
Generally, the higher polyphony the better, though you will pay more for the privilege. So, when purchasing a keyboard instrument or synth unit, consider its polyphony and whether it will be sufficient for your needs. Now consider the use of rhythm and other accompaniments on home keyboards.Įvery auto-accompaniment you play could be using multiple sounds at any one time, reducing the amount of polyphony remaining for the sounds you wish to play over the top.Īnd finally, it’s fairly obvious that if you are using either an on-board sequencer, or one on your computer that uses the keyboard’s own sounds, then you’ll need more polyphony in order to play two or more tracks of sounds simultaneously.
Polyphonic synthesizer full#
Some sounds may be available in one group but not the other, so, depending on which sounds you select, you may not always get full polyphony. So, an instrument that claims 128 notes of polyphony may in fact offer two distinct groups of 64 notes. That eats into polyphony.Īs a further complication, some manufacturers “bank” polyphony into two or more groups. You may assume that every note you play is a single sound, but your selected sound might be a composite of several sounds. For the sake of forthcoming discussion, we also need to distinguish between the term 'note' and the term 'voice.' When I say the word 'note,' I'm talking about a pitch.

Now let’s look at a synthesiser instrument. In synthesizers, polyphony generally describes how many notes a synthesizer can play simultaneously.though as we go, we'll see that this definition can get a bit muddy. Playing piano or keyboard without a sustain pedal However, consider how most pianists play the piano, with judicious use of the sustain (damper) pedal. Minilogues newly developed analog synthesizer. With the cloud preset sync technology, DRC enables you to sync patches across devices effortlessly. Meet minilogue the stylish, innovative, 37 slim-key fully programmable analog polyphonic synthesizer. That sounds rather a lot, right? After all, you only have ten fingers so you can’t play more than ten notes at any one time. DRC is a powerful virtual analog polyphonic synthesizer that recreates the characteristic sound of an analog synthesizer providing a minimal but powerful set of parameters, for limited but incredible sonic capabilities. It may say that it has 64 note polyphony. In practice, however, things get a bit more complicated. That’s the theory, and in principle it’s pretty simple. Dreadbox Nymphes 6 Voice Polyphonic USB Powered Analog Synthesizer. Polyphony is the number of sounds an instrument can generate simultaneously. These sounds don’t have to be melodic - in fact they don’t even necessarily have to be audible to the human ear! However, when it comes to electronic musical instruments, we’re simply concerned with how many tones can be sounded at any one time. Korgs minilogue is a polyphonic analog synthesizer that provides quality sound, capabilities, and a powerful, flexible architecture all in one affordable. This is in contrast to monophony (a single voice) or homophony (a single melody with chords). In pure musical terms, polyphony is used to describe two or more independent melodic voices. Whenever you buy a new digital piano, keyboard or synthesiser, one of its key specifications is the amount of polyphony.
