I'm bummed out with the A4's polyphony

[JohnnyEgo]

buy one.
sell one.

[obscurerobot]

4x the polyphony of a Minibrute 2S, or Syntrx.

[reeloy]

…ask anybody who’s into modular synth to show u, what he/she/they can do with 4 truu analog mono 2 osc synth voices “only”…

then recheck on the swedish concept of parameterlocking…

then come again…

[InTheAM]

For me the A4 was never about polyphony. It is better to think of it as groove box with 4 analog monosynths inside it. Polyphony is a bonus feature on the A4. It shines in other regards. Pre and post owning one, I never thought of it as a “juicy chord machine.”

[sl1200mk2]

The Analog Four is undoubtably a great synth, but I feel the OP. An Analog Eight or Analog Twelve would be pretty incredible.

[DoS]

Well, there’s this technique:

A4 - 4 Note Chords from 1 Track

I’ve spent some time today figuring out how to arrange OSC 1 and OSC 2 with their ‘5th Sub’ to give 4 note chords that are in key. The ‘5th Sub’ gives you a note a 5th down, meaning if you hit a C note on the keyboard, it’ll give the C and an F below… which is the foundation of an F chord, not a C chord. So, the way around this is to tune your OSC to +7… this makes the 5th Sub sound a C and your OSC sound a G. C - G = root and fifth. Wherever you play this on the keyboard now, you’ll have the…

[Uzinusa]

You can tune oscillators so that each of the “four” is >1frequency e.g 5th

[oieubbrgov]

4 notes is plenty. This is A4:

[reeloy]

…yeah, if it only could be bigger, better, faster, stronger it would be more fad…

[Claid]

@Acidizer

(you are missing the point though I feel)

Thing is, you wouldn’t buy a monosynth to play chords. The Analog Four is four monosynths. It has multiple oscillators per voice so big chords are absolutely possible, but if you want to put eight fingers and two thumbs down on keys and hear every note, you’d better look elsewhere.

[InTheAM]

@Uzinusa

You can tune oscillators so that each of the “four” is >1frequency e.g 5th

Yes. I forgot you could do that as well : )

[sl1200mk2]

But it’s not ‘just’ four monosynths. It would be had they not implemented voice polyphony. Sure, I think most if not a lot of people treat it as one or more monosynths, but the functionality is certainly there.

[reeloy]

…there’s different tune options to each single osc…???..whaaaaaaat…!!!..
mindblowing concept…whoever invented this…MUST be a geeeenious…

[sinktothesea]

Since my piano playing skills are mediocre at best, I love that the A4 (I have the keys version) has only 4 voices! Gives me a good excuse that I’m not playing Chopin or Monk…

[bloody.water]

And nobody mentioned to OP you can setup poly mode and voice stealing algo’s so yep you can make beefy juicy things but it’ll possibly steal from elsewhere. Trick is to sacrifice a track except for percs so it’s not always triggering

[Claid]

Well, no it’s not. There are four analogue voices in A4. The polyphony mode allows to steal voices to play four notes at once, but it’s not possible to add more voices. It’s a hardware limitation.

[silent_k]

If you haven’t already, check out this thread:

Isn’t the Analog Four the most incredible and deep instrument from Elektron so far?

Plenty of examples here of how expansive this instrument is. Yes, you can tune the oscillators to chords as previously mentioned (and change the chord voicings with parameter locks per step if you want), and to my ears at least those chords can sound quite lovely, even if it isn’t the same as having 8 or 12 stacked oscillators like on a non-groovebox polysynth.

[sl1200mk2]

I understand it’s a hardware limitation and you simply can’t “add voices” without underlying changes. My intent is not to be argumentative, please don’t take it as such. I was simply saying it’s not just four monosyths. While it’s not a true paraphonic synth, simply the fact that voice stealing is implemented means that it’s capable of playing polyphonic notes.

Of course, how one intends to use it is up to them whether that’s the initial intent/design of the device or not. I (probably much like the OP) would use it for chords as much if not more that more of a monosynth role. I think it would be great if there was an MKIII that had more voices and adding true paraphonic capability without workarounds would be killer. Think of it as Elektrons version of a Novation Peak, but with their already killer sequencer and functionality.

Alas, this isn’t what the A4 is (today), but I can’t really fault someone for wishing it could be.

EDIT: I don’t own an A4 and have never used one. Maybe I’m being a complete idiot (which is entirely possible) but I’ve always been under the impression that the voice stealing thing implementation allowed for playing up to four notes at once. If that’s not the case, then my fault.

[Claid]

No Elektron instrument is as simple as it would be had another company made it. The Digitone, when I had one, was a drum machine, despite it being an FM synth. That’s the wonderful thing about Elektron devices, they fit into your workflow.

[melisshki]

I get it. I was always under the assumption that it was four tracks, four voices per track.