Yea... This is a truly fantastic comparison! It's hard to really understand how complete these emulations are of the classic but this video pretty much sums up the love that is put into this software and how the cost can be justified upon purchase of such vsts. I am completely blown away, and so greatful that this man can work his analog machines with such precision. They are so very sensitive and complex which makes everything done is this video so much more difficult. Amazing
I agree. He has also a comparison between some of the Rolandcloud stuff I believe. Really nice demo and very educational. Digital is getting close. I just always seem to hear a little more bottom-end in the hardware. But with some EQ this can be fixed.
I second that !! Also on minute 7:03 he finishes with the last note on the keyboard and when he does comoare to the U-He counterpart I can hear that the only difference is that the original Pro-One has a bit of phasing kind of chorusing between both oscillators ! That is just a preset programmer error !! It is i believe an easy thing to add on the VST emulation ! Anyone notice this ? Please do as many comparisons you can !! GREAT JOB !!
I was a keyboard player turned bassist because I loved bass so much back in the late 60's and 70's forward. But around 75 our group lost it's keyboard player and I decided to start playing keys with the right hand and keyboard bass with the left. The band had an Arp and a wurlitzer electric piano and they were beautiful together. I did it that way until one day around 81 or so I was in the music store and there was this pro 1 new for about 500 bucks. I sort of chuckled to myself because synths weren't terribly cheap back then but I played it for a minute and my jaw dropped. Monophonic is all you need for bass and it just sounded unbelievable. I took it home with me that day and loved it for years. Best bass synth ever. Time rocked on and I later became a solo artists using all the instruments I had learnd to play and sort of left "electronica" behind since I was more country/bluegrass, but I never forgot that sound. Yesterday I downloaded this Uhe trial version and once again, I am blown away. Not only how good the pluggin sounds, but the nice little added features this one has. I will be buying the serial number lol! Hard to believe this is software. And you get the Pro 5 in the package as well. Spent a few hours with it last night going thru sounds and re-acquainting myself with the interface. A dream come true. There might be some "experimental" music in my future lol! Uhe did an awesome job with this, but then, all their synths are from another planet, even the free ones.
I’m absolutely in love with U-He’s software. I feel like Diva kind of blew the door open and we started getting some really excellent emulations of classic synths available. I love hardware. If I wasn’t in a tiny LA apartment on a budget I’d still want hardware just for the tactile experience they give to sound design. But alas, I’m making music in 2020 on a laptop that 20 years ago, would’ve taken a huge studio and tens of thousands or dollars worth of hardware to produce. Blessed we are!!
The rippled edges on the Pro-One are both on upper and lower end (symmetric), but on Repro-1 they are only on the lower end. That is because Repro-1 is oversampled a fair bit at 44.1/48kHz, which creates a tad of phase shift above, say, 6kHz. Hence the ripples in Repro-1 are slightly shifted. You can reduce this shift vastly by recording at 192kHz.
At low sample rates (44.1/48kHz) the oscillator signal reaching the filter is cut off at 22.05/24kHz. The filter then needs to be oversampled 4x or 8x (depending on quality mode). This creates the phase shift. The frequency content of the oscillator beyond 22.05/24kHz has no influence on the ripples when in the end, at some point in the chain, the synth has to be downsampled to 44.1/48kHz
Please check out the freqencies at 10khz! 4:39 IQ analyser 2 can calibrate the freq response slope, or the voxengo span to see the osc on lower level, how steep lowpassed on 10khz on the real one! This is very overal problem on a digital world. Sound engineers have to lowpass everything on 6-10khz to make good quality music. The real one need less eq-ing because of that. I dont think it depends on oversampling. It depends on the oscillator false preconception about quality. The real world quality is band limited to the speakers and to the organic ears..and to make headroom for other sounds, and room space, reverbs
I don't think Urs will comment on your last response because it's a nonsense. Also you are asking him nonsense (why don't he use lowpass conditioned oscillators...come on). I am enjoying your comments and overall you are spreading nonsense. I have worked with many analog and hybrid studios. I have friends running studios worldwide. None of the engineers lowpass their digital creations at 6-10khz to make good quality music. None! My friend from Switzerland produced album for Prince practically digitally-mixed itb with plugins. I can't remember he lowpassed content at 6-10khz.Haha. You would think one would already hear for such trick in common real practical world. None of the famous engineers in interview in any magazine ever said something like it. Actually first time hearing this. Wait...is it a top secret shared among audiophiles? That could explain it. I would love to see people like you to do blind test and go home crying when they realize their superior hearing (when looking at both sources) actually is vastly inferior and can't detect or AB music or instruments when they are not looking at sources.
I dont care shit music like Prince got. Especially ITB new mixes. There was a few on the 90ies. I am listening originals with audiophiles, like Yello - Ocean Club, or Michael Jackson - Dangerous, or Massive Attack - Mezzanine and 100th window, Prodigy - Fat of the land, Fluke Risotto, Northern Explosure. And check them with a good analyser. I know what i talking about. Maybe non of your friends talking about because it is so evident! There is low pass filters on the mastering grade stuff too. So dont come up with that. I have vintage synths Arp Odyssey MK I, Yamaha CS 15, and etc. Those are indeed different and satureate different. The digital world will be allways simplier then the real. It is like compare the Barbie doll to a real woman.
I'd forgotten how real the Repro-1 sounded and reinstalled after months of using modular gear. I mean, wow, this synth is really top notch. Thanks for this amazing review, really well done 🙏🏼
I think you're the first to make a video comparing the Pro-One to U-He's RePro-One. I remember looking for video comparing these two a few months ago, I didn't find anything. Thanks for doing the video!
Great comparison! And it's quite impressive how well Repro emulates the real thing. Sure there are slight differences here and there, but it's really neglible.
Just recently been turned on to your channel. Love these comparisons, also really liked the one comparing the Behringer unit to the real pro one. Cheers mate, great content keep it up!
Love your videos. This one was fantastic. Super impressed by this. The square wasn’t quite as vibrant, but honestly it’s quite amazing how accurate it is.
Super classy comparison and review. The repro is incredible especially for the price. I wouldn't sell the Pro One though, it that extra something to my ears..
Your reviews are effing brilliant. I like that you're just chilled and not pushing crap about your channel down our throats.. also please do the system 8 if you get a chance. I wanna know how it compares to the juno 106
I totally agree with the lacenty! it can be a bummer.. but it also happens with my midi/hardware gear when run through vst effects and so on so its just an all round problem, but it really can change what ideas you choose as some fast stuff just does not sound right when playing around, so you just gave me a reminder to perhaps freeze some tracks sometimes and be mindful of what it does to my playing and idea picking.
Square wave often seems to differ, due to the PW being slightly off/different on the analog synth. Emulations often have a pure square wave, while the analog synth often has slightly PWM'd square.
These comparisons... stunning mate. Very well prepared and thought out. Entertaining somehow. Some feat. I love that you're still getting "yeh but analogue is warmer maang" comments. Funny stuff.
Haha ‘entertaining somehow’. Now there’s the foundation of an introspective psychoanalysis if ever there was one !!! How on earth can this level of geekiness be entertaining .... ?! Only those who truly understand can ever see the light...
The Repro-1 is great! I think the real thing has that little extra sizzle, but it's extremely close. The Jawz waveshaper is probably my favorite thing about the Repro-1, it can radically change the sound. Great comparison.
On the filter sweep w high res (around 12:08 ) you hear plenty of that sweeping "up into the stratosphere" high end on BOTH. And the software resonance can do that "talking growl" thing just fine.
@@shaft9000 I won't disagree with the mushing up sound as you stated. I will only say that at 13:17 we can clearly hear the musical nature of the harmonics moving up and down "3rd - 5th- Tonic - 3rd" up and then down "Tonic- 3rd- 5th". To my ears that sounds "musical" and of use as a good piece of software. And 20 years ago I did own two Pro-Ones [both with J-wires key contacts] and yes they had the "mushroom" litho'd on the circuit boards. But I found the Pro-One sound too "hard" and I much preferred the MKS-80 ver 4.
Regarding Modulation ranges: They vary a lot between two individual Pro-Ones. Much of it depends on resistors that have 5% variation - and extremely cheap pots. So a couple of tens of those make each Pro-One rather unique. The Pots, after 35 years, anyway. Many on ours seem to have their effective range from 3-8, with 1-3 and 8-10 doing nothing anymore. For Repro-1 we however made sure that each setting is still doing something :-)
Thanks for the comments, very helpful. Congratulations on such great programming and vision. As you might be able to tell from the demo, I think its a fabulous recreation plus the non-standard FX section is inspired. My P1 pot on osc A does nothing over 8, so balancing them correctly on the Repro makes good sense - a bit like recalibration. If you emulated a single 35 yr old instrument I'm certain most folks would think it was broken - probably because most are in some way!
Urs, I'm a big fan. I own the Bazille and think it's just absolutely incredible. I'm also struck by the fact that you would make synths that are so unique (Bazille, Diva, Hive, ect) and then make a synth that is so faithful -- usually those ideas would come out of two different minds. What did you learn from this process and how will that inform what you do next?
Thanks James! Well, there's are many reasons to do Repro-1. For Diva we've mostly looked at poly synths that share common concepts. It was possible to more or less cover the grounds of ten vintage synths (including a few mono ones) in one larger concept, all with consistent parameter and modulation ranges. However, adding the concept of the Pro-One or any similarly complex mono synth to Diva would not have done it justice. The parameter and modulation ranges of the Pro-One are simply too extreme. So while Diva was always about "the beauty of analogue sound", Repro-1 is about "raw analogue power". The most important thing we learned was that I shared a lot of knowledge with the new developers in our team. This will hopefully speed up future product development. But we also learned a lot more about analogue modelling, which we hope to use to improve our existing plug-ins.
Certainly a very impressive recreation, but the Pro-One sounds better to me, phatter and more organic. That being said, running the Repro through some saturation/distortion could get it to a much better/closer place.
Hehehe, sorry, but never judge a synth by a RUclips video alone. Try it. There are more means to go "phatter and more organic" than the video shows, such as more instable oscillator modes, differently driving filter circuits and pretty good effects.
It's incredible work by Urs, sometimes the Pro-One sounds denser, but at 4:37 we do see extra harmonics. If that's second order harmonics then we could simply add a touch of them cleanly via a plugin like FieldingDSP Reviver. That might help even though it's not passing through the synth's audio path. Also, at 7:06 you can visibily see the phasing on the frequency graph as the oscillators drift slightly on the Pro-One. Repro doesn't do that in that example, but i think you can tweak it.
Wow - how amazing is the analogue waveform. Mr Heckmann and co must be kicking themselves they did (could?) not get that buzz from the tips of the signal change
4:40 - my guess that these harmonics are due to the real operational amplifiers in Pro-1 that has their own distortion characteristics/graphs. www.synthfool.com/docs/SequentialCircuits/Pro_One/SCI_Pro1-schematics.pdf the 2nd page shows that after 3340 it has one TL082 and the same after the 3320 (filter). After VCA (3280 small triangle, right top corner) it has JRC (not sure, NJM? depends on the production date maybe) 5532 which (most likely probably) gives even more distortion in some cases. As I've heard about 5532 op.amps - they're not very stable but it's more noticeable if you're using it in an exponential converter circuit (it's in any 1v/octave descrete oscillator). Old synths did used transistors and my guess it's the reason why Moog old synths are so "fuzzy" in clear oscillator listening. In my own short experience JRC5532 is worse than OPA2134 in terms of clearness and stability. Probably if you'll exchange 5532 in your real Pro-1 for any similar but modern op.amp then you'll "get rid of" this cool "growl" in plain waves. Actually it can be done, just need to check all specs carefully and not mess up with static sh*t. OTA amplifiers (which is 3280 here) are very sensitive to voltage spikes. I can be paranoid but you'll be hard to find a replacement for 3280 (or it will be expensive). I've killed one LM13700 with an accidental shortcircuiting it (on a solderless breadboard). It wasn't a static "kill" but who knows... It has even no a minimal protection (unlike many cheaper usual operational amplifiers). In the conclusion: it's almost impossible to emulate/simulate every component in the circuit like different op.amps, because they has own graphs. And of course these graphs from datasheets are quite rough. RePro-1 has pretty flat square sound. Actually I was surprised that they've didn't faked any distortion there... It could help.
One thing that seems to always be the biggest difference in these soft synth vs hardware is the actual "attack" or "onset" of the oscillator. The hardware is almost always "softer" in how the oscillator is triggered.. whereas the soft synths always seem to have a slight "tick" or "clicky" start.
Great the one-to-one comparison, but did anyone of you checked how this VST works in a mix with other, especially analog instruments or guitars, vocals etc..?
Wow, what a well done comparison you've made there! Were you hired by U-he to do this? This is the best advertisement possible. It also proves that software synthesizers can be just as good as hardware ones. What a nice space saver that is!
As always, great video. I guess you can enable a bit of Jaws to squeeze some extra harmonics from repro, anyway I wish to see a comparison with HQ enabled on repro. Also repro has different settings in tweaks panel like different oscillators. I think default square wave isn't the "P1" or "P5" neither.
Quite a few of the differences you hear are due to the settings being different, for example the LFO sweeps of the filter around 14 minute mark, he needed to raise the filter cutoff level on RePro1 a bit higher. Really U-He did a stellar job with this synth. Also Starsky in future, might wanna have HQ enabled in RePro1 and also try out the alternative oscillator types in the tweaks section, change from Clean to P1 and P5 :)
Yeah - each of these videos takes a few takes to distill into the final version... I'd originally used the P1 oscillators, but on the final take forgot to switch it before starting. The sounds are so similar that I never realised until the end when I showed the options. If I didn't notice I figured the Repro-1 was close enough on that setting - then the demo was sufficient to show how close they are (and it is!) plus I couldn't face another take. I think its worth uploading a short video showing the differences in HQ mode and the P1 settings, as you're not the first to mention this.
@Soulless Gemini Yet still the Homeopathic super beings below argue the same old bullshit (Warmer, punchier, crisper ...) even though the scope show no difference.
I wonder how much the age on components in the filter, the output circuit and the recordsing interface have on the high end of the pro 1. It definately does sound less bright than the Repro. Also the tuning is a little different you can see more movement in the pro 1 and it does sound nicer in that aspect (less phasing more chorusing effect) but this plugin has a similar flavour and seems kind of close for a plugin. That said it just makes me want a pro - one.
Also as said in below comments the repro-1 has different osc and filter modes and chaing the oscillators to P1 and the filter to Rounded may have matched the frequency response closer. As awesome as DIVA, ACE and BAZILLE are its nice having something that is less of a general types of synths and more of a classic recreation. If only I hadnt spend money on guitars and a new midi controller.
I can hear clear difference in my studio monitors. They do sound really similar though. In a track with only one of them, I probably would not be able to tell which one was used, but now when I hear them side by side, I can hear a difference. Not a huge one, but it's clear. I love the sound of both. But the hardware is a tiny bit more crispy on some sounds and muddy on others in a charming way. Again, just one, and I probably could not tell if it was Repro 1 or Pro 1, but side by side, I can tell. And that means u-he did a great job on emulating the sound. I use a lot of software because they are handy and you can have many in a small space. Hardware still wins in my book though. My ADHD loves buttons and knobs, and also Hardware keeps value and if you treat it, it will work for decades. Software can die with a driver update or discontinueation if the servers that manage licenses shut down. But then fans can revive them. They're two different worlds with their own pros and cons, and you don't need to stick to one. It's fine to use a Software and a Hardware in a track. Just make sure you make the track what you want it to be, feel how you want it to feel, and express yourself.
All I need is for somebody to program "Yazoo & Depeche Mode" patches:-) ....I'm impressed with the comparisons, your always gonna have a slighty brighter tone on the VST unless you send it through a tape emulation plug in ..still it's a darrn good demonstration
As say by Vince Clarke, the Pro One have an extremely fast envelopes, that can make very percusive bass and pluck sounds. Repro can't get these super-fast decay and sound a little tinier. Pro One are the king for synthpop ala Clarke style. Thanks for your extensive deep comparison.
Thanks for a great review. My Pro One has the membrane switch keybed- has never been one hundred percent in the 30+ years I have owned it. This looks like the first soft-synth that I might use. I especially liked being ably to go under the cover and tweek the oscillators and filter. Do any of the trim pots allow purposeful detuning or scale manipulation? Thanks for all the work that went into this!
I have a few vintage analog pieces, some modern analog as well. I also have plenty of software. I use everything. We are so spoiled. Are there differences? Sure. I can hear it because I'm a synth dork. In a blind test though, could I? I'm not so sure, not always. Not to mention, these are dry sounds. I was blown away by my vintage analog bs software (Diva) recordings when they were run through or into the same fx. The negligible difference was gone. Add into that some console emulation plugins, a tad of sat/distortion, and its really just down to whether you can't tolerate programming a patch on the computer. I don't mind. I learned and fell in love on software, and then moved into hardware. My synth collection is dwindling. Uhe is probably the biggest reason. If you can't make good music with Diva, Repro, Monark, and Dexed......then you're not doing shit with HW either are you?
+Kevin Harris I completely agree. There's something to be said for the hands on experience of hardware, but if you can't make your music sound good with the vast array of high quality software tools available then you can't make your music sound good. If you're relying on a particular peculiarity of an old analog bit of kit then you're very limited in your artistic abilities. Hardware is fantastic, but music is music.
Amigo, the last sentence you said is everything. It's all about having good tools to record killer hooks and melodies. And not nerdy percents and graphs. I'm just crazy for good soft-synths and own just about everything, but have written my best stuff on a 1986 37-key Casio 😊 Cheers!
I can hear i slight high end on the real pro one triangle. Where as repro seems to have a lower noise floor, ...well thats the beauty of vst i guess. Apart from that so so close .
That plugin is pretty incredible. As usual, the chorusing oscillators on the hardware crush the digital, analog phasing is just sweeter to my ears and stays thick on the low end. Don't get me started on the texture of the filters. You gotta pay dearly for that kind of difference, but the way it lets the hardware sit inside, or cut thru, a mix is priceless to me.
Gregory, I'm just getting to that point where I have to admit, some things, and usually the crushingly expensive things, just sound better. And when you add up a bunch of things that each sound better, you end up with a finished product that sound much much better. That working with emulations etc. are just never going to get ME where I want to be with my sound. It's a sad day, but good I guess, in that my means (theoretically) are more aligned with my ends, and that is what I have to work on.
Staring at 12:00, the filter emulation behavior is all wrong with high resonance (compared to the original). The filter cutoff frequency momentarily locks onto the harmonics of the oscillator instead of simply smoothly amplifying it as its cutoff frequency is shifted up. There is no locking of the filter on the original. That's the most difficult thing to emulate properly on a VA, the filters. And it's almost impossible to get it perfectly right because mathematics and calculations alone cannot render such evolving complex analog electronic behavior, with all the unpredictable variations induced by a myriad of factors. From circuit noise, to variations in power supply rails, to varying gains of op amps due to temperature, to tolerances in electronic components, etc etc etc. That's why a real analog synth will always sound better than any VA (provided that it is in good shape of course). Our ears don't enjoy mathematical precision, they enjoy unpredictable analog variations.
Could be but I think the HQ mode is more for FM - I maybe should've demo'd this but thought it was close enough. It's probably got more to do with me not matching it up precisely. I'm sure if I spent then time they'd match identically.
I was concerned about this. Is HQ just an oversampling button? Honestly, I can rarely hear when a vst is oversampling or not! But I was worried that the HQ button was preventing the RePro from sounding as good as it can. But just oversampling stasis probably isn't going to bring life to the lifeless.
Nice video, thank you for this comparison. U-he has produced another great sounding vst. However I did hear remarkable differences in sound, Im not sure if its due to harmonic distortion of the hardware unit but I could easily hear that the hardware unit has so much more punch and solid sound characteristics whereas Repro-1 sounded much hazier in the top end and bottom also sounds not as rich and direct as the hardware version. I could hear this from the first sawtooth comparison and it got much obvious in square wave and other combinations you tried. Nevertheless Repro-1 captures the essence and color of Pro One very very good. But its still like a high quality photocopy of a great painting. I m sure Repro Pro-1 with get a lot of use.
The saw and triangle are amazing! Did you ask Urs about the square because it seems unusual he would make those so perfect and a different square. No wonder its such a massive CPU hog. I heard a really big difference in the high end riff at 8.15 but other than that it seems spot on.
I've not asked about the differences in the pulse. I originally though that maybe my osc A was misbehaving, but osc B is the same. It's most likely due to model revisions, different parts etc.
Interesting to see you start to software vs hardware comparisons. It inspired to to have a bash on repro again last night. Do you have U-He Diva or GForce Minimonsta? I'd be really interested in a video that compared to your D Reissue to that.
Haha I have Diva and the Arturia collection. Could be interesting to do a 3-way with Diva, MiniV and the Model D. Then there's the iPad version.... don't hold your breath though, it sounds like a right pain to put together :)
I just erased all other analogue emulations from my hard drive. Why use anything else when you can just have this? I mostly use softsynths for mapping out my arrangements and replace them with analogue synths when things get real. With the Repro I might just leave the "demo" tracks in. Impressive really. I don't mind if it fully recreates the sound of the hardware, it's just that if gives me the feel of playing an instrument, rather than listening to a flat emulation.
It would made more sense if REPRO-1 was operating in HQ mode. There will still be (even less) differences with close to residual impact on the overall audible sound because, let's face it, digital algorithms can't emulate with 100% precision an analogue voltage driven circuit board. This is the same reason why none of the Pro One and every other analogue synth will sound exactly like the same. There's stuff like signal to noise ratio that can be emulated only to a certain point. Having a random parameter function getting random given values from a max and min value interval (noise) can probably get you pretty close to that effect but it won't be the same thing. There are certainly more "tricks" to be deployed in this department that I'm not aware of. Any Joe can come up with a synth of his own these days. But coming up with a synth that sounds as good as Repro-1 is a whole different story. People often fail to realize how magic this is. We're living in an era where for 99 bucks you can get the sound character of a Sequential Circuits synth that you would never get from less than 1400$ US and I've seen this very same synth in mint condition going up to 3800$ US Can't wait to try the REPRO-5.
Both sound incredibly similar, until you start messing with the filter. If you really listen to the character of the filter you can hear where the real deal sounds a bit nicer IMO.
Ahh. Logic. Thank you. I wish Apple would redesign the GUI to reduce the screen real-estate. The shuttle controls are huge. I may start using it again if they did that.
Now we have quite inexpensive Ryzens that runs RePro very quickly! :) With such amazing additions like it's wavefolder and other "plugins" I can easily forget that it's the emulation. And you'll def. will not recognise it in a track.
Its a real close call in some cases which really wowed me to be honest & obviously the Repro-1 is really bang for buck... but the Pro-one for me is just another level in fatness & especially in lower notes the Pro-one sounds so much warmer, it just hugs you... that's the pleasure of all that analogue inconsistency goodness...There's just something magical going on there but in saying that U-he did a stellar job with it if I may say but the Pro-one takes it home for me hands down...Awesome A/B comparison! 👌
Very impressive. I'm just about to buy this from u-he with doubt. Since I saw your video I'm sure the re-pro 1 is the good choice. But before could you send me the patches you use for Don't Go from Yazoo ? this will totaly conveince me to buy it. Thanks in advance and I will follow you
Glad you liked it. I don’t have the patches written down anywhere but there is a video showing very similar ones here: ruclips.net/video/XR4YvCN7r8E/видео.html
Thanks for your answer. I already tested it => no success with Repro-1. According to my reasearch Vince has mixed pro-one with his favourite synth at the time: Roland Juno/Jupiter (or stuff like that produce supersaw).
To think I sold my Pro-One for the polyphonic delights of a Roland JX-3P back in 1984. I think it used to belong to Klaus Schultz too (at least his name was on the box). But would I swap it for saving patches and other goodies? I'm not an analogue purist, so probably not. Such is progress.
+Jeff Black what did you think of the JX? oddly enough I'm currently browsing for the JX-03... browsing not buying at the mo. Picked up the Boutique VP-03 vocoder this week and I'm impressed. Another move forward for non purists ?!?
You have to put these things in the context of the time. The Pro-One was a pauper's Prophet and the JX-3P had no knobs - you had to buy a separate programmer. But as I said, it was polyphonic with memories, which seemed a big step up at the time. I used to get some good sounds out of it and midied it (another new development) to a DX7 for digital attack with analogue warmth. Having lived through it, I don't get misty-eyed about analogue like some. I want the sounds of now, not 1983.
There is a lot more PWM in the real one. Assuming this is due to age, and can be tweaked with via trimpot? Although I always find this in VST is the there is a little less sizzle in PWM which really the main thing that Analogue junkies seem to be attracted to. Surely this would be easy to program in a slight drift?
My pots are a bit knackered- so the pulse width goes into zero width quite early at around 8 (out of 10) - leaving a lot of turning where the knob is effectively doing nothing. I think the software has an idealised pot calibration - ie not a 30 year old one.
I personally can hear the difference between most of the notes being played. The pro one has a richer, pleasant sound compared to repo1. I can listen to the pro one at longer durations and at a higher volume while when hearing repo 1 I lowered the volume because of the more harsh qualities present.I’m just using some apple earphones. Just my observation. I think this is an issue with most Vst’s.
I applaud Urs Heckmann for this work, yet I still would prefer the aging original, especially because in the emulation the sound after the initial attack is "settling" so quick, getting sterile, while it seems in the original there is some longer pleasant fluctuation or ringing movement as if trying to cope with the onslaught of the attack.
Really excellent analysis with a lot of work going into it. However, I am a little concerned about some of the sound comparisons. For example at 16:15, you mention no real difference between the two, but the hardware Pro One clearly has some more punch on the lower end, the emulation sounds thinner in comparison. If you say small difference that's OK, but NO difference at all? I don't agree there.
+Aofex thanks for watching - glad you liked it... and yeah they take a while to put together - which is why I don’t pump them out weekly. To answer your concerns, a lot depends on monitoring. I noticed this with my Minimoog comparison where different monitors and headphones sometimes gave me completely different results. Also, when I’m doing these comparisons or using the the synths my ears are focussing on the character of the sounds and how they react when changing the filter etc - ie the ‘feel’ of the synths. Does it feel like the Pro-One or not.... Yes there may be differences if forensically examining each sound (I don’t really have the mental capacity to do everything when doing these live!!) but not necessarily anything that would change my opinion when writing a track. Does the softsynth give me the same sort of sounds and fit in the same space as the real deal etc. ? So I’m not always concentrating on the absolutes and every aspect of the EQ etc. There may well be differences (I expect there are) but nothing that takes away from how I’m using the synth and how it fits in the mix or if I should use another synth/filter etc. That’s was quite a ramble ;) - to summarise ... You’re quite right - there may be differences in the sounds I’ve not noticed when recording this but maybe they don’t detract from the character of the synth and how I’d use it in a mix... and maybe I just didn’t notice the differences!!! :)
Nice comparison! 2 cents. I just had 2 tabs open one with "Peahix Yazoo - DON'T GO" and the other with the start of this comparison. I toggled between the two tabs ... Pro one analog sounded slightly more "full" ,,, however closing my eyes ... I think it would still be "good enough" if it was used on a production record :-)
Nice one.. I've just done the same myself. Peahix is a bit louder and sounds more produced - mine has no FX and took minutes, so could probably sound better given more time, but they're really quite close. Thanks for the comment.
Interesting. I listened on some decent speakers ( Cambridge Audio with a sub speaker ) and indeed there are points where they are so similar but at the points when they differed I think that the original Pro-One always sounded better regardless of it`s age. In the end though another cracking U-He softsynth and the included FX seem very useful
Nice review! They do indeed sound very close. But still for me the real analog machine has just a little bit more 'character'. Probably because it's less precise. The Repro-1 does however seem like a very useful plug-in. Is the Repro-1 also just a monophonic synth like the Pro one, or does it also allow for polyphonic playing?
Yes you can hear the difference sure. I wonder if the Repro's oscillators aren't tuned a little too close together though? I don't hear that kind of chorusing from Repro that you typically get when you detune oscillators. I hear on the Pro One but not the Repro at the aforementioned point in time. I can't help and wonder if detuning the oscillators against each other some more would alleviate the problem somewhat or all the way?
kixxalot yes, there are differences. They are literally right next to each other. Other than synth nerds, who could hear a difference? Which music fan is going to be able to tell? Not one. I love HW too. It is getting harder and harder to justify though. I don't own a Pro-1, and I'm not ever going buy one because Repro-1 exists. Its not perfect, and it never will be, but in a mix, nobody can tell. The Swan guy who did the OB-8 vs Diva, blind. The results were 50/50. That means, that regardless of what people say, "Oh you can totally hear at this part.....", that NOBODY could tell. Data doesn't lie. Those who guessed correct were experiencing confirmation bias.
I’m not to worry about Repro being a exact emulation because the person listening 👂 to these sounds in a track won’t be complaining it’s coming from a soft-synth. Plus, hardware is flawed by cost, size, design and repair maintenance cost. On the flip side, soft-synths being software developments can be advanced with updates and additional sound designer expansion preset banks. There’s also no limit on controller hardware.
Not a chance!! :) Repro is great but I do love my hardware, there’s something extra special about hands on playing an old synth that software can never replicate (even if it sounds exactly the same). I think it’s the adrenaline rush you get worrying that it’s going to break at any moment ;)
Any issues with the an older synth will cost you an easy $270.00 minimum and keep your synth in the shop for two weeks. So make sure you can afford TWO of them. Otherwise the software will sound just fine . And the AUTOMATION means you will get sounds that the Pro ONE hardware simply won't get.
Yes, I still have the tempest, but only use it occasionally. If you're struggling making sounds this is an excellent website, with a breakdown of how to create a huge range of tones. stimresp.wordpress.com/tempest-recipes/
Daft Moonz I appreciate what you’re saying. I get quite a few comments about HQ mode and 192kHz but the point here is - does it sound l similar to the HW in my workflow? I wouldn’t normally record a track at 192 kHz- 48 kHz is fine for me and my ageing Mac Pro. How many folks are willing to alter the way they record tracks, and substantially reduce the available tracks/fx available in the box to accommodate the software? Hence, playing it within my normal parameters makes sense to me. I admit it could potentially be closer to the HE with the higher sampling freq etc... but I wanted to show how close it was when used within most peoples standard working conditions and practises. ie how it fits ‘as is’.
For the life of me I don't understand why the Repro has overshoot oscillation on the waveforms with open filter and no res. Hahahaha. It just feeds the trolls below. Anyway, you just back the cutoff a smidge or set the tweak to 'poly'
Every VST and Hardware comparison should be done with this level of detail. Great video!
Yea... This is a truly fantastic comparison! It's hard to really understand how complete these emulations are of the classic but this video pretty much sums up the love that is put into this software and how the cost can be justified upon purchase of such vsts. I am completely blown away, and so greatful that this man can work his analog machines with such precision. They are so very sensitive and complex which makes everything done is this video so much more difficult. Amazing
I agree. He has also a comparison between some of the Rolandcloud stuff I believe. Really nice demo and very educational. Digital is getting close. I just always seem to hear a little more bottom-end in the hardware. But with some EQ this can be fixed.
I second that !!
Also on minute 7:03 he finishes with the last note on the keyboard and when he does comoare to the U-He counterpart I can hear that the only difference is that the original Pro-One has a bit of phasing kind of chorusing between both oscillators !
That is just a preset programmer error !!
It is i believe an easy thing to add on the VST emulation !
Anyone notice this ?
Please do as many comparisons you can !!
GREAT JOB !!
i know it's quite randomly asking but do anybody know a good site to watch newly released tv shows online ?
@Harvey Caiden I use flixzone. Just google for it :)
I was a keyboard player turned bassist because I loved bass so much back in the late 60's and 70's forward. But around 75 our group lost it's keyboard player and I decided to start playing keys with the right hand and keyboard bass with the left. The band had an Arp and a wurlitzer electric piano and they were beautiful together. I did it that way until one day around 81 or so I was in the music store and there was this pro 1 new for about 500 bucks. I sort of chuckled to myself because synths weren't terribly cheap back then but I played it for a minute and my jaw dropped. Monophonic is all you need for bass and it just sounded unbelievable. I took it home with me that day and loved it for years. Best bass synth ever. Time rocked on and I later became a solo artists using all the instruments I had learnd to play and sort of left "electronica" behind since I was more country/bluegrass, but I never forgot that sound. Yesterday I downloaded this Uhe trial version and once again, I am blown away. Not only how good the pluggin sounds, but the nice little added features this one has. I will be buying the serial number lol! Hard to believe this is software. And you get the Pro 5 in the package as well. Spent a few hours with it last night going thru sounds and re-acquainting myself with the interface. A dream come true. There might be some "experimental" music in my future lol! Uhe did an awesome job with this, but then, all their synths are from another planet, even the free ones.
I’m absolutely in love with U-He’s software. I feel like Diva kind of blew the door open and we started getting some really excellent emulations of classic synths available. I love hardware. If I wasn’t in a tiny LA apartment on a budget I’d still want hardware just for the tactile experience they give to sound design. But alas, I’m making music in 2020 on a laptop that 20 years ago, would’ve taken a huge studio and tens of thousands or dollars worth of hardware to produce. Blessed we are!!
The rippled edges on the Pro-One are both on upper and lower end (symmetric), but on Repro-1 they are only on the lower end. That is because Repro-1 is oversampled a fair bit at 44.1/48kHz, which creates a tad of phase shift above, say, 6kHz. Hence the ripples in Repro-1 are slightly shifted. You can reduce this shift vastly by recording at 192kHz.
Why dont use some lowpass conditioned oscillators before the filter?
At low sample rates (44.1/48kHz) the oscillator signal reaching the filter is cut off at 22.05/24kHz. The filter then needs to be oversampled 4x or 8x (depending on quality mode). This creates the phase shift. The frequency content of the oscillator beyond 22.05/24kHz has no influence on the ripples when in the end, at some point in the chain, the synth has to be downsampled to 44.1/48kHz
Please check out the freqencies at 10khz! 4:39 IQ analyser 2 can calibrate the freq response slope, or the voxengo span to see the osc on lower level, how steep lowpassed on 10khz on the real one! This is very overal problem on a digital world. Sound engineers have to lowpass everything on 6-10khz to make good quality music. The real one need less eq-ing because of that. I dont think it depends on oversampling. It depends on the oscillator false preconception about quality. The real world quality is band limited to the speakers and to the organic ears..and to make headroom for other sounds, and room space, reverbs
I don't think Urs will comment on your last response because it's a nonsense. Also you are asking him nonsense (why don't he use lowpass conditioned oscillators...come on). I am enjoying your comments and overall you are spreading nonsense. I have worked with many analog and hybrid studios. I have friends running studios worldwide. None of the engineers lowpass their digital creations at 6-10khz to make good quality music. None! My friend from Switzerland produced album for Prince practically digitally-mixed itb with plugins. I can't remember he lowpassed content at 6-10khz.Haha.
You would think one would already hear for such trick in common real practical world. None of the famous engineers in interview in any magazine ever said something like it. Actually first time hearing this. Wait...is it a top secret shared among audiophiles? That could explain it.
I would love to see people like you to do blind test and go home crying when they realize their superior hearing (when looking at both sources) actually is vastly inferior and can't detect or AB music or instruments when they are not looking at sources.
I dont care shit music like Prince got. Especially ITB new mixes. There was a few on the 90ies. I am listening originals with audiophiles, like Yello - Ocean Club, or Michael Jackson - Dangerous, or Massive Attack - Mezzanine and 100th window, Prodigy - Fat of the land, Fluke Risotto, Northern Explosure. And check them with a good analyser. I know what i talking about. Maybe non of your friends talking about because it is so evident! There is low pass filters on the mastering grade stuff too. So dont come up with that. I have vintage synths Arp Odyssey MK I, Yamaha CS 15, and etc. Those are indeed different and satureate different. The digital world will be allways simplier then the real. It is like compare the Barbie doll to a real woman.
This review really needed to be done, thanks for doing such a bang up job.
I'd forgotten how real the Repro-1 sounded and reinstalled after months of using modular gear. I mean, wow, this synth is really top notch. Thanks for this amazing review, really well done 🙏🏼
Cheers… it’s such a good plugin, and with the Repro 5 as well now it’s great.
all your video comparisons have been indispensable
I think you're the first to make a video comparing the Pro-One to U-He's RePro-One. I remember looking for video comparing these two a few months ago, I didn't find anything. Thanks for doing the video!
Great content as usual man - well done. You're getting very real time with all these releases - serious review channel :)
Excellent comparison Starsky! Gonna have to get this Repro-1!
Great comparison! And it's quite impressive how well Repro emulates the real thing. Sure there are slight differences here and there, but it's really neglible.
To my ears the difference is huge
Just recently been turned on to your channel. Love these comparisons, also really liked the one comparing the Behringer unit to the real pro one. Cheers mate, great content keep it up!
very, VERY impressive indeed! Wunderbar Urs!
Love your videos. This one was fantastic.
Super impressed by this. The square wasn’t quite as vibrant, but honestly it’s quite amazing how accurate it is.
This is what I call a brilliant review! I could feel that Repro-1 sounds great but it's really nice to hear the comparison to the original.
Thanks, appreciate the comment
Super classy comparison and review. The repro is incredible especially for the price. I wouldn't sell the Pro One though, it that extra something to my ears..
great thorough comparison..another great video.
Your reviews are effing brilliant. I like that you're just chilled and not pushing crap about your channel down our throats.. also please do the system 8 if you get a chance. I wanna know how it compares to the juno 106
I totally agree with the lacenty! it can be a bummer.. but it also happens with my midi/hardware gear when run through vst effects and so on so its just an all round problem, but it really can change what ideas you choose as some fast stuff just does not sound right when playing around, so you just gave me a reminder to perhaps freeze some tracks sometimes and be mindful of what it does to my playing and idea picking.
I find I’m playing and recording live with tweaks more and more. I feel it gives more natural sounding and fluid results.
Great review. I like your style of analysing the sound.
Square wave often seems to differ, due to the PW being slightly off/different on the analog synth. Emulations often have a pure square wave, while the analog synth often has slightly PWM'd square.
These comparisons... stunning mate. Very well prepared and thought out. Entertaining somehow. Some feat.
I love that you're still getting "yeh but analogue is warmer maang" comments. Funny stuff.
Haha ‘entertaining somehow’. Now there’s the foundation of an introspective psychoanalysis if ever there was one !!! How on earth can this level of geekiness be entertaining .... ?! Only those who truly understand can ever see the light...
I don't watch TV anymore: Acreil, Rick Beato, Adam Nealy or yourself. Music nerds are finally well catered for ;-) Cheers!
Pro One was my first ever synth! Wish I still had it.
wow the saw+square together sound so close! Really really good video as well, kudos!
The Repro-1 is great! I think the real thing has that little extra sizzle, but it's extremely close. The Jawz waveshaper is probably my favorite thing about the Repro-1, it can radically change the sound. Great comparison.
On the filter sweep w high res (around 12:08 ) you hear plenty of that sweeping "up into the stratosphere" high end on BOTH. And the software resonance can do that "talking growl" thing just fine.
@@shaft9000 I won't disagree with the mushing up sound as you stated. I will only say that at 13:17 we can clearly hear the musical nature of the harmonics moving up and down "3rd - 5th- Tonic - 3rd" up and then down "Tonic- 3rd- 5th". To my ears that sounds "musical" and of use as a good piece of software. And 20 years ago I did own two Pro-Ones [both with J-wires key contacts] and yes they had the "mushroom" litho'd on the circuit boards. But I found the Pro-One sound too "hard" and I much preferred the MKS-80 ver 4.
I can hear a difference on my iPhone mini. Sure, in a mix, even the greatest ears probably couldn’t. Nice job 👏
Regarding Modulation ranges: They vary a lot between two individual Pro-Ones. Much of it depends on resistors that have 5% variation - and extremely cheap pots. So a couple of tens of those make each Pro-One rather unique. The Pots, after 35 years, anyway. Many on ours seem to have their effective range from 3-8, with 1-3 and 8-10 doing nothing anymore. For Repro-1 we however made sure that each setting is still doing something :-)
Thanks for the comments, very helpful. Congratulations on such great programming and vision. As you might be able to tell from the demo, I think its a fabulous recreation plus the non-standard FX section is inspired.
My P1 pot on osc A does nothing over 8, so balancing them correctly on the Repro makes good sense - a bit like recalibration. If you emulated a single 35 yr old instrument I'm certain most folks would think it was broken - probably because most are in some way!
Urs, I'm a big fan. I own the Bazille and think it's just absolutely incredible. I'm also struck by the fact that you would make synths that are so unique (Bazille, Diva, Hive, ect) and then make a synth that is so faithful -- usually those ideas would come out of two different minds.
What did you learn from this process and how will that inform what you do next?
Thanks James! Well, there's are many reasons to do Repro-1. For Diva we've mostly looked at poly synths that share common concepts. It was possible to more or less cover the grounds of ten vintage synths (including a few mono ones) in one larger concept, all with consistent parameter and modulation ranges. However, adding the concept of the Pro-One or any similarly complex mono synth to Diva would not have done it justice. The parameter and modulation ranges of the Pro-One are simply too extreme. So while Diva was always about "the beauty of analogue sound", Repro-1 is about "raw analogue power".
The most important thing we learned was that I shared a lot of knowledge with the new developers in our team. This will hopefully speed up future product development. But we also learned a lot more about analogue modelling, which we hope to use to improve our existing plug-ins.
Certainly a very impressive recreation, but the Pro-One sounds better to me, phatter and more organic. That being said, running the Repro through some saturation/distortion could get it to a much better/closer place.
Hehehe, sorry, but never judge a synth by a RUclips video alone. Try it. There are more means to go "phatter and more organic" than the video shows, such as more instable oscillator modes, differently driving filter circuits and pretty good effects.
It's incredible work by Urs, sometimes the Pro-One sounds denser, but at 4:37 we do see extra harmonics. If that's second order harmonics then we could simply add a touch of them cleanly via a plugin like FieldingDSP Reviver. That might help even though it's not passing through the synth's audio path.
Also, at 7:06 you can visibily see the phasing on the frequency graph as the oscillators drift slightly on the Pro-One. Repro doesn't do that in that example, but i think you can tweak it.
Wow - how amazing is the analogue waveform. Mr Heckmann and co must be kicking themselves they did (could?) not get that buzz from the tips of the signal change
U he, Repro 1, is a fantastic emulation of the synthesizer you can make incredible musical themes of retro style
Please do a Repro-5 vs a prophet video!!!!
Better yet Repro 5 vs Prophet V vs Prophet 5.
Hope that you will update this as the Behringer Pro-1 will be released soon.
Mines on order :)
4:40 - my guess that these harmonics are due to the real operational amplifiers in Pro-1 that has their own distortion characteristics/graphs. www.synthfool.com/docs/SequentialCircuits/Pro_One/SCI_Pro1-schematics.pdf the 2nd page shows that after 3340 it has one TL082 and the same after the 3320 (filter). After VCA (3280 small triangle, right top corner) it has JRC (not sure, NJM? depends on the production date maybe) 5532 which (most likely probably) gives even more distortion in some cases.
As I've heard about 5532 op.amps - they're not very stable but it's more noticeable if you're using it in an exponential converter circuit (it's in any 1v/octave descrete oscillator). Old synths did used transistors and my guess it's the reason why Moog old synths are so "fuzzy" in clear oscillator listening.
In my own short experience JRC5532 is worse than OPA2134 in terms of clearness and stability.
Probably if you'll exchange 5532 in your real Pro-1 for any similar but modern op.amp then you'll "get rid of" this cool "growl" in plain waves. Actually it can be done, just need to check all specs carefully and not mess up with static sh*t. OTA amplifiers (which is 3280 here) are very sensitive to voltage spikes. I can be paranoid but you'll be hard to find a replacement for 3280 (or it will be expensive). I've killed one LM13700 with an accidental shortcircuiting it (on a solderless breadboard). It wasn't a static "kill" but who knows... It has even no a minimal protection (unlike many cheaper usual operational amplifiers).
In the conclusion: it's almost impossible to emulate/simulate every component in the circuit like different op.amps, because they has own graphs. And of course these graphs from datasheets are quite rough. RePro-1 has pretty flat square sound. Actually I was surprised that they've didn't faked any distortion there... It could help.
The Plugin must be set in HQ mode ! !
btw yeah!
HQ & 192khz...nobody should test a plug without the highest possible settings...
I hear the difference @8:42 It's pretty obvious, the repro sounds way flatter on the lower and higher registers.
One thing that seems to always be the biggest difference in these soft synth vs hardware is the actual "attack" or "onset" of the oscillator. The hardware is almost always "softer" in how the oscillator is triggered.. whereas the soft synths always seem to have a slight "tick" or "clicky" start.
Great the one-to-one comparison, but did anyone of you checked how this VST works in a mix with other, especially analog instruments or guitars, vocals etc..?
Wow, what a well done comparison you've made there! Were you hired by U-he to do this? This is the best advertisement possible. It also proves that software synthesizers can be just as good as hardware ones. What a nice space saver that is!
As always, great video. I guess you can enable a bit of Jaws to squeeze some extra harmonics from repro, anyway I wish to see a comparison with HQ enabled on repro. Also repro has different settings in tweaks panel like different oscillators. I think default square wave isn't the "P1" or "P5" neither.
Such a cool video. Thank you. I love Repro-1.
Great recreation of the Yazoo song ... and great comparison!
Great video
Quite a few of the differences you hear are due to the settings being different, for example the LFO sweeps of the filter around 14 minute mark, he needed to raise the filter cutoff level on RePro1 a bit higher. Really U-He did a stellar job with this synth. Also Starsky in future, might wanna have HQ enabled in RePro1 and also try out the alternative oscillator types in the tweaks section, change from Clean to P1 and P5 :)
Yeah - each of these videos takes a few takes to distill into the final version... I'd originally used the P1 oscillators, but on the final take forgot to switch it before starting. The sounds are so similar that I never realised until the end when I showed the options. If I didn't notice I figured the Repro-1 was close enough on that setting - then the demo was sufficient to show how close they are (and it is!) plus I couldn't face another take.
I think its worth uploading a short video showing the differences in HQ mode and the P1 settings, as you're not the first to mention this.
I literally couldn't even fucking tell the difference. Anyone who says they could pick it out in a blind test is lying to you.
@Soulless Gemini
Yet still the Homeopathic super beings below argue the same old bullshit (Warmer, punchier, crisper ...) even though the scope show no difference.
I wonder how much the age on components in the filter, the output circuit and the recordsing interface have on the high end of the pro 1. It definately does sound less bright than the Repro. Also the tuning is a little different you can see more movement in the pro 1 and it does sound nicer in that aspect (less phasing more chorusing effect) but this plugin has a similar flavour and seems kind of close for a plugin. That said it just makes me want a pro - one.
Also as said in below comments the repro-1 has different osc and filter modes and chaing the oscillators to P1 and the filter to Rounded may have matched the frequency response closer. As awesome as DIVA, ACE and BAZILLE are its nice having something that is less of a general types of synths and more of a classic recreation. If only I hadnt spend money on guitars and a new midi controller.
GREAT comparison, thanks!
I can hear clear difference in my studio monitors. They do sound really similar though. In a track with only one of them, I probably would not be able to tell which one was used, but now when I hear them side by side, I can hear a difference. Not a huge one, but it's clear. I love the sound of both. But the hardware is a tiny bit more crispy on some sounds and muddy on others in a charming way.
Again, just one, and I probably could not tell if it was Repro 1 or Pro 1, but side by side, I can tell. And that means u-he did a great job on emulating the sound.
I use a lot of software because they are handy and you can have many in a small space.
Hardware still wins in my book though.
My ADHD loves buttons and knobs, and also Hardware keeps value and if you treat it, it will work for decades. Software can die with a driver update or discontinueation if the servers that manage licenses shut down. But then fans can revive them.
They're two different worlds with their own pros and cons, and you don't need to stick to one. It's fine to use a Software and a Hardware in a track.
Just make sure you make the track what you want it to be, feel how you want it to feel, and express yourself.
Top notch review
Good review.
All I need is for somebody to program "Yazoo & Depeche Mode" patches:-)
....I'm impressed with the comparisons, your always gonna have a slighty brighter tone on the VST unless you send it through a tape emulation plug in ..still it's a darrn good demonstration
As say by Vince Clarke, the Pro One have an extremely fast envelopes, that can make very percusive bass and pluck sounds. Repro can't get these super-fast decay and sound a little tinier. Pro One are the king for synthpop ala Clarke style. Thanks for your extensive deep comparison.
Thanks for a great review. My Pro One has the membrane switch keybed- has never been one hundred percent in the 30+ years I have owned it. This looks like the first soft-synth that I might use. I especially liked being ably to go under the cover and tweek the oscillators and filter. Do any of the trim pots allow purposeful detuning or scale manipulation? Thanks for all the work that went into this!
I have a few vintage analog pieces, some modern analog as well. I also have plenty of software. I use everything. We are so spoiled.
Are there differences? Sure. I can hear it because I'm a synth dork. In a blind test though, could I? I'm not so sure, not always.
Not to mention, these are dry sounds. I was blown away by my vintage analog bs software (Diva) recordings when they were run through or into the same fx. The negligible difference was gone. Add into that some console emulation plugins, a tad of sat/distortion, and its really just down to whether you can't tolerate programming a patch on the computer. I don't mind. I learned and fell in love on software, and then moved into hardware. My synth collection is dwindling. Uhe is probably the biggest reason.
If you can't make good music with Diva, Repro, Monark, and Dexed......then you're not doing shit with HW either are you?
+Kevin Harris I completely agree. There's something to be said for the hands on experience of hardware, but if you can't make your music sound good with the vast array of high quality software tools available then you can't make your music sound good. If you're relying on a particular peculiarity of an old analog bit of kit then you're very limited in your artistic abilities. Hardware is fantastic, but music is music.
Amigo, the last sentence you said is everything. It's all about having good tools to record killer hooks and melodies. And not nerdy percents and graphs. I'm just crazy for good soft-synths and own just about everything, but have written my best stuff on a 1986 37-key Casio 😊 Cheers!
So very true. They're *all* just tools for us to create music with. The people who are hung up on these details aren't musicians, they're collectors.
I can hear i slight high end on the real pro one triangle. Where as repro seems to have a lower noise floor, ...well thats the beauty of vst i guess. Apart from that so so close .
I'm really surprised to hear you say that. The day I'm the guy with the best hearing in the room is a dark day for sound and music, lol.
Sounds close enough to my ears
That plugin is pretty incredible. As usual, the chorusing oscillators on the hardware crush the digital, analog phasing is just sweeter to my ears and stays thick on the low end. Don't get me started on the texture of the filters. You gotta pay dearly for that kind of difference, but the way it lets the hardware sit inside, or cut thru, a mix is priceless to me.
Gregory, I'm just getting to that point where I have to admit, some things, and usually the crushingly expensive things, just sound better. And when you add up a bunch of things that each sound better, you end up with a finished product that sound much much better.
That working with emulations etc. are just never going to get ME where I want to be with my sound. It's a sad day, but good I guess, in that my means (theoretically) are more aligned with my ends, and that is what I have to work on.
Would love to see a video comparing the Prophet 5 or 6 to the U-he Repro 5!
uhe is one of the best and I think this repro 1/5 combo is their best.
Staring at 12:00, the filter emulation behavior is all wrong with high resonance (compared to the original). The filter cutoff frequency momentarily locks onto the harmonics of the oscillator instead of simply smoothly amplifying it as its cutoff frequency is shifted up. There is no locking of the filter on the original. That's the most difficult thing to emulate properly on a VA, the filters. And it's almost impossible to get it perfectly right because mathematics and calculations alone cannot render such evolving complex analog electronic behavior, with all the unpredictable variations induced by a myriad of factors. From circuit noise, to variations in power supply rails, to varying gains of op amps due to temperature, to tolerances in electronic components, etc etc etc.
That's why a real analog synth will always sound better than any VA (provided that it is in good shape of course). Our ears don't enjoy mathematical precision, they enjoy unpredictable analog variations.
I just noticed, you are not using HQ, does that make up for the difference in the PWM variations? I seem to hear it on mine when the HQ is engaged.
Could be but I think the HQ mode is more for FM - I maybe should've demo'd this but thought it was close enough. It's probably got more to do with me not matching it up precisely. I'm sure if I spent then time they'd match identically.
I was concerned about this. Is HQ just an oversampling button? Honestly, I can rarely hear when a vst is oversampling or not! But I was worried that the HQ button was preventing the RePro from sounding as good as it can. But just oversampling stasis probably isn't going to bring life to the lifeless.
Character is no where near the same the hardware really showing how much more fuller it is imo
Nice video, thank you for this comparison.
U-he has produced another great sounding vst. However I did hear remarkable differences in sound, Im not sure if its due to harmonic distortion of the hardware unit but I could easily hear that the hardware unit has so much more punch and solid sound characteristics whereas Repro-1 sounded much hazier in the top end and bottom also sounds not as rich and direct as the hardware version. I could hear this from the first sawtooth comparison and it got much obvious in square wave and other combinations you tried. Nevertheless Repro-1 captures the essence and color of Pro One very very good. But its still like a high quality photocopy of a great painting. I m sure Repro Pro-1 with get a lot of use.
Totally true
What a load of shit.
Do you think you can post a video trying to recreate the UHE "Yazoo" Kick and Snare sound and also the Bass on the real SCI Pro One ?
The saw and triangle are amazing! Did you ask Urs about the square because it seems unusual he would make those so perfect and a different square. No wonder its such a massive CPU hog. I heard a really big difference in the high end riff at 8.15 but other than that it seems spot on.
I've not asked about the differences in the pulse. I originally though that maybe my osc A was misbehaving, but osc B is the same. It's most likely due to model revisions, different parts etc.
Interesting to see you start to software vs hardware comparisons. It inspired to to have a bash on repro again last night. Do you have U-He Diva or GForce Minimonsta? I'd be really interested in a video that compared to your D Reissue to that.
Haha I have Diva and the Arturia collection. Could be interesting to do a 3-way with Diva, MiniV and the Model D. Then there's the iPad version.... don't hold your breath though, it sounds like a right pain to put together :)
Starsky Carr A mini orgy! Sounds like a treat!
I just erased all other analogue emulations from my hard drive. Why use anything else when you can just have this? I mostly use softsynths for mapping out my arrangements and replace them with analogue synths when things get real. With the Repro I might just leave the "demo" tracks in. Impressive really. I don't mind if it fully recreates the sound of the hardware, it's just that if gives me the feel of playing an instrument, rather than listening to a flat emulation.
Well, its very processor heavy
It would made more sense if REPRO-1 was operating in HQ mode. There will still be (even less) differences with close to residual impact on the overall audible sound because, let's face it, digital algorithms can't emulate with 100% precision an analogue voltage driven circuit board. This is the same reason why none of the Pro One and every other analogue synth will sound exactly like the same. There's stuff like signal to noise ratio that can be emulated only to a certain point. Having a random parameter function getting random given values from a max and min value interval (noise) can probably get you pretty close to that effect but it won't be the same thing. There are certainly more "tricks" to be deployed in this department that I'm not aware of.
Any Joe can come up with a synth of his own these days. But coming up with a synth that sounds as good as Repro-1 is a whole different story.
People often fail to realize how magic this is. We're living in an era where for 99 bucks you can get the sound character of a Sequential Circuits synth that you would never get from less than 1400$ US and I've seen this very same synth in mint condition going up to 3800$ US
Can't wait to try the REPRO-5.
Both sound incredibly similar, until you start messing with the filter. If you really listen to the character of the filter you can hear where the real deal sounds a bit nicer IMO.
Im the only person who doesn't know this - may I ask wha the blue GUI oscilloscope app is? I have the Smartelectronix ver.
Station 2Station Lol it's Logic's standard EQ. There's an 'Analyser' button in the bottom left that brings up the live frequencies.
Ahh. Logic. Thank you. I wish Apple would redesign the GUI to reduce the screen real-estate. The shuttle controls are huge. I may start using it again if they did that.
Nice video, thank you :D I own the Pro One along with many analogue keyboards and I would never sell them ever..
Its not about selling, its just for those that dont have them. But Behringer fucks are now here.
The repro one is worth getting for It's internal sequencer alone. I just wish it had midi out.
Well you sold me, turned my Repro-5 beta trial into a full fat purchase thanks to Repro-1s wonder :D
Now we have quite inexpensive Ryzens that runs RePro very quickly! :) With such amazing additions like it's wavefolder and other "plugins" I can easily forget that it's the emulation. And you'll def. will not recognise it in a track.
On my 3600 I can run about 12-15 instances of Repro-1, so cool :)
So if I have U-he Repro-1, then I don't need Behringer Pro-1 ?
IMO, no unless you want the tactile control or do live
Thanks for this nice video!!
Its a real close call in some cases which really wowed me to be honest & obviously the Repro-1 is really bang for buck... but the Pro-one for me is just another level in fatness & especially in lower notes the Pro-one sounds so much warmer, it just hugs you... that's the pleasure of all that analogue inconsistency goodness...There's just something magical going on there but in saying that U-he did a stellar job with it if I may say but the Pro-one takes it home for me hands down...Awesome A/B comparison! 👌
So he did great work but the hw.its.warmer haha ..The hw sounds different but they are both useful in the same way u can make great hits with both
You can't really hear higher FQs, do you?
That analog Pro -One sounds very, very nice!
blahtalk indeed my friend
Great video - any chance of a Repro 5 versus Arturia Pro V shoot-out when you get the chance?
Very impressive. I'm just about to buy this from u-he with doubt. Since I saw your video I'm sure the re-pro 1 is the good choice. But before could you send me the patches you use for Don't Go from Yazoo ? this will totaly conveince me to buy it. Thanks in advance and I will follow you
Glad you liked it. I don’t have the patches written down anywhere but there is a video showing very similar ones here:
ruclips.net/video/XR4YvCN7r8E/видео.html
Thanks for your answer. I already tested it => no success with Repro-1. According to my reasearch Vince has mixed pro-one with his favourite synth at the time: Roland Juno/Jupiter (or stuff like that produce supersaw).
To think I sold my Pro-One for the polyphonic delights of a Roland JX-3P back in 1984. I think it used to belong to Klaus Schultz too (at least his name was on the box). But would I swap it for saving patches and other goodies? I'm not an analogue purist, so probably not. Such is progress.
+Jeff Black what did you think of the JX? oddly enough I'm currently browsing for the JX-03... browsing not buying at the mo. Picked up the Boutique VP-03 vocoder this week and I'm impressed. Another move forward for non purists ?!?
You have to put these things in the context of the time. The Pro-One was a pauper's Prophet and the JX-3P had no knobs - you had to buy a separate programmer. But as I said, it was polyphonic with memories, which seemed a big step up at the time. I used to get some good sounds out of it and midied it (another new development) to a DX7 for digital attack with analogue warmth. Having lived through it, I don't get misty-eyed about analogue like some. I want the sounds of now, not 1983.
There is a lot more PWM in the real one. Assuming this is due to age, and can be tweaked with via trimpot? Although I always find this in VST is the there is a little less sizzle in PWM which really the main thing that Analogue junkies seem to be attracted to. Surely this would be easy to program in a slight drift?
My pots are a bit knackered- so the pulse width goes into zero width quite early at around 8 (out of 10) - leaving a lot of turning where the knob is effectively doing nothing. I think the software has an idealised pot calibration - ie not a 30 year old one.
u-he released Repro5 beta , can you make pro 5 vs repro 5
I personally can hear the difference between most of the notes being played. The pro one has a richer, pleasant sound compared to repo1. I can listen to the pro one at longer durations and at a higher volume while when hearing repo 1 I lowered the volume because of the more harsh qualities present.I’m just using some apple earphones. Just my observation. I think this is an issue with most Vst’s.
I applaud Urs Heckmann for this work, yet I still would prefer the aging original, especially because in the emulation the sound after the initial attack is "settling" so quick, getting sterile, while it seems in the original there is some longer pleasant fluctuation or ringing movement as if trying to cope with the onslaught of the attack.
impressively close.U-he makes some of the he best analog models for vsts
Awesome! You're great!
Really excellent analysis with a lot of work going into it.
However, I am a little concerned about some of the sound comparisons. For example at 16:15, you mention no real difference between the two, but the hardware Pro One clearly has some more punch on the lower end, the emulation sounds thinner in comparison. If you say small difference that's OK, but NO difference at all? I don't agree there.
+Aofex thanks for watching - glad you liked it... and yeah they take a while to put together - which is why I don’t pump them out weekly.
To answer your concerns, a lot depends on monitoring. I noticed this with my Minimoog comparison where different monitors and headphones sometimes gave me completely different results.
Also, when I’m doing these comparisons or using the the synths my ears are focussing on the character of the sounds and how they react when changing the filter etc - ie the ‘feel’ of the synths. Does it feel like the Pro-One or not.... Yes there may be differences if forensically examining each sound (I don’t really have the mental capacity to do everything when doing these live!!) but not necessarily anything that would change my opinion when writing a track. Does the softsynth give me the same sort of sounds and fit in the same space as the real deal etc. ?
So I’m not always concentrating on the absolutes and every aspect of the EQ etc. There may well be differences (I expect there are) but nothing that takes away from how I’m using the synth and how it fits in the mix or if I should use another synth/filter etc.
That’s was quite a ramble ;) - to summarise ... You’re quite right - there may be differences in the sounds I’ve not noticed when recording this but maybe they don’t detract from the character of the synth and how I’d use it in a mix... and maybe I just didn’t notice the differences!!! :)
Nice comparison! 2 cents. I just had 2 tabs open one with "Peahix Yazoo - DON'T GO" and the other with the start of this comparison. I toggled between the two tabs ... Pro one analog sounded slightly more "full" ,,, however closing my eyes ... I think it would still be "good enough" if it was used on a production record :-)
Nice one.. I've just done the same myself. Peahix is a bit louder and sounds more produced - mine has no FX and took minutes, so could probably sound better given more time, but they're really quite close. Thanks for the comment.
Interesting. I listened on some decent speakers ( Cambridge Audio with a sub speaker ) and indeed there are points where they are so similar but at the points when they differed I think that the original Pro-One always sounded better regardless of it`s age. In the end though another cracking U-He softsynth and the included FX seem very useful
As of today we have 33 Pro-1 users that "dislike" this vid ..hahahahahahaha! As usual Starsky! Great job!
Nice review! They do indeed sound very close. But still for me the real analog machine has just a little bit more 'character'. Probably because it's less precise. The Repro-1 does however seem like a very useful plug-in. Is the Repro-1 also just a monophonic synth like the Pro one, or does it also allow for polyphonic playing?
Repro-1 is mono, but a Repro-5 poly version is being worked on. Free update for Repro-1 owners IIRC.
Ah O.k. Cool! The Repro-5 would basically be a Prophet 5 then?
I think so, yeah.
Seriously? You can't hear the super obvious difference around 8:55?
Yes you can hear the difference sure. I wonder if the Repro's oscillators aren't tuned a little too close together though? I don't hear that kind of chorusing from Repro that you typically get when you detune oscillators. I hear on the Pro One but not the Repro at the aforementioned point in time. I can't help and wonder if detuning the oscillators against each other some more would alleviate the problem somewhat or all the way?
kixxalot yes, there are differences. They are literally right next to each other. Other than synth nerds, who could hear a difference? Which music fan is going to be able to tell? Not one.
I love HW too. It is getting harder and harder to justify though. I don't own a Pro-1, and I'm not ever going buy one because Repro-1 exists.
Its not perfect, and it never will be, but in a mix, nobody can tell.
The Swan guy who did the OB-8 vs Diva, blind. The results were 50/50. That means, that regardless of what people say, "Oh you can totally hear at this part.....", that NOBODY could tell. Data doesn't lie. Those who guessed correct were experiencing confirmation bias.
Repro is a sick animal of a plugin 😜
I’m not to worry about Repro being a exact emulation because the person listening 👂 to these sounds in a track won’t be complaining it’s coming from a soft-synth. Plus, hardware is flawed by cost, size, design and repair maintenance cost. On the flip side, soft-synths being software developments can be advanced with updates and additional sound designer expansion preset banks. There’s also no limit on controller hardware.
i am intresting to know if u sold your pro-1
Not a chance!! :) Repro is great but I do love my hardware, there’s something extra special about hands on playing an old synth that software can never replicate (even if it sounds exactly the same). I think it’s the adrenaline rush you get worrying that it’s going to break at any moment ;)
Any issues with the an older synth will cost you an easy $270.00 minimum and keep your synth in the shop for two weeks. So make sure you can afford TWO of them. Otherwise the software will sound just fine . And the AUTOMATION means you will get sounds that the Pro ONE hardware simply won't get.
Good to know this exist . Thanks . Do you still have / use your Tempest by the way ? :)
Yes, I still have the tempest, but only use it occasionally. If you're struggling making sounds this is an excellent website, with a breakdown of how to create a huge range of tones.
stimresp.wordpress.com/tempest-recipes/
Thanks.
u-HE says you got to run your DAW at 192khz and set Repro to HQ mode to get it 99% like the Prophet 5.
Daft Moonz I appreciate what you’re saying. I get quite a few comments about HQ mode and 192kHz but the point here is - does it sound l similar to the HW in my workflow? I wouldn’t normally record a track at 192 kHz- 48 kHz is fine for me and my ageing Mac Pro. How many folks are willing to alter the way they record tracks, and substantially reduce the available tracks/fx available in the box to accommodate the software? Hence, playing it within my normal parameters makes sense to me. I admit it could potentially be closer to the HE with the higher sampling freq etc... but I wanted to show how close it was when used within most peoples standard working conditions and practises. ie how it fits ‘as is’.
For the life of me I don't understand why the Repro has overshoot oscillation on the waveforms with open filter and no res. Hahahaha.
It just feeds the trolls below.
Anyway, you just back the cutoff a smidge or set the tweak to 'poly'