Joe Landers Profligacy puts the KORG Prophecy hardware in your computer. This is the same synth that The Prodigy rinsed on hits like “Firestarter.” But there’s a catch…
Joe Landers Profligacy: What You Need to KnowJoe Landers Profligacy: My First ImpressionThe Prophecy is FulfilledLet the Chips Fall Where They MayThe ROM CaveatPrice and AvailabilityJoe Landers Profligacy: Should You Download the ROMs?More Information
Joe Landers Profligacy: My First Impression
This is definitely the era of emulations. I’m not talking about the kind that companies like Arturia and Cherry Audio do, where they recreate the sound of a synth through painstaking measurement and approximation. No, these are emulations of the actual hardware, made so close that they can run the original firmware.
Joe Landers Profligacy · Source: Joe Landers
The Usual Suspects are the kings of synth emulators right now, with their JE-8086, which remakes the Roland JP-8000, and recently announced Blue Giant, which does a similar thing with Novation’s SuperNova II, leading the way. There’s also Autodafe’s Vintage Emulator Studio, which gives you access to around 45 MAME synth emulations right in your DAW.
All of this preamble is leading up to today’s story about Profligacy, a new emulation of the KORG Prophecy made by Joe Landers, the same genius behind the recent Elektron Monomachine and Machinedrum emulators. Profligacy puts the original Prophecy hardware in your computer, which is pretty darn cool. I haven’t tried it yet (for a number of reasons that I’ll get into at the end) but the fact that this emulator exists is pretty astonishing.
The Prophecy is Fulfilled
Released in 1995, KORG’s Prophecy is something of an unusual instrument. Built on the MOSS synthesis engine, it offers both physical modeling and virtual analog, both of which were fairly esoteric for the time. (To put this in perspective, Roland’s JP-8000 didn’t drop until 1997.) What makes the Prophecy odd is the fact that it’s monotimbral. Yes, a digital monosynth. Physical modeling and VA required a lot of computing power at the time, so much so that to make it affordable, KORG had to reduce polyphony to a single note. The Z1 eventually gave players 12 voices of MOSS-powered polyphony.
KORG Prophecy original and software · Source: KORG
A single voice didn’t stop artists from exploring what the Prophecy could do. The Prodigy were big fans, with Liam Howlett using it on the group’s most famous album, 1997’s The Fat of the Land. That famous distorted acid line on “Firestarter”? The Prophecy, of course.
Let the Chips Fall Where They May
Now that same synth is available as a low-level plugin emulation (“low level” here means that emulation is recreating the synth at a hardware level rather than in a high-level behavioral way). Specifically, it models the NEC V55PI, Hitachi H8/3003 and three TI TMS57002 DSP chips. The developer, Joe Landers, explains his process on his GitHub page, and it’s pretty incredible the lengths he went to. If you’re at all into the technical stuff, check it out (link below).
Making the Profligacy · Source: Joe Landers
This also included building a GUI for users to work with. Low-level emulations generally recreate the exact hardware workflow rather than improving it or updating the user experience for a computer screen. However, Joe has managed to remake the control wheel “log,” which is a big part of the playing experience of the original.
The ROM Caveat
Here’s the sticky part. As with any emulator, you need the original ROMs to use Profligacy. And unless you own a Prophecy, you kind of sort of can’t. Says Joe: “First rule of emulation development is that I can’t help you get the firmware. This project is for people who own the original hardware and firmware already.”
If you do get ahold of the firmware, then you’ll need to point a directory from the software to them on your computer so the emulator can run things from the ROMs.
Price and Availability
Profligacy is free and open source. It’s available now from Joe Landers’ GitHub page. It’s currently at version 1.0.0 alpha 8, so expect bugs. It works on Apple Silicon machines running macOS 15.0 or later in AU, VST3 and standalone formats. There is also an unsigned Experimental Windows x64 preview available.
If you want to play with a Prophecy but don’t want to wade into possibly unethical waters, or want something more reliable than an alpha to compose with, KORG’s official Prophecy software version is also available.
Affiliate Links
KORG Prophecy
$149 at
Joe Landers Profligacy: Should You Download the ROMs?
I mentioned a couple of times that the developer can’t assist with finding the ROMs. We also can’t offer help with this, as this is a legal gray area. KORG doesn’t seem to have a clearly stated policy about unauthorized recreation of its software, but I’m sure they wouldn’t be happy about it. Would they go after you, an end user, for misusing their firmware in Profligacy? I honestly don’t know. I’m not a lawyer. You should probably follow your conscience on this one. Especially since KORG does offer its own take on the synth.
What do you think? Where do you stand on using ROMs in emulators?
More Information
Joe Landers Profligacy GitHub page
More about emulations
More about synthesizers
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