Sub 37 Poly Chain

[Bald Eagle]

Is there any information about poly chaining on the Sub 37? The 1.0.2 update lists "Poly Mode" but I can't find any other info.

I have tried it with a Sub Phatty and I didn't expect great results without a Sub Phatty update but even the Sub 37 doesn't seem to respond when poly mode is activated.

[mmarsh100]

In poly mode on the Sub 37, if you set Poly Max (I think that's the param name) to, say, 3 then only every third note plays on the 37 and the other two are sent out to the other chained synths. That may be what you are running into...

[Amos]

The main reason your set-up isn't poly chaining properly right off the bat is because the same poly voice number / max number-of-voices settings need to be made on the Sub Phatty as well, and poly chaining has not been implemented on the Sub Phatty yet. The "hooks" are in place, but it will need to be enabled in the next Sub Phatty update.

As always, we are balancing limited programming resources and multiple projects, but before too long there should be a Sub Phatty update which enables the poly feature.

Currently, you can poly chain any combination of Sub 37, Little/Slim Phatty, and Minitaur... Sub Phatty will join this list soon.

[rcrowthe]

I love Moog, you guys can do no wrong for me, but... If you cant chain it to a sub phatty yet, poly mode on the sub 37 is mostly useless. Any idea when this is coming?

[slabwax]

I love Moog, you guys can do no wrong for me, but... If you cant chain it to a sub phatty yet, poly mode on the sub 37 is mostly useless. Any idea when this is coming?

I believe it's only useless to those that own only the Sub Phattys. I'm under the impression that it is working on Little, Slim and Minitaur. Also Amos has said it's coming.

[Amos]

I love Moog, you guys can do no wrong for me, but... If you cant chain it to a sub phatty yet, poly mode on the sub 37 is mostly useless. Any idea when this is coming?

I believe it's only useless to those that own only the Sub Phattys. I'm under the impression that it is working on Little, Slim and Minitaur. Also Amos has said it's coming.

yes and yes. I have a 3-poly setup here on my desk with two Minitaurs and a Sub 37, it works pretty well.
I'll make sure that poly chain is implemented in the next Sub Phatty update (which will be... soon. Working on a Sub37 and a Minitaur update right now, should be getting to Sub Phatty within a few weeks)

[greenborder]

Hi Amos,

I tried polychaining my Minitaur to the Sub 37 but facing a strange issue where only the 3rd note activates the Minitaur.
I set the poly chain max on the Sub 37 to 3 (tried back down to 1 without any changes in the result), and the Minitaur poly number is set to 1. I have the latest firmware installed on both machines.

I attached an audio example where you hear that every 3rd time I play a note the Minitaur springs into action, any idea what is going on? BTW the Minitaur midi light activates properly for every note I play.

Edit: as I can't attach here is the sound cloud link: https://soundcloud.com/greenborder/sub- ... hain-issue

Thanks in advance.

[greenborder]

Hi Amos,

I tried polychaining my Minitaur to the Sub 37 but facing a strange issue where only the 3rd note activates the Minitaur.
I set the poly chain max on the Sub 37 to 3 (tried back down to 1 without any changes in the result), and the Minitaur poly number is set to 1. I have the latest firmware installed on both machines.

I attached an audio example where you hear that every 3rd time I play a note the Minitaur springs into action, any idea what is going on? BTW the Minitaur midi light activates properly for every note I play.

Edit: as I can't attach here is the sound cloud link: https://soundcloud.com/greenborder/sub- ... hain-issue

Thanks in advance.

Sorry for the bump, but has anybody been able to polychain the Sub37 with another Phatty or the Minitaur succesfully? I just realized I am playing the same notes in the demo I posted earlier, but it also displays the same behavior when I play polyphonically. Am I doing something wrong or is this a firmware issue?

[Amos]

I am testing this today, with a Sub 37 and a Minitaur.
Both are running the most recent (beta) firmware. There could be a couple of things going on, in your case.

First thing is that there was a small error in the numbering of the POLY MAX parameter on the Sub37 menu.
The numbers were displayed on the screen as 0-15, where they should have been shown as 1-16. This means that if the POLY MAX was showing you the number '2', it was actually setting the POLY MAX parameter to '3'. I believe this is still the case in Sub 37 v1.0.3; if you can set POLY MAX to 0 then that confirms the error. In this case, for two voices you would set POLY MAX on the Sub 37 to '1'. This is fixed already in the upcoming Sub 37 firmware v1.0.4.

Here is the way poly chain is intended to work. There are two parameters involved, which need to be set correctly on each unit.
On the Sub 37, these parameters are called POLY NUMBER and POLY MAX.
In the Minitaur Editor (Settings page) they are called POLY VOICE NUMBER and POLY VOICE MAX.

POLY (VOICE) MAX needs to be set equal to the total number of units you are chaining together; set POLY MAX to be the same on each unit. In the example where you have one Sub 37 and one Minitaur, you would set POLY MAX = 2 on the Sub 37 and POLY VOICE MAX = 2 on the Minitaur. This tells both units that there are two voices in the system.

POLY (VOICE) NUMBER gets set to a unique value on each unit. This sets which voice within the poly system each unit is to play. SO in a two-voice system for example you might set POLY NUMBER = 1 on the Sub 37, and POLY VOICE NUMBER = 2 on the Minitaur.

Now, it is possible for the units to be "out of sync" if you've played some random notes before changing the POLY settings... in this case you might have both units playing the same note and then neither unit playing the next note. This is easy to fix; if the units are out of sync send an "all notes off" command and they will sync back up. On the Sub 37, you can send an All Notes Off by pressing and holding both the KB OCTAVE up & down buttons at the same time.

Back to the original problem, if the Minitaur was only playing every third note, it sounds like maybe its POLY VOICE MAX was set to 3. That would be the expected behavior in that case; if POLY MAX = 3 then the unit in question should play only every third note.

so in conclusion:
- there is a numbering error in the Sub 37 POLY MAX parameter display; it shows one less than the real value (in firmware v1.0.3; this is fixed in v1.0.4). For a two-voice system, set POLY MAX to 1 if using Sub 37 v1.0.3, with my apologies for the confusion.

- if the Minitaur is playing every third note and you want it to play every other note, see if you need to change the Minitaur POLY VOICE MAX setting to '2'.

Lastly, the poly voice allocation routine does pretty well if you are playing only as many keys as you have voices available... and it can handle a single stolen note pretty well (for when you are playing and your fingering overlaps a note in passing), but it gets confused if more than one extra note gets stolen... for example, if you have a 2-voice system and you hold down 4 keys at once and lift up on the keys one at a time, you can get some odd results. If you adapt your playing technique to the limited available polyphony it works pretty well. There is probably still some room for improvement in this system, over time.

all the best,

Amos

[greenborder]

Hi Amos,

Thanks so much for your very detailed explanation.
The Max Poly bug explanation on the Sub 37 makes sense, and sending a "all notes off" command helped in getting more predictable results.

When I set the Sub 37 to Poly Number 1 with Poly Max to 1, and the Minitaur Poly Number 2, Poly Max 2, I do get predictable results when I always play two notes at the same time. But when I just play one note it produces a 'toggle' effect when I play two notes in succession, only one of them produces sound (on both the Sub 37 and Minitaur simultaneously).
Is this the expected behavior with poly chaining in general or am I doing something wrong?

I also noticed that when I turn the Mod 2 Amount on the Sub 37 it changes the pitch of oscillator 2 on the Minitaur (see 0:40 in demo below), and the Minitaur doesn't react to the Amp Env Release when the Minitaur 'release setting' is set to 'hold release to change release' mode (fixed by changing to the button toggle mode by holding the release button for a second or two).
When I change the filter on the Sub 37, it sometimes activates the Minitaur's filter modulation depth, making it fully active.
I guess these are firmware bugs.

Finally, when I leave the Sub 37's Poly Max to 1 but turn Poly Number off (Minitaur still at Num 2, Max 2) I get a very nice 'duophonic' effect where I can start with two notes and then play the Sub 37 legato while the Minitaur osc stays at the same pitch, pretty cool - though this also suffers from the toggled effect described above when pressing just one note.

Hope this helps, let me know if you need more information or debugging steps.

Here's a quick demo in case anyone wants to hear it action: https://soundcloud.com/greenborder/sub3 ... chain-demo

[jido-genshi]

Hi Amos,

Thanks so much for your very detailed explanation.
The Max Poly bug explanation on the Sub 37 makes sense, and sending a "all notes off" command helped in getting more predictable results.

When I set the Sub 37 to Poly Number 1 with Poly Max to 1, and the Minitaur Poly Number 2, Poly Max 2, I do get predictable results when I always play two notes at the same time. But when I just play one note it produces a 'toggle' effect when I play two notes in succession, only one of them produces sound (on both the Sub 37 and Minitaur simultaneously).
Is this the expected behavior with poly chaining in general or am I doing something wrong?

I also noticed that when I turn the Mod 2 Amount on the Sub 37 it changes the pitch of oscillator 2 on the Minitaur (see 0:40 in demo below), and the Minitaur doesn't react to the Amp Env Release when the Minitaur 'release setting' is set to 'hold release to change release' mode (fixed by changing to the button toggle mode by holding the release button for a second or two). I guess these are firmware bugs.

Finally, when I leave the Sub 37's Poly Max to 1 but turn Poly Number off (Minitaur still at Num 2, Max 2) I get a very nice 'duophonic' effect where I can start with two notes and then play the Sub 37 legato while the Minitaur osc stays at the same pitch, pretty cool - though this also suffers from the toggled effect described above when pressing just one note.

Hope this helps, let me know if you need more information or debugging steps.

Here's a quick demo in case anyone wants to hear it action: https://soundcloud.com/greenborder/sub3 ... chain-demo

Yes, you are doing something wrong. Re-read Amos' post. If you are using two synths, they BOTH have to be set to Poly MAX 2. Then assign Poly VOICE NUMBER 1 to the Sub 37 and Poly VOICE NUMBER 2 to the Minitaur.

POLY (VOICE) MAX needs to be set equal to the total number of units you are chaining together; set POLY MAX to be the same on each unit. In the example where you have one Sub 37 and one Minitaur, you would set POLY MAX = 2 on the Sub 37 and POLY VOICE MAX = 2 on the Minitaur. This tells both units that there are two voices in the system.

Amos

EDIT: Never mind, my bad. I missed the part where Amos also said "Here is the way poly chain is intended to work."

[mmarsh100]

Yes, you are doing something wrong. Re-read Amos' post. If you are using two synths, they BOTH have to be set to Poly MAX 2. Then assign Poly VOICE NUMBER 1 to the Sub 37 and Poly VOICE NUMBER 2 to the Minitaur.

Except that:

First thing is that there was a small error in the numbering of the POLY MAX parameter on the Sub37 menu.
The numbers were displayed on the screen as 0-15, where they should have been shown as 1-16. This means that if the POLY MAX was showing you the number '2', it was actually setting the POLY MAX parameter to '3'. I believe this is still the case in Sub 37 v1.0.3; if you can set POLY MAX to 0 then that confirms the error. In this case, for two voices you would set POLY MAX on the Sub 37 to '1'. This is fixed already in the upcoming Sub 37 firmware v1.0.4.

So it is really only the Poly Max number that has the issue. You can Set the Poly Num as expected though.

[jido-genshi]

...

[mmarsh100]

Hmmm. I must have read that wrong. I thought Amos was saying the bug only exists on the Sub 37. If it exists on the Minitaur too, then I stand corrected. But if not, the POLY MAX parameter is off by one on the Sub and will need to be set accordingly.

[jido-genshi]

Hmmm. I must have read that wrong. I thought Amos was saying the bug only exists on the Sub 37. If it exists on the Minitaur too, then I stand corrected. But if not, the POLY MAX parameter is off by one on the Sub and will need to be set accordingly.

My bad, I missed the part where Amos said "Here is the way poly chain is intended to work."