Matriarch vs. Pro 3 - Which paraphonic synth should you buy?

i bought the sequential pro 3 not long after it came out almost two years ago now and i have loved the thing um at the time i was looking for a paraphonic kind of go-to mono synth and this thing has really fit the bill it fits my sound really well a lot of my more aggressive stuff under my new moniker lost art of surrender it just kind of fit right in it's got a real edge to it [Music] but it also does more ambient stuff really well too so very versatile scent [Music] [Music] but there is another sense that i've been looking at in a rather longing fashion for quite some time and uh i bought one so this is going to be a bit of a paraphonic face-off between two synths that may seem like they have a lot in common but are very different both of them sound incredible both of them come from very reputable manufacturers two of the best in the business as far as i'm concerned with sequential and dave smith and moog so let's get into it i'm going to start with the pro 3 which is the scent that i've had the longest probably know the best at this point it has become an absolute staple in my sound sound design process use it on a lot of film work i've used it on a lot of my own music the reason that i chose the pro 3 to begin with i could only choose one at the time is because it's kind of a self-contained modulation powerhouse i wanted kind of all of the flexibility of a deep mod matrix that you have you know many routing possibilities with a modular synth but in a self-contained unit that was easily portable i could carry it downstairs just sit on the couch with it and program sounds another advantage with the pro 3 oscillator 3 digital wavetable oscillator i'm not a big fan of wavetable in general it's kind of a weird thing to say and it always seems like something that i should like but i always find the sound a little bit too glassy and abrasive sometimes but when you combine it with analog filters um all of the many modulation options you can actually use oscillator 3 as like a wave table lfo or something route it to affect almost anything else when you start introducing possibilities like that it makes this oscillator really interesting there are some really nice wave tables that come pre-loaded and you can also import your own at this point though it's not a super easy process i think it's been a while since i've attempted to do so this sequencer on the pro 3 is incredible [Music] i use it probably more as a modulation modulator modulator as a modulator than i do as a note sequencer or a pitch sequencer you have so many lanes of possibilities right 16 lanes you can dedicate let's say if it's a paraphonic patch you can have three independent note sequences going on a paraphonic sequence and then you still have the rest of the lanes available for controlling basically any parameter that you want to assign it to really really powerful really easy to use easy to assign yeah it's really opens things up with this scent you can create entire soundscapes with just this synthesizer which kind of brings me to the earlier point of why i picked this one up self-contained unit you can save your patches okay this is kind of a weird one for me because one of the pros for the matriarch for me is that you can't save patches which may seem a bit contradictory there are two different scents that i use for two different purposes if you do film work or anything like that you know that recall is very important because directors are always asking you to change things right so being able to pull something up that you've done in the past and tweak it a little bit or change the notes or change this or that about the sound saves you a lot of time and headache and heartache and those of us that use modular synths in film work or work to picture know that that can be kind of a pain with the most recent version of the firmware sequential introduced patch morphing don't worry we won't tell arturia [Music] [Music] [Music] it's not the first sense to do it but it is a really cool feature you can basically blend between two different patches on an analog synth really incredible results that you can get from that if you have two patches that you really like that you think would complement each other and blend really well sometimes you can get surprising results by blending two patches that you wouldn't think would go together but they create some really interesting results so lots of great things to explore with that and a really really cool feature you couldn't do that without presets not could you overall the sound of the pro 3 feels a bit more raw it feels a bit more edgy to me a lot of that comes from the various points at which you can drive the signal matriarch it has a nice warm drive that you can drive the mixer in that very moog way it has a unique sound all of its own but it feels a bit more rounded or a bit more mellow this thing will absolutely rip your face off if you give it the opportunity the matriarch is a four oscillator paraphonic synthesizer that since the first demo that i heard of it i knew that this was the moog for me this is the one that i wanted just the architecture the way there's no screen everything is laid out on the front panel it's semi-modular which means it integrates really well with modular modular everything about it i just fell in love with except for the color which i thought always looked a bit odd with the multi-colored modules and then they came out with a black one and i said it's gonna have to happen eventually and it has so why since i already had a paraphonic synth than the pro 3 did i want a matriarch why did i pick one up aside from the guy who really he was just giving it away at least that's what i told my wife well as i mentioned uh i do like modular synthesis i love eurorack i have before me a moderately sized system nothing too extravagant but it has expanded as these things do over the years the way that this implements with the modular is really incredible it really opens up the capabilities of this synthesizer quite a bit to have this many modulators as many lfos as one's heart can desire sequencing external effects all of these things that we get with modular the ability to control things with cv pretty extensive patch bay here on the matriarch so if you're looking to get into modular or if you have a couple eurorack modules already really really tasty integrations with all of that [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Laughter] [Music] another thing i love about this one that i already mentioned in relation to the pro 3 is the fact that there are no presets there is no screen you have in front of you all of the knobs that control every parameter of the synth pretty much and that's incredible for a different reason than having presets is incredible i mentioned the recall ability is nice the fact that it's all there for you to store and use again but i think there's really something to be said for more explorative explorative exploratory that sounds like a medical procedure there's really something to be said for freeing yourself up from having to worry about programming a patch naming a patch on a tiny screen just exploring sounds which is something that i love to do i record them sample them for later there's all kinds of ways that you can use uh sounds that you create in kind of a way that you'll never get them back but you can still use them again and that's what sampling is so good for as a matter of fact if you would like some samples of the matriarch and the pro 3 one of my favorite things to do on a paraphonic scent is arps because the way that you can have each oscillator be independent from the other creates some really really interesting arpeggios [Music] and so those are available for you in the description below a couple sample packs one with the matriarch one with the pro three you can pick those up there's several free packs in my store as well drop them in your daw or your favorite sampler chop them up reverse them flip them upside down whatever the kids are doing with samples these days i mentioned that i love being hands on with my sound design and the feel and the build of this scent is really really nice bigger knobs it has a chunkier feel to it i think one more octave on the key bed than the pro 3. just feels like a modern vintage if that makes any sense whatsoever it feels like a modern classic for sure yeah a pleasure to play on something that feels like an instrument like this what really put me over the top when i was considering picking up the synthesizer is that delay [Music] so it's incredible it's the same delay you get from one of the moog modular series so i didn't write that down in my notes or do any research on which one but as a friend of mine pointed out when i was debating with myself whether or not to buy this thing you could probably buy just that delay by itself and spend about as much as this synthesizer cost me so i have no idea if that's accurate information because i really wanted that to be true to justify my purchase so i did no research at all to back that up but i have a matriarch now so everything worked out for everyone this is a true analog delay bucket bucket brigade this is a true analog delay bucket brigade delay it was a close one almost didn't get through that one either the pro 3 has effects and they're okay um it has more effects it has like a ring modulator it has a phaser chorus a couple different delay algorithms and like a plate reverb which is serviceable it's pretty good definitely a step up from dave smith's older synths like the rev2 effects but i personally would prefer to have just one incredible delay like this that like i would run other stuff external things through this delay it's really nice to have the option in the pro 3 and you can do some interesting things with modulation the mod matrix with the internal effects but yeah this delay unmatched so which one should you pick up if you can only pick up one synth and if you're like me you can only pick up one of these big synths at a time i would say if you're looking for a do-it-all self-contained modulation powerhouse you can only buy one mono or only have one mono with paraphonic capabilities uh i would say the pro 3 is a great great option has a little bit more of an edge to it if you're into those kinds of sounds if you have some modular stuff already you might want to look into the matriarch because once you integrate it with the modular system or even if you're thinking about getting into modular or if you have like the moogmother 32 or the bug dfam which i have over there it integrates really nicely with eurorack stuff so yeah really opens up what this synthesizer can do when you combine it with just a few modules right so yeah if you're not too concerned about presets recall ability you love the hands-on feel and you love to just dig in and do analog sound design uh matriarch great great option i didn't mention this before but it with four oscillators you go into four voice paraphonic mode it can almost serve as like a poly stand in for you if you don't have a poly synth a bit more playable with four oscillators in paraphonic mode you can go to a affiliate link that i have in the description it's a perfect circuit perfect circuit is an incredible electronic music vendor based in los angeles and they have anything that you could want including a matriarch either the dark or the original version or the sequential pro 3 i would highly recommend you go check them out they have incredible customer service over there they will hook you up with all of your music gear needs if you do use the link in my description i'm not monetized here on youtube but it is a way to kick me a little extra cash so that i can in turn buy more stuff from perfect circuit and then make more videos for you telling you to buy stuff from perfect circuit kind of a perfect system if you think about it the sample packs where you can get arps like this there's a pack for the matriarch and there's a pack for the pro 3 and i think i'm doing like a bundle where you can get both together if you want to pick those up have some of these high quality analog sounds for yourself do it and that will help me out also again lots of free stuff down there as well if you just want to grab something that you can use on your productions so thanks for watching i'm still exploring with the matriarch still exploring with both of them honestly because there's so many possibilities with both of these synthesizers but two of my absolute favorites hope that this helped you kind of decide which one might be for you it's not a comprehensive list of features by any means because loop pop exists and no one else should even try so thanks and hope you have a great new year and i will see you again in the next one thanks

Channel: Jameson Nathan Jones

Views: 36,105

Keywords: moog matriarch, sequential pro 3, matriarch, pro 3, paraphonic synths, synthesizer, moog matriarch demo, sequential pro 3 demo, synth demo, moog, moog matriarch review, pro 3 review, mono synth, synth review, jameson nathan jones, sequential circuits, sequential circuits pro 3

Id: Ym4Jl-SZHSY

Length: 18min 47sec (1127 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 10 2022