When the Minimoog and Arp Odyssey first came on the market as the first mass-manufactured portable synthesizers way back in the 70’s, they were pretty limited in the number of voices available. As a result, polyphonic synths couldn’t get here fast enough as we all wanted the ability to play chords with our favorite non-traditional sounds.
Today there’s a trend back to monophonic synths and the new Pro 2 by Dave Smith Instruments is really one of the kind. It contains 4 oscillators, two classic analog filters, a 32 step sequencer, a load of control voltage inputs, and what the company is calling a 4 voice “paraphonic” mode that lets you play up to 4 notes, albeit without the big multi-oscillator synth sound.
There’s also an audio input that allows you plug another instrument like a guitar into it for some killer sounds, or use the filters to process external audio. Add to that 3 digital delays and an analog “bucket brigade” delay, and an output section of the instrument is also entirely analog, and you have one fat sounding synth.
The Pro 2 retails for $1,999. The video below shows Dave Smith explaining just what the unit can do.
