As far as bugs, the weird behavior with the knob that you mention as an issue sounds like something that can be fixed.
It is possible that they cannot add polyphony without replacing the hardware processor. But it is just my wild guess.
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For sure, Iām not complaining though, I love the thing. Just hope theyāll keep supporting the device for a bit still.
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Anyone updated to v 4 ? Iām a little freaked out reading about user that bricked their device trying to update the firmware and having to pay for shipping the device to Europe 
I didnāt think you were. Iām just thinking of the Zoia which has a practical limit of 4 voice polyphony for synth patches. The limit is imposed by the CPU. I say practical because some people have tried to stretch past that limit but ran into problems.
So by extrapolation my guess is the CPU is a limitation on the Medusa as well, for digital synthesis polyphony. The analog side of course is limited in a more concrete fashion.
You can definitely do that in FM mode. The voice envelopes are independent. True that targets for EG1-EG3 retrigger with every note, as does the Filter envelope and Noise envelope.
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Arpeggiator
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Ability to sequence GRID cells externally / each cell assigned to midi note / now itās impossible and itās really stupid
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Overdub mode for live recording (now if notes are played during real time recording they just replace notes in sequencer, would be nice to have an option to add them to create complex polyphonic things )
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Negative Amount Values on ENV
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Sequencer speed divisions ( like 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/8, 1/12 of the speed would be great )
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Ability to set seq start point the same way as we set end point now
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More mod destinations ( ENVs Atk, Dec, Sus, Rel parameters accessible for modulation as destinations, as well as OSCs waveform select and octave parameters, it could bring even more āmodularā experience )
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Faster LFOs in free and sync modes
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Free assignable ENV 4 (FIL) and 5 (AMP)
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Oscillators as modulation sources for even more modular experience, and maybe a kind of basic modulation matrix hidden in the menu
More than that, I would tweak a bit ENV faders response to make them a bit smother for performance, maybe different curveā¦ now they give such a response as they work not properly comparing to proper Roland SH fader experience for exampleā¦
So a lot of important things to fixā¦ To make it really āmatureā instrumentā¦ and it was suggested million times on Medusa fb groups, IG and other placesā¦ Polyend unfortunately just ignores thisā¦
FM mode is nice of course, but to me other things could be added at the first placeā¦
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all is good here, no troublesā¦
Disclaimer: long, technical and critical (not for fans) review. Also read PE response after the post!
Medusa has major technical limitations which cannot be fixed by software. A low-end processor
product link https://www.nxp.com/part/MK20DX256VLH7#/
was selected with only 72MHz speed, no DSP or slave processor for off-loading the various duties.
Also the digital to analog conversion bandwidth for control signals is limited by hardware (maybe I am wrong here). The result is catastrophic update frequency of screens, envelopes, LFOs and the worst sequencer jitter (measure of tightness) ever (I tested it with software and compared to other tests and public database). The envelope attack time is 3-4 ms at fastest. No such lazy rates seen till the early 80ies when the first software generated envelopes were introduced.
Snappy bassline? Forget it.
Medusa found its fan-base, because the fundamental sound is rich and quality, still a powerful synth for soundscapes, drones, ambient. Dreadbox analog engine is superb. The matrix grid is also excellent part. User interface and layout is nice.
Despite heavy marketing (Aphex Twin recommendation, many āindependentā reviews) was not a big hit. After several price drops and ālimited editionā release the story is over.
I really like the concept and the parts on their owns just it is not glued together well. MK2 or a new machine with similar hybrid concept would make sense and Polyend learnt the lesson of synthesizer design.
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This is a very specific post for the number of inaccuracies in it. In the interest of other readers, let me correct those.
Incorrect. The processor is clocked at 96MHz.
Itās ābandwidthā. And itās 44.1kHz at 12-bit.
This has been improved in 4.0. The audio buffer is 32-samples long which is 0.72 ms latency.
This has been improved in 4.0. You can easily measure this with synced LFOs and an external clock.
This has been improved in 4.0. The EG/LFO update resolution is at 0.3ms.
Have you listened to the FM presets? One of them is literally a classic slap bass.
All in all, sure, there are software and hardware limits in the device. We could only put 250kB of code in it and thereās 64kB or RAM. The hardware signal path is ādigital into analogā, meaning no DSP could be added since it wouldnāt cover analog oscillators. There were quirks, many of which are addressed now, but some canāt. But some of your used adjectives are rather hyperbolic.
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totally agree! still a nice āfreaky styleā machine it is, drone ambient modes, etcā¦ and maybe a good concept for future instruments.
BUT
agree with RPLKTR as well, things are a bit better with 4.0
Wow, that is nice. Thank you for correction. I will check 4.0 when I got my Medusa back.
I will be the happiest customer if jitter and envelope issues are fixed.
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One thing that comes to mind is that envelopes in Medusa are linear. This didnāt change. So if you expect exponential behavior, well, we donāt support that.
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None of this matters (and has mostly been debunked anyway).
All things that are made by humans have limits.
So, decay measured on the audio output would be a steady volts/second rather than a steady dB/second ?
Nice looking forward to check out v4, as soon as I get the courage to update the machineā¦ I really donāt want to send it back to home base if the flashing crash!!
Linear is fine for most of the synth sounds. There is a switch parameter on DSI Evolver for exponential or linear envelope and I rarely used that.
Exponential is more natural but for modern synth sounds where dynamics is heavily compressed this is not that important. Some percussive sounds like snares and claps sounds better with exponential.
Updated fine. The DFM engine is pretty cool. So far Iām getting some nice results mixing waveforms besides sine for some soft, pretty results.
āTwo things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I am not yet completely sure about the universe.ā - Albert Einstein
no personnel, just reflected to your words
I just updated, and it is truly a different beast! Connecting my OT as well to control the analog synth (I think Iām doing it right, on channel 9) adds even more depth to the sound. I can do both the dreaming soundscape with a bass line or melody at the same time really easily.
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