Synthesist Chris Stack has had his hands on a lot of gear – and a lot of it with the Moog Music moniker on it. But every chance he gets, he’s bugging me about how in love he is with the Dave Smith Pro 2, the richly-appointed, nicely-overpowered monosynth on steroids as we described it earlier this summer.
And he’s having a lot of fun, transforming it into a hybrid digital/audio “hub” – a sound source, but also a central brain for exceptional soundscapes.
And in Chris’ hands, I’m certainly convinced, as this beast sequences beautiful frontiers of noise and melody. Just like Chris, making us lust after a synth over the weekend. But, as this often comes up in comments, my interest is never in whether you have to have some particular bit of kit. To me, the fusion of musicianship and instrument building is always inspiring – it’s something we can take back to our own work, whatever we’re using. Here’s Chris on his summer fling with this synth:
The Dave Smith Instruments Pro 2 is the most useful synth I’ve ever played. I got to borrow one for a short while and it quickly became the central control and performance hub of my analog and digital gear. In addition to its great internal sounds, with four assignable CV Outputs (and four inputs!), it (much like the Moog Multi-Pedal) is able to lend new functionality to your older existing gear.
For example, a Moog Voyager sounds great but it has (for all practical purposes) no MIDI clock synced features. Pair it with a Pro 2, though, and you can control things like the Voyager’s filter cutoff, volume, pan, wave shape and more with the Pro 2’s clock-synced LFOs, step sequencer tracks, envelopes and a variety of other elements.
I had a lot of fun connecting to multiple synths, starting the sequencer, and tweaking knobs. This video does not go into minute detail on showing how I did all this. It is meant as a quick look at some amazing possibilities. Think of it more as an “inspirational” than a “tutorial”. I wish I had more time to explore applications of the the Pro 2 while I had it.
And more videos: