Expand polyphony or polychain with Elektron?

daiku1 · 2014-12-06T01:51:41.000Z

I am very excited about getting my Elektron keys middle next week, but had a question.

I am fairly new to synths, but was curious, is there a way to expand the voices available in a sequence by polychaining? I.E, Can you add an additional Analog Four to say a Keys, and then access additional voices in a sequence for chords, without having to borrow notes from other tracks? Can the machine be made aware of additional voices across midi for instance?
I am probably not saying this right, since I am a guitar player, but know with the moog phattys and DAve smith stuff, you can add additional voices. Was curious if you can do the same with additional Elektron gear?

PeterHanes · 2014-12-06T20:51:23.000Z

""daiku1"":

I am very excited about getting my Elektron keys middle next week, but had a question.

I am fairly new to synths, but was curious, is there a way to expand the voices available in a sequence by polychaining? I.E, Can you add an additional Analog Four to say a Keys, and then access additional voices in a sequence for chords, without having to borrow notes from other tracks? Can the machine be made aware of additional voices across midi for instance?
I am probably not saying this right, since I am a guitar player, but know with the moog phattys and DAve smith stuff, you can add additional voices. Was curious if you can do the same with additional Elektron gear?

Not at present, and I know of no rumour of that capability becoming available.

Automux · 2014-12-06T21:28:25.000Z

You can still fake this by using standard MIDI just it would take more work. You could load the same kit into the A4 and just sequence in the additional notes in the chord. If you are playing live then maybe you could use the split keys performance mode and have half the keyboard set to the internal MIDI channel and the other half to the external A4 channel.

Naboo · 2016-01-25T19:10:06.000Z

Overbridge should have the potential to do this. Otherwise, do the performance Macros send out midi CC data? If so, then you could send midi from one machine to other. I actually don’t know if the AK/A4 send midi CC data out when parameters are edited?

PeterHanes · 2016-01-25T19:50:43.000Z

""Naboo"":

Overbridge should have the potential to do this. Otherwise, do the performance Macros send out midi CC data? If so, then you could send midi from one machine to other. I actually don’t know if the AK/A4 send midi CC data out when parameters are edited?

Analog Keys and Analog Four can send MIDI CC (or NRPN) messages when parameters are adjusted, but this seems to have little specifically to do with polychaining, which would require two units to know collectively which MIDI note messages to respond to.

Naboo · 2016-01-25T21:41:42.000Z

Ok, great. Was thinking more for the CC control side of things while the DAW or OT or whatever handles the notes. Say you used a Max For live device or something like polymer to distribute the notes. Then maybe the CC data from one machine to the other can control the parameters for the second A4/AK.

goatofneptune · 2016-12-01T13:14:49.208Z

since some time has gone by: Is there a solution available yet to extend the voices of an ak with an a4 to get polyphonie with 8 voices (or unison with eight voices)?

Cosmic · 2016-12-01T13:19:00.563Z

No, dont think so.

namnibor · 2016-12-01T13:37:22.398Z

Very interested in this as well. Have both AK and A4 black box. However, simply using the two together while live editing performance macros on A4 with the AK simply midi sync’d works well for now but it would be incredibly beneficial to be able to properly polychain the two in a special performance or multimap set-up as well. Not complaining one bit. I love them both.

finalform · 2016-12-01T14:29:29.915Z

Could you not achieve this with a MIDI Solutions Event Processor Plus box?*

http://www.midisolutions.com/applicat.htm#EventProcessors

If it doesn’t do exactly that then I should think they could tweak the firmware to make it work (at a cost).

[* my understanding is that it can track the number of notes playing by incrementing a value when it receives a note-on message and decrementing it on a note-off message. When that value goes above a set number, it transmits the notes it receives on a different MIDI channel. So you could have the first four notes going to one A4/AK and when four notes are concurrently playing, any additional notes get routed to a different channel (ie a second A4/AK).]

Cosmic · 2016-12-01T14:53:26.627Z

Play one hand on the a4, the other hand on the ak

Naboo · 2016-12-18T17:13:05.272Z

I think the A4/K parameters send midi out for parameter changes. But an overbridge or OS integrated solution would be great. For itb midi sequencing you could use something like this -

Polymer

Polymer - Play Your Studio As One

Polymer lets you play your monophonic synths together, like they're all part of some giant mutant polysynth. And it operates via plain old MIDI, so it's compatible with almost anything — modulars, samplers, even virtual instruments.

sezare56 · 2016-12-18T19:29:02.448Z

goatofneptune:

Is there a solution available yet to extend the voices of an ak with an a4 to get polyphonie with 8 voices

Very easy with a midi processor dispatching each note to a different midi channel, such as Midipal. (not sure of the others). I can’t do it with Event Processor +.

1-4 for Ak and 5-8 for A4, for exemple.

I used it to have 8 voices polyphony emulation on Octatrack with sucess.

goatofneptune · 2016-12-18T21:18:40.282Z

yes that would route notes to two synthesizers, but also the patches must be syncronized, eg when you turn the filterknob. so the synth must have a sync mode for this. the moog sub 37 has such a function, without it its not very practical to use two synths at the same time.

sezare56 · 2016-12-18T21:26:50.085Z

Doable. Even with a keyboard controller with split sending 2 midi channels. move 2 sliders with different channels.

Actually doable too with Event Processor + and a simple keyboard. Split the keyboard in 2 channels. Incomming CC, and PC can be sent to 2 channels.

fingerwolf · 2016-12-19T14:23:49.211Z

Have you considered programming an Axoloti to do the MIDI splitting for you? I just got mine in the post, planning to spend some of my xmas break building some loop+audio input FX synced to MIDI Clock configurations. Whether or not I’ll manage it who knows, but having browsed the docs, you can do a lot with what’s coming to its MIDI In and send it to the MIDI Out fairly easily. They are cheap too.

N.B. I am not volunteering I am famously bad at ‘holiday’ projects. I’ll probably get it done by Easter…

relapse808 · 2016-12-19T16:29:15.220Z

My opinion after using the AK is that I don’t like it. 4 voices is not even close enough for such an expensive synth. Yeah the sequencer is cool but not being able to do chords or have basically a 4 part mono synth is no good. I know you can switch to 1 part, 4 poly but whats the point in that. Seriously Elektron if you release another synth give us more voices!

Cosmic · 2016-12-19T17:06:18.819Z

The only ‘in production’ analog synth that has more voices that I can think of and is cheaper than the analog keys is the deepmind 12. There are others cheaper that also have 4 voices, i.e. minilogue. no other synth offers so many features at the price point of analog keys currently. Thats why I bought one over other options. When getting into 6, 8 12 voice analog, starting to look at the 2K mark +, such as DSI offerings.

CallOffTheVote · 2016-12-19T17:26:44.939Z

More voices is always gonna be nice but AK/A4 was never really promoted as a killer Pads kind of synth. And it absolutely destroys everything else out there at the stuff that it was/is marketed as… I feel like I’ve barely touched the surface of it still… Not the biggest fan of the UI/programming it/its intrinsic character. But I keep finding it can be bent toward what you want in most cases and goes in a ton of creative directions…

BasariStudios · 2016-12-19T17:34:41.853Z

[quote=“relapse808, post:17, topic:9259”]
4 voices is not even close enough for such an expensive synth.[/quote]

There is a solution…OB6…for triple the amount of money for 2 more voices -Sequencer.