Remember when we used to scour the newspapers and pawn shops for analog gear? Now, for $1200 you can have a sick AF 5-voice analog synth with digital fx , saveable patches, and midi, arrive at your door. These kids don’t know how good they got it!😂
I picked up a Take 5 yesterday as well, so far it sounds and feels really amazing for the price. Great to hear your first impressions and looking forward for a comparison video both with the Prophets (rev2, 6, 5) but also with the older Mopho X4.
Re the detuning in the unison/chord mode section of the video, the Take 5s calibration is temperature based. As the instrument heats up, the tuning of the oscillators/filters will change due. Just run the calibration whenever you note the oscillators are out of tune. Once a greater number of calibrations have been run across a range of the instruments operating temperature, you should not need to calibrate as often.
@@carsonday8190 thanks - it was just meant to be a quick one but got carried away 🤦♂️ I’ll make a more thorough walkthrough soon - and include all the FX next time 😂😂 (I was so hyped by the HP I forgot to demo the others). But there’s loads of stuff in here that I wasn’t expecting.
I get the feeling even Sequential knew they'd risk making the Prophet 6 and 5 redundant so that's why they chopped off half an octave and limited the patch memories to just 128 (I know chip prices are up, but surely another 512 KB of memory wouldn't have cost them that much?).
Hi Mate, It’s sounds beautiful and very analogue sweetness. In the see of VA it rings true that analogue still remains relevant in music You always do a great job..keep it up Cheers Joe
Take 5 definitely tempted me when I first discovered in 2023 that it existed. I feel a slightly more elevated loyalty to Oberheim over Sequential (despite both models coming from the Sequential hierarchy), so the TEO-5 (or “Thomas Elroy Oberheim Five”) is much more of a temptation to me in the autumn of 2024 than the Take 5.
thank you for spreading the word. more people need to realize the power of this synth. it has no business being $1300. once people start to understand it's greatness, it will become a modern classic. i feel sorry for the people who havent bought one yet. nothing else compares, especially nothing in this price range
@@alanshewitt play this next to a Peak and tell me what you think. I’ve owned both simultaneously and it’s not even the same league. The take-5 blows that thing away in every single aspect. Even fm and sound design flexibility. But really just in terms of core sound quality, it isn’t even close
cool review, the funny things is i just learned from a Teo 5 video that you can shortcut the modulation*it works the same on Take 5 ! ( i'll just copy paste from manual) There are shortcuts for routing modulation to various front panel sources/destinations. Simply hold down the source assign button and move the control you want to use as a source (the Mod wheel, for example). Then hold down the destination assign button and move the control that you want to use as a destination (filter cutoff, for example). Set the amount with the value knob while referring to the display. Be aware that not all front-panel controls can be used as a modulation source/destination.
BRILLIANT REVIEW! Top notch commentary and insight about the TAKE 5. Great studio and gigging synth. Ignore the haters. TAKE 5 sounds great and is a future classic.
Mr. Starsky, I just got one of these and watched this video expecting you to cover how you can also do the second method targeting Osc 1 Fine Frequency in the matrix. So I was a little confused when you said this wasn’t possible. I can confirm that you can do this. Works perfectly when I set mod amount to 127 and was actually blown away by good it sounds and how much control you have from clangorous racket to subtle wavefolding. And it also affects the sub. And it works great with sync on. Very impressed by this synth.
Thanks… I think I made another demo after this demoing just that. It seemed a little confusing at first… and maybe there was an update but yeah it’s definitely there.
Wow this is the ultimate gigging synth. That keyboard split thing is brilliant and makes the number of keys perfect, and so is the mod matrix assign system. Killer sounding too. They could also do a ten-voice version with a few more keys and charge accordingly but this is ideal to stick on top of an SV2 or a rhodes.
@@group-music This has tuning issues? I'm a novice here: it's merely because it's VCOs or because there's a known bug? They used VCOs instead of DCOs to bring the price down?
@@group-music Yeah guess I should watch the video. So is this something warm up and calibration is likely to address? The sounds are just really good to me, some of the best I've heard in RUclips demos, and I love the format and interface and price, and even that you could play it two-handed with that octave split for a bass and lead.
There is no tuning issue. It uses tuning tables that progressively build over time. I had to calibrate mine 2-3 times in the first 2-3 days when I had it, but after that, it learns how to adjust to temperature changes and you don’t have to calibrate it after that
17:30 - finally they've included a passive LP filter schematic into the cutoff knob :)) It was really a shame and IDK why! Any steppiness in voltage values can be filtered with a passive LP filter. It's so basic... just a resistor and a capacitor. A resistor can be a tweaked one (a small multiturn pot). Thus you get a discrete range of values but it doesn't sounds aweful. It's my version of course. It could be done with a precise digi-pot.
Sounds great. Between this and Teo-5, what do you prefer? I'm buying a hw synth for gigging (I'll be the 2nd keys player among other things, so 3.5 octaves is fine). In my experience with sw, I'm more of a Prophet guy than an Obbie.
Sounds fantastic. Five note polyphony is fine if you don’t have layers imo. I also like the fast preset access over the pro 3’s system. A rack version of this would be very tempting.
Those string definitely hyperspaced 400 years! I was sold at chorus. They are on sale at my local store and I couldnt make up my mind between a rev 2 or this puppy. Can Take 5 take the (my)cake? 🎹yes.
The synth has a solid moog vibe all around, even the oscillators have that hard edge sound with very stiff detune phasing. Filter sounds quite Moog but without the automatic gain compensation.
It does have proper polyphonic Bass Station II vibes and sound timbre (Sequential and Novation are now same corporate). Also options, design, very similar signal route (with two overdrive circuits and so), knob sizes, big filter knob, reduced overall size and solid build quality etc.. It really does scream "Novation" quite a bit. And after all, it does sound really good!
Hi Starsky. Given your studio space issues (I have a similar problem) and that you still have the P6 I’m wondering if you kept the OB-6 or not? And if you did are you getting much use from it? I’m thinking about getting an OB-6 module but also a P5rev4. Thought that might be a “best of both worlds” thing but am I kidding myself there and is there too much overlap?
Sounds better than my P5 Rev 3 did to my ears (personal taste of course). I wasn't interested in this, but this is a big surprise. Great demo as always 👍
Thanks. Yeah there’s been a lot of talk about this. I never realised until someone pointed it out, so I approached it with no preconceptions. And have been pleasantly surprised. I really think this gives the P6 a run for its money.
@@StarskyCarr No doubt about that for those that can live with 5 notes (lots of people for many years of course). Great sound. Never did quite work for me personally - see you've gone 10! 😉👍
Great review. I'm guessing Dave had a load of Mopho X4 and Pro 2 keybeds left over and decided to use them for this. lol. Joking aside. I think I will forget the Prophet 6 and get this instead.
Great demo as always. Agreed Starsky, a 4 octave keyboard would have been better, like the Six Trak, but I guess you'd be adding cost. This is a great chance for enthusiasts to own a Sequential. At £1099 it's hugely tempting.
Ticking a lot of boxes for me. Twice the price of the Korg Minilogue XD but what a sound. FX sound unusually good and a much larger sequencer than most other synths. Great review and might have finally tipped me over the edge. I can imagine this being good for live use.
Starsky, curious if you've ever picked up the Prologue? Wondering how the Take 5 would stack up compared to a Prologue 8. My main assumption is the modulation is going to be lacking in the Prologue, but you do get a similar form factor, VCOs, effects, etc...
your taste preferences may vary, but features aside they sound very, very different from each other tonally. those korg VCO’s have a certain quality that, to me, doesn’t really approach the richness and depth of the newer Sequential VCO’s. not to mention that the mod matrix on the take 5 dwarfs the routing options on the prologue. really the only objective reason to consider the prologue over the T5 would be if you prefer that slightly colder sound, want the larger keyboard or need a few more notes of polyphony.
@@elrickstero Thanks for those thoughts, I ended up selling my Rev2 and grabbed the Take 5 for some of the reasons you mentioned around coldness. I liked the Rev2, but didn’t love it. The Take 5 is incredible, sounds so good to me and the layout is great. I miss the larger voice count (but mostly in my mind rather than practice), the 61 keys and those extra LFOs, but overall feel I made a good move.
I’ve not tried the PolyEvolver and not played this in the dark yet! So can’t comment on that 😂 but they are nicely visible in daylight and from different angles. Sometimes they’re only obvious if you’re directly above the synth which is really noticeable when making the videos.
Maybe the combination of the take 5 and P5 will give you whatever you'd miss in a P6. Plus altogether you'd have 10 voices when synced with each other. Idk. seems like it would in my head. If you still have your Prologue, then this seems the way to go. I've watched you're old videos where you paired them together and they were very similar.
So I have two beginner's questions: you said it's a contender to replace your Prophet 6 but not Prophet 5, I would have expected the contrary. The other thing is I'm guessing you can easily discover where the knobs need to be set to replicate any preset, like a dot lighting up when you get the pot to the right place?
This or the Roland Jupiter xm for poly sounds? I' m a beatmaker and would love to have a hardware synth for pads, especially. Want to pair it with my MPC One. THX!
No hate. I'm just trying to figure out who the target player/demographic this synth is for, especially given the rev2 targets the same price range. Musicians who want a giggable synth/second synth that don't want to shell out for a P6 but have enough $$ that they don't want a dm12 etc? Is this aimed at competing with the Roland Jupiter Xm?
I think they wanted a cut down more budget version of a P6/P5. If they added more keys it competes with both - so this way we get the VCO and prophet style filter .. modern interface and more portable. Maybe it’s looking at everyone who’s bought a Modal … similar size but digital… who might want to spend a little more in their next synth. The smaller form factor seems popular. I’d rather 5 more keys… but maybe that’s just a bit old school for gigging - you don’t need 2 hands for electronic music - something else is playing the bass 🤷♂️ Dunno really just waffling 😂
As someone who has a rev 2, its nice to have a vintage-style vco poly synth as a side-dish. The rev 2 does insane massive pads really well-and really anything pretty well-but the more vintage poly sound can be much easier to craft and sweetspot on a vco poly synth.
@@StarskyCarr I bought the Modal Argon 8 for taking to the cottage, particularly for its compact size. It’s a great synth. But the Take 5 is a beauty, is also portable and would be a good alternate, especially considering it’s analog.
Hi! Thanks for the review! As I've got it can't do osc. cross-mod. It could be done practically without additional parts (or with just few for 1 voice). Thus it makes me think it's a kind of a marketing move. Not fair to users as it would be fine for the price and the voice number.
It’s there but I can’t get it to cross mod properly. I tried it on the filter in the video and it doesn’t seem to do what you’d expect. It works as an FM source in VCO1 but not via the mod matrix as far as I can tell. Increasing the mod amount just increased the filter cutoff… didn’t modulate it as osc2 frequencies. Maybe I’m missing something so didn’t want to make any bold claims on this vid :)
@@evryordnryprsn Cross-mod is when you mod OSC1->OSC2 and OSC2->OSC1. They starts "talking". A pretty common feature in many mono-synths. Works in some (or many...) poly-synths. Technically is very simple to implement.
Direct into a focusrite Scarlett.. no preamps so as clean as I can get it. I think it might sound ‘better’ perhaps because I’m not just playing the presets? I always give them a little tweak ;) or maybe it’s what I’m playing… nothing too musical 😂
This one is a rather bizarre reverse-hybrid. Hybrid digital-to-analogue synths are fairly common these days but previously it has always been where the oscillators are digital, but the rest is analogue. This is the reverse: the oscillators and filters are analogue, but literally everything else further down is pure DSP (digital) including the amps, effects, modulations & envelopes. I would say Peak is the superior synth spec wise. Both are approximately equal in terms of not being pure analogue. Peak has more voices, more oscillators, better effects, can do far more waveforms. This T5 is marketed as a beginner's synth that is also somewhat suitable for more advanced players. Peak was pushed as a very powerful sound designers dream as though the aspirations for the Peak were way more esoteric and loftier than those that Dave has in mind for the Take 5. If your interested in also doing wavetables and FM as well as standard analogue style sounds get the Peak. Maybe if you simply want the sound of late 70s to early 80s style analogue synths with a few updates, get the Take 5 instead. This maybe has slightly more street cred in that is the new kid on the block, plus it says "Sequential" on it, which is pretty much the biggest name in synths after Moog. Having said that, what has more stage cred: the cream of Novation or the bargain basement, entry level model from Sequential?
I literally had just opened the box… so will make a judgement after a using it a bit more. But so far I’m impressed. Negatives are keyboard tracking of the filter isn’t perfect (tuning goes out still , but a few more calibrations may bring it into tune) and using osc 2 as a mod source doesn’t do what I expect. It’s not working like the Poly Mod on the 5&6. Maybe I’m not setting it up correctly but I don’t see what I’m doing wrong. Other than that and the 3 1/2 octaves (I prefer 4 but it’s not a game changer) it’s looking very good.
You do know "Take 5" is a product name not a statement about how many sequential synths you should have? Let's hope they don't come out with a Take 10.
Yeah… never played one of them, although I do like the look of the SE with the wooden sides. Haha. I bought aluminium ones for my System 8 just for the old school vibe :)
@ghost mall yes: 9:40, 10:55, 11:11 (first chord is terrible) and almost any chord with a full open filter. He tends to lower the cutoff, so this masks the oscillator tones, but when an envelope hits the filter you can still listen it in the transients.
That’s not what I call nasal at all and I like those chord tones, they are lively. You can always fine tune the attacks if you want to change this character, knowing that beside the filter you could even modulate the wave shape during the attack phase if you need/want. Cheers
Also with the voice spread applied to any parameter and/or the vintage knob you can adjust how the chord voices will interact with one another. That is a major adjustment capability that only few synths enable. Cheers!
@@vincewizz8534 well, "nasal" .... call it what you want, it´s difficult to define sounds it with a universal word, but they sound bad to me, with a very pushed eq in mids and highs. All the things you said are actions to fix the sound, and in my opinion there should be no need to use them on a good synth. If I have to sacrifice resources just to fix a bad oscillator sound then it´s not a good design. I have several synths that sound great just from the oscillators alone, it´s not a big deal I'm asking for.
@@liantrosretrospectiva4134 then it’s all a matter of taste. I like that base sound, but I would still use my recipes, not to “fix” it but rather to adjust it to my musical context. That’s what I do with my other analog polys that provide similar possibilities. For me it’s a freedom. Like a painter who mixes color to achieves what he wants vs one would would want to buy the exact color he is expecting. And learning those fine tuning methods opens up fantastic possibilities and nuances. Cheers.
It seems pretty cool, but it's not a true analogue synth. It's got DSP amps instead of VCAs. Dave doesn't call it an analogue synth, instead he's very careful to only call it a "poly synth with vcos and vcas"
So dumb that sequential neutered this keyboard with 44 keys. It's a blatant effort to not compete with their higher priced models. Either compete with more affordable synths, or don't. Trying to sell musos on a less playable instrument for our money is insulting.
Full walkthrough here: ruclips.net/video/aXYwCgyQPT4/видео.html
Remember when we used to scour the newspapers and pawn shops for analog gear? Now, for $1200 you can have a sick AF 5-voice analog synth with digital fx , saveable patches, and midi, arrive at your door. These kids don’t know how good they got it!😂
😂😂
Yup. I do miss the 90s, pre-Internet...finding those bargains...and sometimes passing them up...yikes.
@@johndavidpeer3107 1996-Denton, Tx-garage sale-Juno-06 , mint, $110 !!!
1994-Antwerp, Belgium, fellow-DJ, Roland SH-101, € 18,50 !!
Yeaa, quickly jumped up to $1500. Like don't even try to screw us in a gradual, more subtle way... BAM we want $300 more!
I picked up a Take 5 yesterday as well, so far it sounds and feels really amazing for the price. Great to hear your first impressions and looking forward for a comparison video both with the Prophets (rev2, 6, 5) but also with the older Mopho X4.
Re the detuning in the unison/chord mode section of the video, the Take 5s calibration is temperature based. As the instrument heats up, the tuning of the oscillators/filters will change due. Just run the calibration whenever you note the oscillators are out of tune. Once a greater number of calibrations have been run across a range of the instruments operating temperature, you should not need to calibrate as often.
Yeah it’s the same as my Prophet 5. It’ll take a few days at least before it settles down. Thanks for stopping by btw 😀
@@StarskyCarr You're welcome. Thanks for the great vid!
@@carsonday8190 thanks - it was just meant to be a quick one but got carried away 🤦♂️ I’ll make a more thorough walkthrough soon - and include all the FX next time 😂😂 (I was so hyped by the HP I forgot to demo the others). But there’s loads of stuff in here that I wasn’t expecting.
I get the feeling even Sequential knew they'd risk making the Prophet 6 and 5 redundant so that's why they chopped off half an octave and limited the patch memories to just 128 (I know chip prices are up, but surely another 512 KB of memory wouldn't have cost them that much?).
OS Version 2.0 doubles the memory, so that's one problem sorted.
Wow I already liked the Take 5 but now I'm impressed.
Hi Mate,
It’s sounds beautiful and very analogue sweetness.
In the see of VA it rings true that analogue still remains relevant in music
You always do a great job..keep it up
Cheers
Joe
Excellent video. I've had my Take 5 a couple of weeks and looking forward to your deeper look at this beauty
Take 5 definitely tempted me when I first discovered in 2023 that it existed. I feel a slightly more elevated loyalty to Oberheim over Sequential (despite both models coming from the Sequential hierarchy), so the TEO-5 (or “Thomas Elroy Oberheim Five”) is much more of a temptation to me in the autumn of 2024 than the Take 5.
Cool, what a fun bit of kit - sounds great 👍🏼
She’s a keeper!
thank you for spreading the word. more people need to realize the power of this synth. it has no business being $1300. once people start to understand it's greatness, it will become a modern classic. i feel sorry for the people who havent bought one yet. nothing else compares, especially nothing in this price range
Novation Peak: “Hold my beer…”
@@alanshewitt I hope that’s a joke
@@alanshewitt play this next to a Peak and tell me what you think. I’ve owned both simultaneously and it’s not even the same league. The take-5 blows that thing away in every single aspect. Even fm and sound design flexibility. But really just in terms of core sound quality, it isn’t even close
cool review, the funny things is i just learned from a Teo 5 video that you can shortcut the modulation*it works the same on Take 5 ! ( i'll just copy paste from manual)
There are shortcuts for routing modulation to various front panel sources/destinations. Simply hold down the source assign button and move the control you want to
use as a source (the Mod wheel, for example). Then hold down the destination assign
button and move the control that you want to use as a destination (filter cutoff, for
example). Set the amount with the value knob while referring to the display. Be aware
that not all front-panel controls can be used as a modulation source/destination.
BRILLIANT REVIEW! Top notch commentary and insight about the TAKE 5. Great studio and gigging synth. Ignore the haters. TAKE 5 sounds great and is a future classic.
What's not to like! Apart from the name.
Thanks for the review, demo.
Mr. Starsky, I just got one of these and watched this video expecting you to cover how you can also do the second method targeting Osc 1 Fine Frequency in the matrix. So I was a little confused when you said this wasn’t possible. I can confirm that you can do this. Works perfectly when I set mod amount to 127 and was actually blown away by good it sounds and how much control you have from clangorous racket to subtle wavefolding. And it also affects the sub. And it works great with sync on. Very impressed by this synth.
Thanks… I think I made another demo after this demoing just that. It seemed a little confusing at first… and maybe there was an update but yeah it’s definitely there.
@@StarskyCarr Great, I’ll look for that. It does behave in a very subtle way., which is interesting.
The trailer core sweep at 36:00 😂😂😂
looks/sounds beautiful. Thanks for another ace review.
Wow this is the ultimate gigging synth. That keyboard split thing is brilliant and makes the number of keys perfect, and so is the mod matrix assign system. Killer sounding too. They could also do a ten-voice version with a few more keys and charge accordingly but this is ideal to stick on top of an SV2 or a rhodes.
@@group-music This has tuning issues? I'm a novice here: it's merely because it's VCOs or because there's a known bug? They used VCOs instead of DCOs to bring the price down?
@@group-music Yeah guess I should watch the video. So is this something warm up and calibration is likely to address? The sounds are just really good to me, some of the best I've heard in RUclips demos, and I love the format and interface and price, and even that you could play it two-handed with that octave split for a bass and lead.
There is no tuning issue. It uses tuning tables that progressively build over time. I had to calibrate mine 2-3 times in the first 2-3 days when I had it, but after that, it learns how to adjust to temperature changes and you don’t have to calibrate it after that
31:53 - YESS *That* ! I need this in a module 🙏🏼
17:30 - finally they've included a passive LP filter schematic into the cutoff knob :))
It was really a shame and IDK why! Any steppiness in voltage values can be filtered with a passive LP filter. It's so basic... just a resistor and a capacitor. A resistor can be a tweaked one (a small multiturn pot).
Thus you get a discrete range of values but it doesn't sounds aweful. It's my version of course. It could be done with a precise digi-pot.
Sounds great. Between this and Teo-5, what do you prefer? I'm buying a hw synth for gigging (I'll be the 2nd keys player among other things, so 3.5 octaves is fine). In my experience with sw, I'm more of a Prophet guy than an Obbie.
Great video - you showcased some really lovely sounds.
Sounds fantastic. Five note polyphony is fine if you don’t have layers imo. I also like the fast preset access over the pro 3’s system. A rack version of this would be very tempting.
Instant like for being on the ball with this one
Sounds lovely. Nice work.
Those string definitely hyperspaced 400 years! I was sold at chorus. They are on sale at my local store and I couldnt make up my mind between a rev 2 or this puppy. Can Take 5 take the (my)cake? 🎹yes.
I came here looking for a Pro 3 first impressions, review and demo :-) Hint hint! Good stuff Mr Carr 👍
Patch at 38:25 sounds cool, they all do! Thanks SC!
The synth has a solid moog vibe all around, even the oscillators have that hard edge sound with very stiff detune phasing. Filter sounds quite Moog but without the automatic gain compensation.
It does have proper polyphonic Bass Station II vibes and sound timbre (Sequential and Novation are now same corporate). Also options, design, very similar signal route (with two overdrive circuits and so), knob sizes, big filter knob, reduced overall size and solid build quality etc.. It really does scream "Novation" quite a bit.
And after all, it does sound really good!
@@group-music Im fine with design and kinda like the name. Not really liking the cost - especially when Korg Prologue 8 exists.
Hi Starsky. Given your studio space issues (I have a similar problem) and that you still have the P6 I’m wondering if you kept the OB-6 or not? And if you did are you getting much use from it? I’m thinking about getting an OB-6 module but also a P5rev4. Thought that might be a “best of both worlds” thing but am I kidding myself there and is there too much overlap?
Sounds class
it is class!
Sounds better than my P5 Rev 3 did to my ears (personal taste of course). I wasn't interested in this, but this is a big surprise. Great demo as always 👍
Thanks. Yeah there’s been a lot of talk about this. I never realised until someone pointed it out, so I approached it with no preconceptions. And have been pleasantly surprised. I really think this gives the P6 a run for its money.
@@StarskyCarr No doubt about that for those that can live with 5 notes (lots of people for many years of course). Great sound. Never did quite work for me personally - see you've gone 10! 😉👍
Saying you don't like the orange is a little ironic... Love the channel, and my brother says hello!!
Haha… I don’t like the orange splodge - but orange is quite nice in itself - just bought some orange blinds for the studio actually 😂
Great video! It would be amazing to see a comparison to Sequential OB6;) Thanks
Great review. I'm guessing Dave had a load of Mopho X4 and Pro 2 keybeds left over and decided to use them for this. lol. Joking aside. I think I will forget the Prophet 6 and get this instead.
Great demo as always. Agreed Starsky, a 4 octave keyboard would have been better, like the Six Trak, but I guess you'd be adding cost. This is a great chance for enthusiasts to own a Sequential. At £1099 it's hugely tempting.
Ticking a lot of boxes for me. Twice the price of the Korg Minilogue XD but what a sound. FX sound unusually good and a much larger sequencer than most other synths. Great review and might have finally tipped me over the edge. I can imagine this being good for live use.
Looking forward to the comparisons on this. I was all set on a P6 until the P5/10 came out. Now with this too I'm completely confused.
Having the same dilemma right now, I have a Pro-3 but also want a Poly, debating between the Take 5 or the P5 desktop
Starsky, curious if you've ever picked up the Prologue? Wondering how the Take 5 would stack up compared to a Prologue 8. My main assumption is the modulation is going to be lacking in the Prologue, but you do get a similar form factor, VCOs, effects, etc...
your taste preferences may vary, but features aside they sound very, very different from each other tonally. those korg VCO’s have a certain quality that, to me, doesn’t really approach the richness and depth of the newer Sequential VCO’s. not to mention that the mod matrix on the take 5 dwarfs the routing options on the prologue. really the only objective reason to consider the prologue over the T5 would be if you prefer that slightly colder sound, want the larger keyboard or need a few more notes of polyphony.
@@elrickstero Thanks for those thoughts, I ended up selling my Rev2 and grabbed the Take 5 for some of the reasons you mentioned around coldness. I liked the Rev2, but didn’t love it. The Take 5 is incredible, sounds so good to me and the layout is great. I miss the larger voice count (but mostly in my mind rather than practice), the 61 keys and those extra LFOs, but overall feel I made a good move.
Hi, are the Take 5 a polyphonic version of Pro-3? Thank you! Greetings from Chile!
Excellent review...it's making think I want one lol
Fantastic overview. When you say the LEDs are bright, are we talking eye-searing like the PolyEvolver Keyboard?
I’ve not tried the PolyEvolver and not played this in the dark yet! So can’t comment on that 😂 but they are nicely visible in daylight and from different angles. Sometimes they’re only obvious if you’re directly above the synth which is really noticeable when making the videos.
great review as always mr Carr to my ears it sounds more flat than the prophet6 with its huge oscillators the filter does sound good!
Still waiting for someone to do rendition of Take Five on the Take 5.
I did think about it … but maybe too cheesy ;)
Starsky mate great review, I'm in the market for one synth to do my sound design on. Would you say take 5 or rev 2?
Difficult one that.. If I didn't have. my other I'd go with the Rev2
@@StarskyCarr you're a gent! Thanks!
Would LOVE to see p6 and p5 comparisons. (p6 owner here.) Thanks for your work… the two big Waldorf M vids were great.
Bot are on their way
@@StarskyCarr Thank you!
Maybe the combination of the take 5 and P5 will give you whatever you'd miss in a P6. Plus altogether you'd have 10 voices when synced with each other. Idk. seems like it would in my head. If you still have your Prologue, then this seems the way to go. I've watched you're old videos where you paired them together and they were very similar.
So I have two beginner's questions: you said it's a contender to replace your Prophet 6 but not Prophet 5, I would have expected the contrary. The other thing is I'm guessing you can easily discover where the knobs need to be set to replicate any preset, like a dot lighting up when you get the pot to the right place?
This or the Roland Jupiter xm for poly sounds? I' m a beatmaker and would love to have a hardware synth for pads, especially. Want to pair it with my MPC One. THX!
No hate. I'm just trying to figure out who the target player/demographic this synth is for, especially given the rev2 targets the same price range. Musicians who want a giggable synth/second synth that don't want to shell out for a P6 but have enough $$ that they don't want a dm12 etc? Is this aimed at competing with the Roland Jupiter Xm?
I think they wanted a cut down more budget version of a P6/P5. If they added more keys it competes with both - so this way we get the VCO and prophet style filter .. modern interface and more portable. Maybe it’s looking at everyone who’s bought a Modal … similar size but digital… who might want to spend a little more in their next synth. The smaller form factor seems popular. I’d rather 5 more keys… but maybe that’s just a bit old school for gigging - you don’t need 2 hands for electronic music - something else is playing the bass 🤷♂️ Dunno really just waffling 😂
As someone who has a rev 2, its nice to have a vintage-style vco poly synth as a side-dish. The rev 2 does insane massive pads really well-and really anything pretty well-but the more vintage poly sound can be much easier to craft and sweetspot on a vco poly synth.
@@StarskyCarr I bought the Modal Argon 8 for taking to the cottage, particularly for its compact size. It’s a great synth. But the Take 5 is a beauty, is also portable and would be a good alternate, especially considering it’s analog.
Hi! Thanks for the review!
As I've got it can't do osc. cross-mod. It could be done practically without additional parts (or with just few for 1 voice). Thus it makes me think it's a kind of a marketing move. Not fair to users as it would be fine for the price and the voice number.
Osc 2 is a mod source? Does that count as cross mod with all the 16 mod slots?
It’s there but I can’t get it to cross mod properly. I tried it on the filter in the video and it doesn’t seem to do what you’d expect. It works as an FM source in VCO1 but not via the mod matrix as far as I can tell. Increasing the mod amount just increased the filter cutoff… didn’t modulate it as osc2 frequencies. Maybe I’m missing something so didn’t want to make any bold claims on this vid :)
@@evryordnryprsn Cross-mod is when you mod OSC1->OSC2 and OSC2->OSC1. They starts "talking". A pretty common feature in many mono-synths. Works in some (or many...) poly-synths. Technically is very simple to implement.
Interesting…. I’m trying to think of one that does it both ways but can’t. Looks like I may have to search for something else to play with 😂
@@StarskyCarr If you mean about another synth... then Neutron is capable of cross-mod for sure.
In a hypothetic battle, what is the winner P6 or this?
Have you seen this…
TAKE 5 vs Prophet 6 // The definitive comparison
ruclips.net/video/H1D8L094Afk/видео.html
for some reason this demo sounds a lot nicer than others (?) @starksy - what's your recording chain?
i have one, this is what it sounds like in person..
@@simplestickman5513 thanks - they sound really nice for the money
Direct into a focusrite Scarlett.. no preamps so as clean as I can get it. I think it might sound ‘better’ perhaps because I’m not just playing the presets? I always give them a little tweak ;) or maybe it’s what I’m playing… nothing too musical 😂
@@StarskyCarr might be!
nice that its clean, thanks
Are you the guy from New order?
How old d’you think I am? 😱
At least he didn’t mean Gillian
Would you have the Take 5 or Novation peak?
This one is a rather bizarre reverse-hybrid. Hybrid digital-to-analogue synths are fairly common these days but previously it has always been where the oscillators are digital, but the rest is analogue.
This is the reverse: the oscillators and filters are analogue, but literally everything else further down is pure DSP (digital) including the amps, effects, modulations & envelopes.
I would say Peak is the superior synth spec wise.
Both are approximately equal in terms of not being pure analogue.
Peak has more voices, more oscillators, better effects, can do far more waveforms. This T5 is marketed as a beginner's synth that is also somewhat suitable for more advanced players.
Peak was pushed as a very powerful sound designers dream as though the aspirations for the Peak were way more esoteric and loftier than those that Dave has in mind for the Take 5.
If your interested in also doing wavetables and FM as well as standard analogue style sounds get the Peak.
Maybe if you simply want the sound of late 70s to early 80s style analogue synths with a few updates, get the Take 5 instead.
This maybe has slightly more street cred in that is the new kid on the block, plus it says "Sequential" on it, which is pretty much the biggest name in synths after Moog.
Having said that, what has more stage cred: the cream of Novation or the bargain basement, entry level model from Sequential?
How much this synth is better than DeepMind6?
Deepmind Vs Take 5 is like Bontempi Vs Hammond B3
LOL
You haven't taken a side on this ... so what are your thoughts on the beast? You wouldn't say ...
I literally had just opened the box… so will make a judgement after a using it a bit more. But so far I’m impressed. Negatives are keyboard tracking of the filter isn’t perfect (tuning goes out still , but a few more calibrations may bring it into tune) and using osc 2 as a mod source doesn’t do what I expect. It’s not working like the Poly Mod on the 5&6. Maybe I’m not setting it up correctly but I don’t see what I’m doing wrong. Other than that and the 3 1/2 octaves (I prefer 4 but it’s not a game changer) it’s looking very good.
Filter tracking is perfect if you set it up correctly! .. still learning 😂
You do know "Take 5" is a product name not a statement about how many sequential synths you should have? Let's hope they don't come out with a Take 10.
Haha… love it.. maybe it’s intentionally subliminal 😂
It may be half the price of a P6, but I’d pay that for more than five note polyphony. I’m such a grumpy musician.
Design like dsi pro 3
Yeah… never played one of them, although I do like the look of the SE with the wooden sides. Haha. I bought aluminium ones for my System 8 just for the old school vibe :)
36:06 Kevin?
I hope not!!
those oscillators sounds "nasal", with forward mids and highs that clash when you play a chord
@ghost mall yes: 9:40, 10:55, 11:11 (first chord is terrible) and almost any chord with a full open filter. He tends to lower the cutoff, so this masks the oscillator tones, but when an envelope hits the filter you can still listen it in the transients.
That’s not what I call nasal at all and I like those chord tones, they are lively. You can always fine tune the attacks if you want to change this character, knowing that beside the filter you could even modulate the wave shape during the attack phase if you need/want. Cheers
Also with the voice spread applied to any parameter and/or the vintage knob you can adjust how the chord voices will interact with one another. That is a major adjustment capability that only few synths enable. Cheers!
@@vincewizz8534 well, "nasal" .... call it what you want, it´s difficult to define sounds it with a universal word, but they sound bad to me, with a very pushed eq in mids and highs. All the things you said are actions to fix the sound, and in my opinion there should be no need to use them on a good synth. If I have to sacrifice resources just to fix a bad oscillator sound then it´s not a good design. I have several synths that sound great just from the oscillators alone, it´s not a big deal I'm asking for.
@@liantrosretrospectiva4134 then it’s all a matter of taste. I like that base sound, but I would still use my recipes, not to “fix” it but rather to adjust it to my musical context. That’s what I do with my other analog polys that provide similar possibilities. For me it’s a freedom. Like a painter who mixes color to achieves what he wants vs one would would want to buy the exact color he is expecting. And learning those fine tuning methods opens up fantastic possibilities and nuances. Cheers.
if this came in a module version..........
the smaller the better. let's hope,
It seems pretty cool, but it's not a true analogue synth. It's got DSP amps instead of VCAs. Dave doesn't call it an analogue synth, instead he's very careful to only call it a "poly synth with vcos and vcas"
I tried my best not to look at this video. I managed until today.
So dumb that sequential neutered this keyboard with 44 keys. It's a blatant effort to not compete with their higher priced models. Either compete with more affordable synths, or don't. Trying to sell musos on a less playable instrument for our money is insulting.
sounded harsh and bitter like me ex wife. She cost more though in the divorce.