I’m looking/searching for an analog polyphonic desktop module and there are quite some options.
One question that I’m trying to answer for myself is, how many voices do I need/want.
Curious to hear your opinions!
Normally I do’nt play chords with more than 4-5 notes, but I realise that with longer release times, and triggering new chords, I could get problems with the ‘note stealing’ phenomenon.
Curious to hear your experiences!
to those with >5 polyphonic devices like the digitone, or novation peak, deepmind, etc, or even to the prophet 10 owners: how often do you use >5 voices?
Always, with the Prophet 12. Though not because I need it for chords and stuff, but because I write my tracks based partly on how the voice stealing works. It’s a flavour all its own, so I tend to use it in the way it works best, rather than use all voices just because I can do massive chords that layer each other.
The Prophet 5, for example, I wouldn’t want to have the 10 version because whatever’s going on with the voice stealing there, is different from the 12 and thus I want that character, and I wouldn’t get it if I had the 10.
The 5’s pretty thick and with 5 voices in play at once, there’s a lot going on, not in the least because it handles modulation differently from some other synths I’ve played. So with 10 voices in full swing, I’d imagine the track might be overwhelmed with all the Prophet sweetness and not leave room for much else. In a band context, this is probably cool, since guitar, drums, bass and song live in other parts of the room. But when you layer stuff like I do, building entire tracks with the Prophet 5 alone, you just don’t want those ten voices all over the place.
I’m also finding that when you got access to lots of voices, the multi-timbral dream especially around analog synths, really is more a mirage than anything else. If I run my Prophet 12 in bi-timbral mode together with the Prophet 5, I essentially got three channels of analog synthesis going (barring the DCO character of the 12). That’s just too much going on without processing, and once you start process a solid, top notch synth, you lose part of its character.
So I don’t even go there, even if I could, and approach my synths as sources for sampling and recording and then make it into something else, with that unique character they bring to that something else, and wouldn’t really know what to do with all these voices and channels of synths even if I had access to full live processing of them all (which I don’t).
great thoughts thanks!
so @circuitghost you have a prophet 5 and 12?
I wonder: do you ever run out of voices on the 5? for instance if you play 3 (or 4) note chords with long release, do you notice the note stealing whey triggering a new chord?
I have an Analog Keys.
Usually 4 voices is enough but it’s not uncommon that I wish I had more (and an extra octave on the keyboard). It’s when you want to use a sound with a long release that it can become vexing. If I buy another synth at some point I’ll make sure it’s at least 8 voices.
i rarely use more than 2.
because any 4-note chord can be played by 4 oscillators, which is effectively 2 voices.
and chords with more notes are for jazz.
p.s. this is the official reveal of the secret why i buy two same mono synths quite often.
I don’t like big synth chords. I‘m a fan of two note intervals rather than triads. I rarely use them.
So I can live with few voices. 6-8 would be nice, I‘m ok with 4 voices from the A4 as well.
But that’s just my style of music.
I have a Peak and sometimes will use 6+ of the voices at a time, not in every track. There are a few reasons why, as people have said above, one is voice stealing from long tails (long decay/release times), one is just polyphony from two-handed pad chords, and a big one is unison modes (both 2-voice unison for pads occasionally and 4+ for fatter mono stuff).
It’s pretty much my main/only polysynth though. I use DN all the time but not that often as a single poly part.
Thanks everyone. I am in doubt between prophet 5 or prophet 10 module. So that partially explains my questions. Still in doubt though, especially because of that some say the note stealing of the prophet 5 can also sound better than the 10 (because of less cluttering).
Found this online:
What I would recommend to anyone is to try a soft synth with adjustable voice count, and do some extensive playing with the types of sounds you plan to work with. I did this using Repro5 by U-He with pad sounds with long release times.
Without question, the right answer for me was “5 voices wins”. The issue is when I put it on 8 voices, one or two notes tend to hang around a little too long on chord changes, which leads to a slightly muddy off key sound. This would be even worse on a true analog with looser tuning. With 5 voices the note stealing actually improved the sound of the playing by making sure the least relevant note always fell out of the queue. This is also the same limitation most vintage music made with a Prophet was subject to.
Hey, yep, note stealing is obvious, I’m a keyboard player and sometimes move pretty fast across the keys. But I like the way it snaps and creates rhythm, so I consider it a strength of the Prophet 5’s character. In the Prophet 12, there’s much more texture and ambience going on and in that case, having more voices contributes to the overall larger sound scapes that one creates.
Prophet 12 is like Iceland in a synth. You want those wide, open spaces, roaming free.
Prophet 5 is the fireplace you get home to, in that cabin by the sea. Warm, intimate and close. You don’t want lots of voices then, just make sure the ones you use, count.