Total polyphony

Apologies if this has been covered – I have looked in many places (manual, Merlin’s manual, this forum, other forums) and all I’ve got so far is brief conflicting mentions of it in a couple of Youtube videos.

Short version: Can the OT play eight tracks of stereo samples in Flex machines simultaneously?

Long version: I’m aware that each track is monophonic and also that streaming 8 tracks simultaneously from the CF card might work so-so, depending on speed of card. But in general, is the OT eight tracks of stereo audio that can play on top of each other? Or is it, as some seem to suggest in some places, max. 8 mono tracks and 4 stereo tracks?

Thanks in advance!

K

If you play from Flex machines, you’re not streaming from card, you are using Ram which is normally faster.

Regarding static machines, I’ve never had any problems streaming from a good sd. And I used to have 8 slots playing stereo files…Now I use mono for some samples but only for easier mixing purposes.

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They’re not, they’re stereo

yes

unlikely to be an issue unless you’re jumping around using a fast LFO within the samples on card

there’s a lot of unqualified guff written freely on the internet - the only issue you’d come across is rapidly jumping from place to place on a card streamed (static) sample (in which case use the RAM(flex), and shorter samples as ram is finite)

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:joy:
Quote those places please!

Ot can play 8 stereo tracks and record 8 stereo files at the same time!

Yes, that was a clumsy formulation on my part perhaps – I just meant each individual track is not polyphonic – cannot play more than one sample at a time. (Don’t know what you’d call that.)

Thanks for the help!

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Your use of monophonic in this context appears perfectly accurate - I’d suggest @avantronica revisits his reply :+1:t3:

In your context monophonic is the opposite of polyphonic, not stereophonic.

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Yes, but does one usually use the term polyphonic for playing more than one sample at a time in this context? I’m thinking there’s another word for it which is more precise, but I can’t seem to get there

Melodic polyphony
Vs
Polyphonic audio file/format

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Polyphonic is correct here.

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:slight_smile:

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There’s probably just as much wrong information about the OT on the Internet as there is right, maybe even more… People seem to always declare it can’t do this or that instead of asking or as they are asking, or just state wrong info like they’re facts…

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Polyphonic and monophonic in your context describes available musical voices - so one sample per track playing at one time = monophonic.

Stereophonic and Monophonic (usually shortened to just Stereo and Mono) also describes sound placement in space or audio channels - which wasn’t your intention or usage. So you described accurately :+1:t3:

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Oh, I’m not OP. Just a random observer who got confused by terminology. Which isn’t that unusual for me in audioland :slight_smile: But you and others cleared it up, and now I’m on board

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generally in my experience its

stereophonic and monaural when referring to the the field of sound

polyphonic and monophonic when referring to number of notes that can be played at a single time

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