Manic,

Thanks for answering Frankie's question.

The thing all arranger manufacturers have to keep in mind is that 64 notes of polyphony may be enough for a synth, which is intended to play one or two polyphonic parts at a time.

The arranger is intended to play that PLUS the rest of the band, with richer layering of the solo parts and the 8 or more polyphonic parts for the accompaniment voices.

Select one of the better piano sound (two voices layered), play a succession of 4 8-note chords with two hands, while holding the sustain pedal, and you have note dropouts, even before you turn on the arranger, or layer rich strings over the right hand.

GeneralMusic, for example, realizes that it takes 160 voices of polyphony to accurately reproduce the piano performance, allowing for layering and sustain (yet inexplicably, they make their "flagship" arranger with only 64 voices, but I digress, since this is a Korg thread).

Fran is certainly right that allocation does make some difference, and indeed there are instruments which advertise 128 voices of polyphony, but in reality have more note dropouts than some others with only 64 voices. However, even with well-handled allocation (as in my Roland), note dropouts are still quite possible if the max polyphony is too low (as in 64 voices).

As I said a number of times before, it truly depends on your playing style - some people may never experience note dropouts, but trust me, once it happens to you, you will hate it as much as I do.

Some people will recall that some middle-end arrangers today have only 32 notes of polyphony, and still sell like hotcakes, while some of the most popular arrangers of some years ago only had 24 voices. That is indeed true, and one can compromize and adjust his playing style to fit into the limitations of the instrument, such as playing piano parts with only 2 fingers, and not using sustain pedal.

But having paid almost $4000 (including tax), why should anyone be forced to make these types of compromizes? 15 years ago, when Roland E-70 and Ketron MS50 were released, they had more polyphony than almost anything else on the market - they were practically pushing the technological envelope. Today most mid- and high-end instruments have at least 128 note polyphony, even though much of it may be left unused. Arranger is one instrument that truly NEEDS high polyphony count. It is high time for the manufacturers to realize that.

Regards
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Regards,
Alex