I finally got to use the Prophet in a band context last night. We tampered with it at a band meeting at my bassist's house; we had the thing running into a bass rig whilst consuming beer, bourbon and sammiches and watching that Rush documentary, which is actually quite good, even if you hate the band. But I digress.

Anyhoo, we were dialing in patches for the gig on Friday, and it became quickly apparent to me how well the thing cuts in a mix. The whole "fat analog synth" thing is for real. It has a certain girth to it that the modeling stuff doesn't, even on smoother sounding patches in a dense, aggressive mix.

Also, I don't know why it surprised me that it could do 909-style kicks? It's an uber-awesome analog synth fer chrissakes. The sequencer on there is quite fun; it'll do splits so you can layer rhythmic and melodic elements. We jammed for a bit over some loops, and good times were actually had by all. Very inspiring. I'm- we're all- still just in the learning stages with this thing; the editing depth is pretty crazy ridiculous.

...and speaking of editing depth, the Geiger Counter is so very much more than just a distortion pedal. The Wavetable Push Mode button scrolls through multiple options for each wavetable that... do fucked up things. Surprisingly enough, having the bit and sampling rate at their highest settings doesn't necessarily produce the cleanest or least-processed sounds. In more than a few cases it doesn't produce sound at all! Other settings function as a noise generator- the pedal itself will start spewing forth digital garbage without an input signal. Often it's "in-between" settings on the controls that will yield sounds usable in a more melodic context.

...on lower gain settings, it takes a boost pretty well, too.

It's not just a glitchy fuzz or bitcrusher. Yes, it'll do those sounds- and well. Getting deeper into the thing, it's so, so much more. At least, if you have a use for no-fi squalling digital noise. Which I, um... actually do.

Old analog synths are wonderful aren't they. At teh turn of the 20th Century when tor was a budding musician, I had my hands a few analog synths and just loved the fuck outta them, including some real Taurus Pedals which were too fucking cool. I haven't thought about them in a while, but yes, they did seem to cut through well.