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Originally Posted by
bebo
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When talking about Prophet 5 Rev 3 and Jupiter 8, what about Oberheim Xpander? Isn't Oberheim the next big thing besides Prophets and Jupiters? They are a little cheaper but rare, too.
Do I understand it correctly. If Prophet 5 then I should look for a Rev 2? Especially for pads?
Is there something I should know about the Jupiter 8. Aren't there two versions? 12 bit vs 14 bit and DCB or not DCB? Which one would you prefere? Are the prices the same, or is the later one more exprensive?
Xpander/matrix12 have the whole pad thing down, sure, but I don't think they'll have that snappiness that you'd expect from a jp8/p5. From what I've heard, they have that darker mid-80s-trying-to-compete-with-dx7 sort of sound, and in that regard, I feel like they actually have some overlap with the mks-80, especially when doing those industrial skinny puppy style dark electronic sounds...they can both do those dark sounding stabs and what not cause I guess that was popular at the time or something, everyone wanted to sound like a dx7. They're pretty different architecturally though, the crazy every-possible-mode filter in the xpander/matrix12 is pretty cool, and the whole matrix idea makes them almost semi-modular.
Jupiter 8 revision doesn't really matter that much. They replaced the interface board with a 14bit board and switched vendors on the DAC chip. It's actually easier to find the old 12bit chip than the later 14 bit one if it ever goes bad, you can still hunt down the 14bit ones but they are pricey.
All the voice boards are the same between jp8 revisions - it's not like the prophet 5 where they practically made an entirely different synth from scratch for rev3, completely different voice architecture from the rev2, etc...
The only real thing to look for is that the first 500 units are harder to calibrate since the boards had some errors and didn't have all the test points that the later boards had. I'd honestly say get one WITHOUT DCB, so you can add Encore Midi. DCB kinda sucks, trust me, it'd be better to invest into encore midi than to invest into DCB to midi converters, it's near impossible to get your money back on those kenton dcb things if you decided to ditch dcb and go with encore later, where as encore usually adds some value to jp8...some things you get with encore: double the patch memory, full control over the full range of keys via midi when in split mode (dcb can't do that, you can either control one full half or have it split like the keyboard would be, but you can't control each half entirely separately with full key range on separate midi channels like you can with encore)
For the prophets, the rev2 is just preferred sound-wise overall for me, the filter and oscillators are just significantly better sounding to me. I used to be one of the ignorant rev3 owner's claiming the difference was minor until I got frustrated enough that I bought a rev2 as well. Some famous prophet 5 rev1/2 strings/pads = in the air tonight by phil collins, the string pads in what a fool believes by doobie brothers (though lead is cs-80 in that song, don't be mistaken!) etc...if you have any real questions about the prophet revisions see my thread here, i've made numerous comparisons between them both:
https://gearspace.com/board/electron...-vs-3-3-a.html