Have read that you can attach one or several Voyagers or RMEs to an LP to to a Voyager for some form of Polyphony.
Does the keyboard still work as mono, but send the same midi note info (or CV) to all devices, and if so isn’t that must a layered (doubled, tripled, etc) sound?
Is there a way to have the lower of the two notes be sent to one device and the upper to the internal sound source (ie. LP or Voyager?). Obviously this will get tricky if the person playing does so with just on note at a time (ie. lifts left hand to mess with knobs or mod wheel, etc.). In that case, is there a split point setting that will allow this?
I’ve played with plenty of digital synths over the year and have a pretty good understanding of Midi. But having just bought a LP and considering an Old School Voyager, I’m intrigued by all of the postings about the Dave Smith boxes and the Oberheim, etc.
Both the Voyager and LP have the ability to control/operate in a polyphonic mode. This is different from the simple stacking effect you would get just by connecting several instrument together with a MIDI cable.
On both the Voyager and LP, polyphonic mode is configured through the menus. On the Voyager, the menu item is called ‘MIDI KEY ORDER’, and is found in the MASTER menu. On the LP, it’s part of the ‘MIDI SETUP’ section.
From the Voyager manual:
"MIDI KEY ORDER allows multiple Voyagers to function together as a polyphonic synth when controlled by an external MIDI device. Up to 16 Voyagers can be linked together to create a 16-voice synth. To define the number of Voyagers in a polyphonic setup, set the MAXIMUM KEYS parameter to the number of Voyagers in your setup, then configure each Voyager for a different voice number using the ACTIVE KEY parameter. For example, if you have 3 Voyagers in your setup, each should be set for ‘MAXIMUM KEYS: 3’, and the first Voyager should be set for ‘ACTIVE KEY: 1’, the second ‘ACTIVE KEY: 2’, and the third ‘ACTIVE KEY: 3’. "
From the LP manual:
"The seventh page of the MIDI Setup menu allows you to set up multiple Moog synths as a polyphonic synth stack. The settings are ‘POLY: OFF’ or ‘POLY: (#) of (##)’. The first number represents which note this particular LP is assigned to play, the second number sets the total number of available voices. For example, if you had an LP and a Voyager RME, you would set the LP to ‘POLY: 1 of 2’; on the Voyager RME you would go to ‘MIDI Key Order’ on the Master menu and set the RME to be note 2 of 2 (note that your Voyager must also have the latest firmware installed; the current Voyager OS is version 3.3). Connect the MIDI OUT from the LP to the MIDI IN on the Voyager. You should now be able to play duophonically, with the LP sounding the first note played on the keyboard and the Voyager RME sounding the second note. If all available voices are in use, additional notes will not sound until enough keys are released to free a voice. MIDI Continuous Control numbers (MIDI CC’s) are consistent between the Voyager and Little Phatty, so any parameter changes such as pitch bend and mod wheel, filter cutoff and so on, should affect all voices simultaneously.
If you have two Little Phatty synths, you would connect MIDI OUT from the first one to MIDI IN on the second, then you would turn on MIDI MERGE on the second LP and connect its MIDI OUT to the MIDI IN on the first LP. Turn off LOCAL CONTROL on the first LP so that it is controlled only by the MIDI data that is shared between the two synths. If you have more than two Moog synths, connect them so that MIDI passes through each synth and the last is connected to the first; but make sure that the first synth does NOT pass MIDI through to the next, or you will create a MIDI feedback loop. The “first synth” in this description should always be the one on which you are playing the keys. If the first synth is an LP, make sure MIDI MERGE is turned OFF on this synth. If the first synth is a Voyager, make sure that you are connecting MIDI OUT from it to the MIDI IN on the second synth; do not use the MIDI THRU jack on the first synth, only on subsequent synths (voice 2 or higher)."
In your Voyager example (one Voyager w/multiple RMEs), presuming that all are on the same Patch, the behavior would be very much like a Phophet 8 (but a very very expensive one).
In the case of an LP connected to an VoyRME, the tones would undoubtedly be different and if I’m reading your response properly, you could control which sound/device was fired only to the extent that you could have a keypressed ‘first’, then hit the second?
So I suppose if you were holding an evolving note on one device then playing a lead with your right hand, problem solved. But otherwise, this would be a bit difficult to control.
Final quesiton is that of using other (non Moog) devices.Would this function work in that case (provided that the source [ie. Moog] controlling kb had the proper firmware) or do you need a Moog device on all endpoints? (not sure if they are doing something interesting within unused/open midi commands in a custom way, or if they are playing the first sound using the internal sound source but sending other note on, etc. across a different midi channel, etc.).
Correct, but I think the sound would be more like a MemoryMoog.
Not necessarily. If the RME used a 2-oscillator patch similar to the LP, the sounds could be fairly identical.
Yes, the ‘Active Key’ selection in the ‘MIDI Key Order’ menu (Voyager) specifies which note of the chord will sound.
That approach would be treating the synths like individual instruments instead of one composite instrument. In a polyphonic arrangement, I would tend to play chords to take advantage of the unique and rich ‘combo’ sound that would be created by the various instruments (for a related example, imagine a trumpet, trombone & sax, each playing a different note of a chord). Some stereo panning could also enhance the effect by placing each instrument in a different spacial location.
AFAIK, non-Moog devices will not work in this application. If you look at the raw MIDI data, nothing out of the ordinary is being done. The keyboard acting as the master simply sends MIDI Note ON/Note OFF data - the other connected Moog instruments parse and play this data according to the respective settings in the ‘MIDI Key Order’ menu (Voyager) or ‘MIDI Setup:Poly’ menu (LP).
That said, it should be possible to get a simple duophonic effect with a Moog/non-Moog (or Moog/Moog) instrument pairing without resorting to this ‘MIDI Key Order’ business at all. Say you have a Voyager with a patch set to ‘Low Note’ priority and another instrument set to ‘High Note’ priority. In theory, playing two notes simultaneously on the Voyager should produce two tones with different pitches- a low note on the Voyager and a high note on the other instrument. Playing just a single note would give you the same pitch on both instruments, of course, but the duophonic possibilities of such an arrangement are intriguing.
