Yamaha JP8000

The Korg Oasys post got me thinking of the different virtual analog and physical models that trickle their way down through different versions of a given manufacturer's products. I remember big debates on how the Prophecy sounds more alive than a Z1 and how the Z1 will disappoint if you are expecting a poly-Prophecy. I remember painstakingly trying to recreate the Prophecy's Prophetic Steps on a Z1 thinking man, I can't wait to hear this polyphonically. I painstakingly went through each parameter side by side, only to finally give up in frustration. The parameters were different enough that I just couldn't get there. Then I remember a bit of hoopla that came out with the Yamaha AN1X release in the UK. The UK Yamaha site had a bunch of goodies including, get this, a JP8000 preset bank for the AN1X. Rumor has it that Roland asked Yamaha to pull them because of how good they were. I happened to A/B them and I simply could not believe my ears. For the majority of presets, (I'd lean towards 95%), the patches were identical. And I don't mean similar or close like the Nord Lead Prophet 5 preset bank. This was spot on. But then there is always the interface... Starting with the exact same patch you can't help but go in completely different directions because of the differences. Still, I bow before the AN1X programmers that pulled it off. Maybe they can program a polyphonic Prophetic Steps on the Z1 for me. Simply amazing. Click here for a Sound on Sound review of the AN1X.