Comparison S6 with Sequential Prophet 12

Recently I heard about the Prophet 12 (which I never played) and checked some YT videos. I liked the sound very much and somehow fall in love with it.
Does anybody here have experience with that synth and can tell me, if it is worth buying it in addition to S6 or is it much overlapping with S6? I like the idea of having 4 oscillators including wavetable option, but the prices are high (2600…3000 Euros) and I am not sure if the addon compated to S6 is worth the money.

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I have both, I think they complement each other well. They can make similar sounds, but the 12 can be more gritty and fuzzy. You can dial in the 12s envelopes more for arpeggios. I want to like the S6 more, but I don’t, we will see what happens with the update. I think both the 12 and S6 suffer from bad presets. My main synths are a moog one, and matrixbrute. I think the 12 sounds better with them, but the S6 sounds vetter with the 12. I sure it’s just my personal style.

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Huh, interesting. I also have a One and a Super6, and I think they go great together. One of the tricks I do in general with my music is to play digital elements against analog elements, and/or clean against dirty. For that sort of thing, the One and Super6 do great together. Both of them can be clean or dirty (different flavors, but both have that range) and the One can do some really analog stuff while (if you set it up that way) the Super6 can sound like early digital.

With that in mind, I haven’t used a P12, so can’t comment on how that might play with a Super6.

For me, they’re both character synths. But the P12 character is dirty, dusty, and maybe a bit thin whereas the S6’s character is full, wide, and more unstable. So while I wouldn’t necessarily mix two character synths together (though you can do) and both can easily play against type, they are very complementary in the type of character they most naturally exhibit.

I’ll also say that the P12 is a much more analytic exercise for me to patch. I always feel like I need to think the way the machine does. The S6 feels way more natural and I tend to do a lot more patching “by ear” with it. Again, just different characters.

Definitely agree.

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I have both the S6 and Prophet 6 and feel that they work well together with very little overlap, they just gel, I would say that the prophet excels at vintage, cutting sounds pure analog goodness whilst the S6 excels at more ambient softer sounds , which is great for me - its what I bought it for . They both have one thing in common though except a four active keyed and that’s more ‘bad presets’ to good ones - others may and should disagree with me but each to their own. Thankfully they are both easy to program or tweak existing sounds to meet your requirements however the prophet has the edge due to its very small , prehistoric screen which is much better than the no screen approach that UDO employ. Build quality, both are excellent , software the prophet is rock solid , no issues at all, the UDO can be a bit temperamental at times, hope the much promised update addresses its ‘issues’ if and when it arrives. Hope this helps in some way.

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I have both S6 and P12
I love both.
To me, apart from the technical differences that influences the sounds they can make, they both feel physically quite different to each other so as a result, the sound I create with each is different.

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Having owned both and played them quite a bit, I’d say there are two major differences. On the oscillator side, the P12 has four digital oscillators capable of playing either built-in wave tables or analog waveforms. They support full FM (even DX-style FM!) so you can get some really complex tones, as well as really fat layered tones. That said, I feel that the S6 has much nicer filters.

The filters in the P12 are based on DSI’s chip that’s a derivative of the old CEM ‘synth on a chip’ designs like the 3397. It’s a more metallic-sounding filter, and while it sounds great in a mix it’s a bit harsh for some ears.

Many other differences large and small, but those are really the standouts for me.

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I have a Super6, and i used to have a P12 module that i unfortunately had to sell in a financially difficult period. Love both, but they couldn’t be more different.

As others have said, the P12 tends to more grimy, perhaps lofi sounds. It has a super deep and complex modulation system, and implemented in a very ergonomic way. It is great for complex, and evolving patches, a kind of steampunky hybrid of analogue and digital. The filters are functionally useable, but not great sounding. That was probably my least favourite part of it. The unique things like the 4 delay lines, allowing all sorts of synthesis-integrated modulation, chorus and ensemble effects, and the tuned feedback are really cool and different.

Super 6 is can be bold, glorious and pristine in a way the P12 never could. It can do great lofi-ish sounds with audiorate and noise modulation. But overall a very different character.

S6 can do some relatively complex sounds, but it seems to sound good almost all the time. P12 is the opposite, it sounds like a pretty meh virtual analogue synth at first, or with the factory presets, but once you get deep into the complex, almost modular routing, and most of all, lean into it’s peculiar character, it sounds like nothing else.

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