Korg Prophecy

This is an article culled from archive material, circa 1997.

The first product to arrive as a spin-off from Korg's OASys software architecture project, the Prophecy (released in 1995) was one of the first of a growing crowd of physical modelling and/or analogue emulation instruments. (Unlike many of its competitors, it can do both.) The Prophecy is characterised by a shorter-than-usual keyboard (3 octaves) and a larger-than-usual set of left-hand controllers: two conventional wheels (one centre-sprung) and a third centre-sprung "log" containing a pressure- and location-sensitive ribbon. The LCD display is underpinned by five knobs which act both as programming interface and as a performance interface which can be configured per patch. The keyboard is (channel) aftertouch-sensitive, and there is a respectable selection of pedal input options, including a multi-pin jack for one of Korg's five-switch pedalboards.

The Prophecy is a single-voice synthesiser, although the architecture provides three oscillators in its analogue emulation mode. The programming power of the architecture is extremely impressive - the Prophecy is one of the most powerful synthesisers I've ever come across - and the left-hand controllers make it possible to create, and perform with, some extremely expressive timbres. Since the instrument only has one voice, it makes sense to allow the modulation sources to control the onboard multi-effects processor, which is tremendously cool.

The single-voice nature of the instrument is compensated for somewhat by the onboard arpeggiator, which features five programmable patterns (nowhere near enough, alas) and has some well-designed performance features (the note octave flipping is cute). The programming interface for the voice architecture itself is quite respectable, featuring a large number of dedicated buttons.

MIDI functionality is pretty exemplary (but see below), with local-off doing mostly The Right Thing. The five soft knobs always retain local control, for no good reason. The keyboard is polyphonic for MIDI transmission.

A couple of gripes: firstly, the soft knobs are far from ideal for programming. Rather than using detented infinite optical encoders Korg have opted for conventional pots, leading to the usual parameter-jumping problems and lack of accuracy; programming arpeggiator patterns is tortuous, although voice programming is reasonably bearable.

Secondly, the arpeggiator has some MIDI quirks. It locks to MIDI but doesn't synchronise to Song Position Pointer (a shortcoming which can be overcome by having a sequencer or MAX-based subsystem turn the arpeggiator on behind the scenes). The keyboard split interferes with arpeggiator latching (in other words, a note played below the arpeggiator's active region kills latched notes). Worst of all, the arpeggiator is on the keyboard side of the MIDI local-off split, not the voice architecture side. This decision has obvious benefits (arpeggiator output can be recorded over MIDI) but some serious drawbacks (the instrument cannot be used as a conventional master keyboard while the arpeggiator is running on the local sound engine). The arpeggiator should have been switchable pre/post local-off at the very least.

All in all though, I really like the machine - it's a joy to perform with, which cannot be said for many keyboards these days. At the current blow-out prices for new units I thoroughly recommend it for the real synthesists out there.