I’ve never really spent time on any of the Cubase bundled synths - partly because I used to run into various problems when using them. Hanging notes being the most anoying one. Anyway, this evening I started fooling around with Prologue again for the first time in years, and the fact is, I had a jolly good time! To me, the factory presets are not very interesting, but those who like synthetic sounds and enjoy tweaking their own presets I warmly recommend giving Prologue a chance. It has quite interesting osc wave types and sufficient modulation sources/envelopes. Next up is taking a fresh look at Spector and Mystic.
Prologue is great for a quick bassline and I have used it many times before replacing it with my Powercore 01.
I don’t mind the new Padshop however just for playing or working out a rudiment of a song.
Aloha W,
I agree that Prologue can be quite ‘unique’ sounding.
My prob is I cannot rely on it.
1-I use it.
2-I tweak it.
3-I save.
4-I load it again and many times (but not always) the sounds and
the settings have changed.
I know they (Prologue,Mystic,Spector) have recently
been updated to resolve some issues
but for me, there are still lil probs.
So I stay away.
{‘-’}
Yeah - Padshop is great. It’s not my bread and butter synth, but I often find this “something” that trigger a new idea to a song.
Huh - hope I don’t run into similar problems when loading the presets I started working on this afternoon. I do remember having some issues with it in the past, though.
IMO, many synthesizers in general are underrated. Got to love people who tries a few VST instruments and cannot see any value what-so-ever in them. Many of them also aren’t shy in opinion about them either. Many synthesizers do have something unique or some special color to them. There are of course a slew of bland ones out there too.
As of Cubase 6.5/7 (with the added expense of HALion 4 and one of my personal little favorites Padshop Pro) one can have quite a setup. I am not in any way trying invalidate or lessen other instruments or someone’s favorite, I am just saying that it’s a great package. HALion 4 has some absolutely fabulous features, and PP is just fantastic when it comes to rhythmic sounds, drones and pads. The “rest” of the package are great too, with the newly injected Retrologue having a S.C. look and feel. The others, also very good sounding instruments, have already been touched on.
Anyway, I think that lots of people do not understand or maybe lack the interest of programming synthesizers, and therefore miss out on good built-in machinery, maybe because of presets or simply because it doesn’t have the market draw/appeal of the non-packaged ones, or maybe because they aren’t branded. Anyways, a machine is no better than the person operating it, at least not yet. 
Having gone through generations of hardware machines with audio quality far worse than most modern VST instruments, by which of course I refer to the quality of the audio output, I can only repeat what so many before me have said, it’s just something that appeals in those engines. 
I sincerely wish that more VSTi makers (and here I especially speak to the ones at home coding their synths from scratch) would remake those impressions. Not emulate the synthesizers of the past, but create new engines, new ways of creating sounds, using their imagination to the fullest. (And let me know when they are available!!!) I love tweaking and experience sounds, and I love to support creativity!
Also, I really like these (FREE!).
+10000000000000000000000
{‘-’}
Emulations are fine, if you are writing in for a genuine instrument performance to replace with so 