_If the Minimoog is the dream synthesizer for performers who want to spend as little time as possible designing new sounds, the Sequential Circuits Pro One (and of course its older brother the Prophet 5) are definitely aimed for people who have a deeper interest in designing their own sounds.

As John Bowen once told me in an interview - they didn't add a third ocillator to the Prophet 5 in order to keep costs down, which led them to invent the Poly Mod section - the forerunner to the modulation matrixes we see in most synthesizers today.

The Pro One is basically a monophonic version of the Prophet 5 and has all of the Prophet's features: two oscillators, a resonant filter, an lfo and envelopes.

Although the Prophet 5 and Pro One are very versatile, I've always found me wishing for more when working with them. One more oscillator, a more flexible filter, one more lfo and so on.

When the sampling maestros at Wave Alchemy started to sample the Pro One they did what the people at Native Instruments, Creamware and Arturia have already done: create a faithful clone of a legendary instrument.

But Wave Alchemy didn't limit themselves as hard as the other developers did. The spirit of the Prophet is there - but they allowed themselves to expand the concept and take the Pro One into the modern age.

Say hello to the Pro II.

_WHAT IS
Pro II is built upon the Kontakt 4-engine from Native Instruments and NN-XT in Reason, which means this whole affair is constructed on samples: more than 6500 individual samples spanning over 3,9 gigabyte. The version tested here is the version for Kontakt.

To summarize the differences between the Pro II and the original Pro One:

The Pro One has all its controls in one hardware panel.
The Pro II has the controls spread over five tabs: Pro One, Pro II, Sequencer, Effects and Control.

The original has two oscillators.
Pro II has two oscillators plus two sub-oscillators.

Pro II has effects.

Pro II has a built-in analog step sequencer.

Pro II allows stacking of many units (in Kontakt multi mode).

Pro One has oscillator sync and has pulse-wave modulation.
Pro II has neither of those two functions (thanks to Ingo at Kvr for pointing that out).

PRESETS

_There are three groups of presets in Pro II. First a group of 138 typical Pro One sounds. These sounds include everything from basses, leads to effects. The second group consists of 38 presets utilizing the extra features of Pro II. The last group is multis - in other words several Pro IIs layered. This category is made up by 19 presets, and is by far the most breathtaking.

The reason why there are presets for Pro One and Pro II is that this whole synthesizer is actually two. Sounds confusing? Yes, I admit it does - but it's quite easily explained. The Pro One presets are 100 percent Pro One, including the analog filters. Nothing else.

The Pro II part on the other hand utilizes the parts of the Kontakt 4 engine - among them the filters. Wave Alchemy told me they will release a version for Kontakt 5 with switchable filters. Although I never hesitate one moment to tell the world how annoyed I am with Kontakt 4, I think the filters works very well together with the Pro II oscillators.

As you probably can imagine. The Pro One presets sounds like typical analog sounds. The presets from Pro II sounds much more modern and the multis are... huge. Most readers of this blog knows I'm a fetishist when it comes to bass sounds and am not too fond of synth pads - but with the pads in Pro II I'd actually like to create music with pads. Huge, massive pads.

But the Pro II doesn't only excel when it comes to pads - happily I can inform you that it's almost as good with bass sounds.

ARCHITECTURE

_The architecture is what you expect from an analog subtractive synthesizer. Oscillators - filter - modulators. The additions here is that the two oscillators aren't analog but a huge number of sampled waveforms. The two sub-oscillators can be set to either sine or square. At the very end there is an effect section, which I'll go into further on.

UNISON
An unexpected addition is the unison-function, but unfortunately it's not one of the Pro IIs best moments. It thins out the sound like a bad chorus. If you want to fatten up your sounds the chorus effect is actually a better choice.

SEQUENCER

_The built-in step sequencer is a very cool addition. It looks great and is very easy to program. There is a randomization function built-in and you can control the sequencer via your keyboard. You can even trigger different patterns by pressing certain keys in the seventh octave. Very practical.

EFFECTS

_The available effects are phaser, distortion, bitcrush, flanger, reverb, chorus and delay - and are all (apart from the reverb) based on the built-in effects in Kontakt 4. Again - I am no fan of the effects of Kontakt - but here I have no complaints. I don't know what Wave Alchemy have done with the effects but they work very well with the sounds. The reverb is another cool addition that is entirely unexpected. By using the impulse-engine of Kontakt Wave Alchemy have provided 20 very nice reverbs from one of those ultra-expensive Eventide DSP-7000 Harmonizers.

CONCLUSION
Everybody who reads this blog knows I'm far from a friend of Native Instruments Kontakt. I find it cumbersome to work with - if not outright confusing - there is no easy way of finding right instruments and if you want to create your own stuff including scripting - be ready for some monumental wtf-moments.
With that said, the amount of ultra-high quality instruments released based on Kontakt is staggering and Pro II is one of them. Creating sounds with the Pro II is easy. Sonically it doesn't feel like there is samples behind it. Apart from that you sometimes need to switch to another page - Pro II feels like your working with an analog synth - or rather an analog-digital-hybrid. Pro II is impressive in almost every aspect and for 40 pounds it's also a bargain. Two big thumbs up.

_Wave Alchemy Pro II
Web: www.wavealchemy.co.uk
Price: 39,95 pounds.
Good: Sounds great, expands the Pro One to the modern age, great price.
Bad: That there is two synth engines within Pro II is a bit confusing, no sync or pwm.

Review copy: Thanks to Dan at Wave Alchemy for NFR!

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