Boy! I just thought I was in the dark but now I know I'm in the dark about the polyphony.

What's wrong with my thinking here. Someone please explain.

Say you were in a 20 piece band and everyone hit 5 notes at the same exact time. 5X20=100 notes right. I mean somewhere along the line many people will be hitting the same notes right? Just how may instrumens do you have to have play the same notes to make you happy? It seems that some where it would get real cluttered. No?

You are forgetting that most syth tones are made up of more than one voice-up to 4. So each three note chord could be 12 voices. Also, on an arranger there could be up to 8 part backing in the style-that hogs voices, so doing the math it could possibly be 8 X 4 = 32 voices just for the style by itself. Now that is not in use the whole time but it is the most poly possible. Also, I use both left and right voices when I play so with my left hand I am usually fingering chords of 3 or 4 notes 32 + 12 (or 16)= 46 (50) which leaves very little poly-18 voice (14 voice) to work with the right hand part.

Boo,

With a four sample voice I get only 16 notes or actually 15 and a half because the Motif is really only 62 notes poly, not 64. Each sample played uses one unit of polyphony. Sometimes that 4 sample voice might be one part of a "performance" that may include other multisample voices that are used in layered or split mode. The second voice might also be controlled by the arpegiattor. It's very easy to use that "62" notes of poly up when I'm playing with sustain and add on effects. Without realizing all this, you wouldn't think so ( and neither did I ), when you look at it on the surface as 62 notes of polyphony, but as I have learned the hard way, it's very easy to do.

Let me give you another analogy Boo. For the most part when I play the Motif , it's as a solo instrument. There is no arranger function and I rarely play along with the internal sequencer running. So, I'm running out of notes just using it as a solo instrument, with the board doing nothing else. On the other hand, my PA80 is an arranger, also has 64 notes of polyphony, and can have all the backing instruments ( styles ) "playing", while I'm playing in real time with my right hand ( or both hands if I'm in full kb mode ), using the sustain at my pleasure, and yet the way Korg allocates the polyphony, I almost never run out of notes.


AJ



[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 07-01-2003).]