Sub 37-Slim Phatty poly chain- Duo Mode

[MacAquinas]

Will the duo mode(paraphonic) of the Sub 37 be voided when connecting in a poly chain? 2 notes at once or 3?I just ordered a Slim Phatty. If no one knows I will post my results next week when it arrives. I may have to order another Slim

[MacAquinas]

I tried the poly chain of my Moog's and i was disappointed. I think they sound much better and more exciting just midi controlled with each set to their own tones and mods in a layered sound field. That sounded pretty fantastic! I did love seeing all the controls of the Slim Phatty moving in unison with my Sub 37 tweaking but that was the only pleasure of it when I tried poly chain.
I have a Sub 37 and thought it was pretty dumb that i lost Paraphonic in a poly chain mode and it was reduced to Monophonic sound from the Sub 37. In regular midi control turning on duo mode and selecting Hi seems to make the Slim capable of what seemed to me like Paraphonic. Maybe its some some gate trigger envelope thing that Dan would see clearly but I just have my dumb untrained ears.
By the way I have learned more by reading Dan's posts than I did reading the manual twice. You are a tremendous asset and help to us all , thanks Dan

To Sum up poly mode results
Sub 37 = 2 notes
Sub 37 + Slim Phatty- = 2 notes (DUMB)
Can a firmware update preserve Paraphonic?


Looks like I will have to buy a couple more Slims for now

[_DemonDan_]

To Sum up poly mode results
Sub 37 = 2 notes
Sub 37 + Slim Phatty- = 2 notes (DUMB)
Can a firmware update preserve Paraphonic?

Hi MacAquinas,
It's not really (DUMB).
Polymode works by sending the 2nd, 3rd, 4th (etc.) simultaneous notes to the next unit via MIDI.
That next unit uses the 1st note of that bunch and then passes on the remaining notes to the next unit.

Since it's the holding of one or two notes that also changes the behavior of DUO MODE, there's going to be a conflict.

I suppose it's at least conceivable that a special-case "Poly Chain for DUO" mode could written that used the first two notes and then passed the 3rd, 4th, 5th, (etc.) notes on to the next unit.

I'm not sure it would always do what you expected, and it would certainly be broken for all Sub 37 presets that *weren't* in DUO MODE. (The 2nd note of your chord would then always be ignored.)

I totally get your desire to have a three note chord so I'll bounce the idea to the creators if they don't see it here.

[Amos]

what happens if you have a sub 37 and a slim in a 2-poly system is that you get two notes of polyphony. Same as if you have any two Moog synths in a 2-poly system, so it's not that weird. Duo mode on the sub37 isn't really polyphony to begin with, it doesn't behave like two independent notes. So it follows that adding a second voice doesn't get you three independent notes, as nice as that would be.

Here's how it works:

single sub 37 in duo mode:
play a single note - both oscillators play the same pitch.
hold a note and play a second note - oscillator 1 plays one pitch, oscillator 2 plays the second pitch.

now, sub 37 in duo mode + slim phatty:
play a single note - both sub 37 oscillators play the same pitch.
hold a note and play a second note - sub 37 oscillator 1 plays the first pitch; sub 37 oscillator 2 and the Slim Phatty play the second pitch.
note allocation is round-robin, so it can happen that the Slim Phatty plays the first note... then the Sub 37 plays the second note... and you can in fact hold a third key and change the pitch of sub37 oscillator 2 while still holding an interval on the slim phatty and sub 37 oscillator 1...

this means you can get a triad happening and move the harmonies of three notes around, even though you only get two fully-articulated voices (which is the correct number to expect from two analog mono synths).

There probably is a better implementation to be thought of, but it's trickier than you might think at first, because of the way that duo mode is not really the same as starting with two independent voices.