaneous use of both filters.

[namelikehismaster]

I picked up the Pro 3 a few weeks ago. These are the presets that I made. I may post an updated video as I make more. I've been surprised at the broad range of sounds you can get out of this. I've been a Pro 2 owner for a few year, and maybe it's because I own the Prophet 12 as well, this has really been a breath of fresh air and ultimately made me decide to sell the Pro 2.

I'm curious about your surprised comment. My thinking was that the Pro 2 would have a much more diverse range of sounds being that you have 4 digital Osc that each have many waveforms to choose from instead of just the standard Sine, Saw, Square and Pulse waves analog Osc. I always liked the Evolver because it had a great balance of analog digital Osc. So I don't doubt I would enjoy a Pro 3, but I'm more interested in the more digital and off the wall patches like you created, than I am in bread and butter analog mono sounds. And it seems like you as well, which is why I'm surprised to hear you say the Pro 3 is breath of fresh air. But maybe you mean that you've had the same sound in the Prophet 12 / Pro 2 for so long that it's nice to mix those digital Osc with something different like VCOs. I was originally thinking the Pro 3 would basically take away the diversity you could get in sound and replace it with typical VCO stuff. With the Pro 3 having only 1 digital Osc, the weirdness factor seemed to decrease, but it sounds like it hasn't as much as I might have thought.

I have a Pro2 and I still ordered a Pro 3. I haven't received it yet so take it with a grain of salt. But I don't think I'll sell my Pro 2 because of the flexible filter routing, 4 oscillators and the paraphonic nature. That said, I think the weak point of the Pro 2 is the oscillators. You really don't have THAT many oscillator shapes, which to me is the strength of a wave table oscillator. I just feel like the over all raw sound of the synth is just ok. It's the reason I sold my P12. The modulation is what brings life to it for me, and I think that's what can make both of these synths "weird." I think the Pro 3 will shine like the Evolver series because of the analog and digital oscillator combination. It also has more effects. I think the option of importing wavetables will take it beyond the Pro 2 for me, and the morph feature will be interesting. Still I'm a Sequential fanboy, and I've pretty much committed to keeping all my DSI/Sequential synths moving forward. So I'll keep the Pro 2, and I suspect I'll still reach for it for the simultaneous use of both filters.

The Prophet 12 offers a lot (layering splits, true polyphony, 64 osc unison mode) I made a demo of it on the same channel if you're interested. To me the Pro 2 offers similar flexibility and a bunch of weird modulation destinations, but you can do most things you can do with the Pro 2. Prophet 12 has the two filters, but not the nice filters from the OB-6 and Prophet 6 like the Pro 2/3, and less flexible since you can't run them in parallel or vary the state of the second filter. I don't know, to me the twelve makes up for the dull oscillators by being able to stack so many voices, and because you don't need really full oscillators for a poly.

So, that's why the Pro 2, just didn't quite work for me. If the Prophet 12 or the Pro 3 didn't exist I would love it, despite it's jankiness (it has tons of weird bugs--like sometimes the keyboard is offset by a several octaves until you turn it off and then it's fine). There are some improvement on the Prophet 12, besides the filters, like the gain staging is better (no bleed, unlike the P12), but that didn't really matter much to me.

The Pro 3 is an improvement in terms of the build, just better knobs, greater depth of control where you need it (it's surprising how having 1000 filter steps versus 126 makes all the difference), etc. Also cool things like having a pseudo mod matrix for the LFOs where you can assign them to any destination with one button press. The sequencer is much better, giving you 16 lanes of sequencing X 64 steps, versus 16/32 steps (with half the number of the sequencers for the latter and a not so fun interface for dealing with greater than 16 steps). In terms of the actual sound: The digital oscillator sounds way better--much less anti-alias filtering, and you have actual wave tables instead of like 16 waveforms or whatever it is where you can blend between 3 at a time. You also have pretty nice effects that can be modulated by anything else in the system. You can make OK choruses and Flangers with the P12/Pro 2, but it's not the same. This combines with the analog oscillators (which have shape modulation possibilities far exceeding that of the P6/OB-6), with feedback and digital delay for karplus strong (which is available on the Pro2/P12, but sounds different due to the signal path being different), etc. I think the true hybrid nature of the device was what was so exciting to me, the Pro 2 just sounds dull in comparison. There are things I miss like the character section, but those are relatively minor complaints. I also miss the dual touch strips. The big one, though is not being able to use the filters in parallel/series, that is really stupid. Also, keep in mind that one of the effects is ring modulation so that's another digital oscillator at the end of your chain.