Polyphonic Voice Allocation Options

varice

Currently the G2 polyphonic voice allocation mode seems to be limited to only one - "rotate" - each new note triggers another available patch voice, even if the same note is played. There needs to be an option to select another voice allocation mode - "repeat" - that will retrigger the same poly voice if the same note is played. Some older synths use this repeat mode - like the SCI Prophet-5. The Oberheim OB-Mx has the ability for either voice allocation mode to be selected.

Wout Blommers · Posted: Wed Jan 10, 2007 2:13 am Post subject:

Playing long evolving sounds, the retriggering shuts down the sound abrupt. I'm not in favor of such, in fact, I dislike it very much. So, what is the use of such a feature?

Wout

varice · Posted: Wed Jan 10, 2007 6:23 pm Post subject:

Christophe Duquesne · Posted: Wed Jan 31, 2007 3:04 pm Post subject:

I agree with Varice....

In fact, the drawback pointed out by Wout is sometimes an advantage.
In the current mode, if you use your sustain pedal, keep a chord on the right hand and play/replay your left hand (to move a filter thanks to velocity for example), your right hand chord will quickly disappear ... and you you will get an ugly stack of notes on your left hand.... the "repeat mode" solves this, and open other way of playing ... concerning the envelope restart, a "polyphonic legato" is then useful....

Of course, the wish is not to have only repeat mode, but both repeat OR round mode

ian-s · Posted: Wed Jan 31, 2007 3:26 pm Post subject:

Poly glide works better with repeat mode. Just a couple of options on the system menu, right next to the velocity curve selection Smile

davep · Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 4:15 pm Post subject:

"Repeat same voice" mode is very important for some types of patches and some types of playing styles. For example, if you are trying to synthesize anything that is played like a mandolin or a hammered dulcimer, with the same note getting played many times in rapid succession. Without this mode, whereby the same voice would be used over again on the same note, this playing style will quickly start robbing voices from any sustaining chord notes to play the repeated note, destroying any sustaining chords.

And it's not just an issue with voice robbing. Any patch that is supposed to behave like a piano, a harp, or just about ANY real acoustic polyphonic instrument should have an option for this "repeat same voice' behavior. Otherwise, even if you had unlimited voices and voice robbing wasn't a problem, you still have the problem of the new repeating notes overlapping the releases of the old notes instead of shutting them off and starting again, which is a very unrealistic effect for these types of patches. For example, when you pluck the same string twice on a harp, you don't hear the first note continuing to decay layered under the new note, the new note stops the old note and you only hear one note at a time on any given pitch. Any polyphonic acoustic instruments that have any amount of natural volume release time will suffer from this unrealistic behavior when playing the same note in rapid succession while the old note is still decaying.

I've mentioned this to Clavia a couple of times. along with some other wishlist ideas for additional voice allocation modes like Pitch Ordered (so that polyphonic portamento sounds musical, not just like pitches sliding from seemingly random starting points). I'm hoping some of this stuff will eventually make it into the G2. These are the kinds of things that can really add a lot to an instruments playability.