Softube's Model 80 - Prophet 5 Emulation

[ElmerJFudd]

 

Demo installer available.  Introductory price of $99

 

https://www.softube.com/products/model-80-five-voice-synthesizer

[Tusker]

1 hour ago, ElmerJFudd said:

 

Demo installer available.  Introductory price of $99

 

https://www.softube.com/products/model-80-five-voice-synthesizer

Nice. No doubt they set out to capture slightly different flavor from (fanboy alert) U-He’s insanely brilliant Repro-5.
 

Will look forward to the inevitable comparison videos.  👍👍

[Geoff Grace]

The way I look at it is that if Repro is nearly identical to the original and Model 80 is nearly identical to the original, then Repro and Model 80 will also be nearly identical to each other. Therefore, Model 80 will be of little value to Repro users, other than for the extra patches and the five modules it offers (VCO, VCF, LFO, ENV, and MULTIPAN) for Softube’s Modular system (that was developed in partnership with Doepfer).

 

Even so, I think that Model 80’s intro price of $99 is a very good offer for those who don’t already have a great Prophet emulation. The following coupon brings it down to $89 in the cart:

 

SUPERMODEL80

 

Best,

 

Geoff

[ElmerJFudd]

4 hours ago, Tusker said:

Nice. No doubt they set out to capture slightly different flavor from (fanboy alert) U-He’s insanely brilliant Repro-5.
 

Will look forward to the inevitable comparison videos.  👍👍

I'll keep my eye out for when they side by side it vs. the real thing and U-he. 

[Tusker]

28 minutes ago, ElmerJFudd said:

I'll keep my eye out for when they side by side it vs. the real thing and U-he. 

 

  I too would like to see that three way you mention. 😀 

 

The modern hardware Prophet has both of the main historical flavors (SSM and Curtis) while Softube and u-he modeled only Rev. 3 synths (Curtis). The Rev. 1 and Rev. 2 SSM flavor isn't available yet in software AFAIK.

 

Meanwhile here is a side by side between u-he and a modern hardware prophet. Jim Alfredson compared the SSM and Curtis flavors (hardware to hardware) in his excellent GearLab review.

[RABid]

I wonder how it compares to the redone Arturia Prophet 5 V?

[Doerfler]

iLok required  

[CyberGene]

I'm an U-He fanboy but I must admit this new Softube synth is really great:

 

Don't we live in great times? 🙂 Apparently the bar is getting set higher and higher with software. To me personally paying thousands for hardware synths makes less and less sense, at least for how I make my music.

[Tusker]

Thanks CG for that helpful video. Uber-keyboardist Nick Semrad's patch set for the Model 80 also reveals the Model 80 as having a lovely three dimensional sound.

 

As with Minimoog emulations, one could have more than one Prophet in the stable. Why not?

 

I agree there is a virtuous arms race mirroring Moore's Law in soft synth land but not everyone is racing. I'm not trying to sell people on one developer or another, but to me it really matters that a developer is at least slightly passionate about raising the bar in authenticity and quality. The Model 80 is a clear testament to Softube's commitment to this race. Thanks again.

[Tusker]

14 hours ago, RABid said:

I wonder how it compares to the redone Arturia Prophet 5 V?

 

Hi Robert, Starsky Carr makes some comparisons between the Arturia, the u-he and the Softube versions in this video but only with respect to features, not sound. Perhaps a proper shootout will follow? He does compare the Softube favorably with his hardware Prophet 5.  

 

Just a few years ago it was amazing if a soft synth could do audio-rate modulation. Now it's just a normal part of a Minimoog or Prophet emulation. 👍 👍 

[Stokely]

I love Repro, it's arguably my best-sounding synth overall, so this might be the last synth plugin I'd go after   If this one turns out to be noticeably better, that would be saying a lot.

[EscapeRocks]

11 hours ago, Doerfler said:

iLok required  

 

Well darn.  I have moved away from all my old iLok needed items.

[ElmerJFudd]

I have a current iLok, but I leave it home.  So if I use MainStage I use stock sounds or whatever doesn’t need the iLok.  
 

I was thinking AI might solve protecting software without iLok for developers… but then AI will crack the iLok-less protection.  

[Dave Bryce]

Interesting that people seem to still be put off by the iLok thing.

 

These days, quite a lot of the iLok protected software I have authorizes directly to the host machine - no dongle required.

 

dB

[Geoff Grace]

Yes, I believe that Softube allows a computer authorization that doesn't require a physical iLok, although you'd still need an iLok account to authorize the software. You may want to make sure I'm right by contacting Softube before you buy.

 

Another note for Mac users: Softube has stopped supporting versions of macOS X. Instead, Big Sur 11, Monterey 12, Ventura 13 are listed under System Requirements for Model 80. That said, I read a report on another forum from a user who was running Model 80 successfully on Mojave; but that's no guarantee it will be fine for everyone else. There's a trial version, if you'd like to see how it works for you.

 

Best,

 

Geoff

[Tusker]

ILok Manager works perfectly here. Licenses from VSL, Softube, Expressive E and Soundtoys are being used across multiple computers. No dongle. Giving up ILok would be painful because some really good developers have chosen the ILok ecosystem.

[Anderton]

1 hour ago, Dave Bryce said:

Interesting that people seem to still be put off by the iLok thing.

 

These days, quite a lot of the iLok protected software I have authorizes directly to the host machine - no dongle required.

 

dB

 

I still use a dongle because I'm not sure what happens if the hard drive dies. Or is that concern unfounded?

[CyberGene]

14 minutes ago, Anderton said:

I still use a dongle because I'm not sure what happens if the hard drive dies. Or is that concern unfounded?

I formatted and sold my MacBook without first deactivating licenses. Was a bit PITA since I had to contact a few of the manufacturers and explain to them and expect them to believe me but they did and restored my license count. But yeah, it’s a concern. 

[Dave Bryce]

2 hours ago, Anderton said:

 

I still use a dongle because I'm not sure what happens if the hard drive dies. Or is that concern unfounded?

Not sure it’d be a problem if you back up your hard drive…

 

Some of the apps have the option to authorize to the cloud as well.

 

dB

[Anderton]

1 hour ago, Dave Bryce said:

Not sure it’d be a problem if you back up your hard drive…

 

Some of the apps have the option to authorize to the cloud as well.

 

I don't know if backing up is enough. There might be an ID tied to a particular hard drive or machine, so if you replace a bad 1TB hard drive with a 2TB SSD, or upgrade to a machine with a new processor, will the authorization still work? I don't know...maybe I need to look into the whole "zero down time" thing, although buying protection to provide additional protection for a program in case the protection goes bad, where the only reason I have to spend the money is because ultimately the manufacturer wants to be protected, kind of rubs me the wrong way.

 

Maybe I misunderstand "zero down time." If it works like Waves where you can freely enable/disable/transfer licenses on drives, the cloud, or a dongle, that would be okay. But I wouldn't want to pay for it, given that I already paid for the iLok and the fees built into whatever program is being protected.

 

Cloud authorizations don't concern me, although they probably should

[Doerfler]

11 hours ago, Dave Bryce said:

Interesting that people seem to still be put off by the iLok thing.

 

I have an iLok account and it works fine, just would rather not have to deal with it.

 

Besides, someone has to fill in for Kanker.    

back on topic ...

 

 

[Stokely]

I finally caved and got a few plugins with ilok, the software variety.  I think it was a couple of the exponential audio reverbs (later Izotope), which ironicially stopped working for a while when Izotope was super slow to update them for later Mac Oses.  By that time I'd gotten a couple others that I'd always avoided due to ilok.

Nevertheless, speaking of u-he, they somehow manage to have one of the easiest and less obtrusive copy protection around so that's another reason I have their plugins.

All else being equal or close, I'll always pick the plugin with the simpler/less obnoxious copy protection.  e-licenser products for example have always been an instant "nope".

[Tusker]

I am the same way. U-He has been trouble free for me. With ILok, I sometimes have to go to their website and depending on whether the developer offers one or two machine installs it can be a bit more fidgety to keep things organized. But not a deal breaker.

 

Like you I love Repro and will hold off for now. The big "thing" that my ears are hearing is that Model 80 has is a little more dynamism in the pitch variation. It's quite lush. Repro is a little tighter in it's natural state, even with the voice detune engaged. There are workarounds so it's not a huge gap. Smaller gaps are there in extreme resonance settings and with voice mod using Oscillator B at audio rates. Different flavors. But as Geoff would say they are nearly identical.

 

I confess Model 80 has me giving the Softube Modular platform a second look. Reaktor announced Apple Native Silicon which is great, but it seems to me that platform is more about maintenance than growth at this point.

[RABid]

19 hours ago, Dave Bryce said:

Not sure it’d be a problem if you back up your hard drive…

I can tell you that the system will not transfer to a new system using a transfer routine or backup. Found this out when I got a new MacBook. The iLok system makes you unregister from your old system before authorizing the new system. However, it may load onto a new drive for your old system if they are only going by system id and the new drive does not change the id. I remember on windows computers changing the boot drive was cause for automatic need to reregister a lot of software packages.

 

Since iLok allows two system I use both. Virtual on my new MacBook Pro. USB on my other computer. Almost none of the software I buy allows iLok cloud.

[RABid]

On 5/4/2023 at 10:42 AM, Tusker said:

Hi Robert, Starsky Carr makes some comparisons between the Arturia, the u-he and the Softube versions in this video but only with respect to features, not sound. Perhaps a proper shootout will follow? He does compare the Softube favorably with his hardware Prophet 5.

I no longer trust Starsky Carr reviews anyway. I started paying attention to his MO after watching the Mother 21/Crave fiasco and his "uncomfortable" paid video with After Later where they basically said "if she did not want her Mutable Instruments modules copied and produced by others she should not have released them to public domain."

[Tusker]

22 hours ago, RABid said:

I no longer trust Starsky Carr reviews anyway. I started paying attention to his MO after watching the Mother 21/Crave fiasco and his "uncomfortable" paid video with After Later where they basically said "if she did not want her Mutable Instruments modules copied and produced by others she should not have released them to public domain."

 

Forgive me Robert. Not familiar with the context here. Understand that you don’t find this reviewer’s opinions helpful and that’s fair enough, from my perspective. Hopefully more helpful comparisons will emerge. 

 

Personally, if I had the Arturia, the Softube or the U-He (I do) I would consider myself covered. Though it is fun to talk about differences isn't it?

[Theo Verelst]

I don't understand why people spend time on these strange and weak sounding simulations, let alone pay money for them.

[CyberGene]

Yeah, like you were gonna tell the difference if you didn’t know it was a plug-in 😉

[Melving]

Re:  Ilok.  If you have a license that's based on your computer and change just about anything with your computer, ie a secondary hard drive that the license is not supposed to be on, all of your ilok licenses will be gone (until you contact customer service).  As a person who tends to upgrade SSDs and ram, etc, I use the dongle exclusively now

[Theo Verelst]

2 hours ago, CyberGene said:

Yeah, like you were gonna tell the difference if you didn’t know it was a plug-in 😉

It sounds like I describe. Recording the P5 itself sounds different. Even given Dac errors and YT compression.