The tone is of such a quality that you need not pile on a dozen onboard and offboard effects. A simple sawtooth waveform from one oscillator with a light vibrato, or a darkened square waveform with a tremolo and a little reverb, can stand by itself. And yet, you can achieve a fabulous bright and snappy brass sound that responds well to punctuated playing. String patches, whether natural sounding or swept by resonant filter modulation, can reach a beautiful thickness.

The Prophet '08 is also fairly easy to program. Yes, it takes some time to sort out, and you need to read through the manual repeatedly. But inch by inch, this synthesizer can be mastered. It offers a tremendous variety of possibilities, but not an overwhelming amount. I would think this would be an excellent instrument for learning analog programming. At times, the parameters can be a bit erratic; occasionally the digits will take a leap at even a slight tweak of a control, but this is not a major problem.

The physical instrument is very light weight and as compact as you could possibly hope in a synthesizer with a five octave keyboard. I also like its conservative appearance: it doesn't look like a UFO, as do some modern synthesizers. Instead, the Prophet '08 looks like a serious straightforward musical instrument meant, not to impress with a glitzy exterior, but only to produce quality music.

The Prophet '08 is a joy to both program and play. I would even recommend it for use as a monophonic synthesizer - the sound is of such excellent quality. In fact, I intend to buy a second one.