ach@pucc-h (Stephen Uitti) (11/14/85)
Equipment (& update) review I have a Prophet T-8 (my first love) and a Yamaha DX-7. My main complaint with the T-8 was that it didn't have many of the necessary MIDI functions required to make MIDI work well. This is too bad, since it has one of the nicest keyboard I've seen to date. It's a 76 key (piano minus one octave) with wood weighted keys and a realistic piano feel. Roland makes a MIDI controller keyboard with 88 keys, and a slightly softer touch, which could possibly be better. Two weeks ago I called Sequential Circuits, found out that they have new firmware, and ordered a ROM set ($100). Now the new ROM's are installed. It comes with a manual update - telling you what has been changed. You get: 1. The ability to change MIDI channels. (It used to be channel 1 only.) 2. Send/receive of foot pedal info over MIDI (works with the DX-7). Unfortunately, I'd gotten used to double pedaling. I'd generally pedal the DX-7 later than the T-8, for more continuous sound. Also, the T-8 pedal triggers a "2nd release", generally a longer release time than without the pedal. A patch knows two release times. The DX-7 pedal is a "sustain" pedal. The sound will never end (if the pedal is not being ignored). The "2nd release" concept is generally better, since you can set a patch's 2nd release time to be very long (20 sec). 3. Ability to enter poly mode from the keyboard. (You used to have to own something else that could send the MIDI codes.) 4. It's sequencer can now sync to MIDI clock (from a MIDI drummer (which I don't have as yet). 5. In omni and poly modes, pressure is sent/received for the key with the highest pressure. When MIDI pressure comes in, the pressure signal is applied to all voices. In mono mode, the T-8 sends each voice over a different MIDI channel, thus two T-8's can talk to each other with a different pressure level on each voice. The MIDI channel that you set on the T-8 is referred to as a "base channel", so you can set it in mono mode to use channels 3 to 10 (for example). 6. When the keyboard is split, the left half can be transposed up octaves, and the right half can be transposed down octaves, easily. The way you normally transpose on the T-8 is by setting the frequency of the oscillators (to any half step), and adjusting the filter appropriately. This isn't something you'd do in "real time", but more like a few minutes. For your general info: in MIDI, "omni mode" is where the machine will send on it's set channel, and accept notes on all channels. "poly mode" is where the machine will send and accept notes only on it's set channel. "mono mode" is where the machine sends/receives only one voice per channel, using multiple channels. It's a little confusing. Changing the ROM's doesn't affect patches or sequences that are in the machine at the time. After an investment such as is required to purchase a T-8, (well worth it), the extra $100 is more than worth it. Incidently, the list price of a T-8 (~$6K) is about 3 times the list price of a DX-7 (~$2K). It has been and still is my opinion that you get what you pay for. It doesn't mean you have to spend a lot of money, after all, I like my DX-7 too. The "Prophet sound" is about the "fullest" you can get. The DX's bells are the best. I still find it odd that the 8 voice T-8 sounds so much fuller (even in arpeggio's) than the 16 voice DX-7. For a T-8 "eight is enough", for a DX-7, 16 is hardly enough. Mainly this is due to voice assignment strategy. A recent note to this group by someone who has Moog equipment stated that Moog has a newsletter or something. Sequential has no such convenience. Calling them periodically and asking questions is a good idea. They are courteous, and seem to be well-informed. Stephen Uitti, PUCC systems staff, ach@pucc-h ...decvax!pur-ee!pucc-h!ach