Moog Music Forum

Forgive me, I know this is such a rookie question I am considering getting in to modular stuff. I have my eyes on a Doepfer System 2 suitcase. Really cool! Anyway, the whole mono / poly thing did pop in to my head and I got to wondering. What is involved in building a polyphonic modular? The basic idea of polyphony is simple, but beyond that I just realized how little I know. In the case of true analog, what is required for polyphony to even begin to be realized?

Thanks!

Hi,
There are a couple of ways you can go about creating a polyphonic modular.
First off, you will need extra oscillators and one of these:
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/mar00/a ... pfermc.htm

Or you could do it the old fashioned way and get the Midi>CV interface (A-190).
There is another way, but I am not old enough to tell you how to do it.
Modules, modules, modules.

Well, Honestly the only other way I know of is to tune each oscillator (lets say 88 of them) up the scale with each note triggering each osc, have them all run to a mixer and off to the filters, and in from another mixer comes your modulation sources. Sounds pretty rough, right?
anyway...that sounds dumb. who would want 88 note polyphony.lol.
an EML polybox?
seriously, the midi to cv converter is the way to go I think. You will have voices as many as you have oscillators and cv outs from the midi to cv converter.

Or you can buy a system from here http://www.synthesizers.com/ Looks more Moogish.

I have never tried a Doepfer system but as friends that owned and sold them. The problem with the Doepfer systems are the mini-tele jacks... they breaks after awhile.

Regards
Demokid

There have actually been a couple of different poly modular rigs. Two of them by Korg - among their early production models - included the two PS systems. One of my friends owned one, herself. I believe it used an organ-style divide-down circuit to achieve global keyboard polyphony. Don't know how many Korg PS synths are still available.

The other was far from being a production model, but it WAS a Moog synth. It was the system ultimately used by Hank Jones in the 1969 Jazz in the Garden festival in New York. (Only ultimate significance is that Keith Emerson's system came from the same festival.) It was set up with enough modules and S-triggers that it could be used to play poly chords (Don't know how many voices, though).

I often wonder if Tom Oberheim and Dave Smith took that into account, when they designed their all-powerful systems.

ebg31 wrote:I often wonder if Tom Oberheim and Dave Smith took that into account, when they designed their all-powerful systems.

Hello,

Dave Rossum and Scott Wedge developed the scanning keyboard that was the basis for instruments like the P5. It uses a processor to scan for inputs, then assigns a voice (or, vco-vcf-vca on a card).They were very instrumental in the development of Sequential and Oberheim's gear.
The link to an interesting interview with Dave Rossum is:

http://www.siliconbreakdown.com/rossum_interview.htm


Regards,


LWG

Thanks!