about polyphony

it's not 2 tone layered or 4 tone layered roland /yams

There are always patches in all synths that use only 1 waveform.

eg.
64 voice piano in roland xp series
some string/analog progs in Korg 01 and x series,even 16 poly M1 has programs that use 1 waveform

polyphony dropouts started with multi layering of 2 tones in program/patch modes mainly started in mid 90's(I'm not talking about combi/performance modes)where most synth players demanded for thick/layered patches to solo/or sustain chords -eg piano/strings

In a workstaion/smf playback world,32 poly nonGM 01W(though some progarams use 2 waves) or 24 poly GM sound canvas(SC 3x series)had never had much complaints in seq play back.(most midifiles were written for SC series as standard,Roland was the first to introduce the commercially sucessful GM modules in 92 ,and ofcourse GM arrangers E15,70,and synths -jv30(all with sound canvas board).

But in a live band situation you may not need 64 notes simutaneously,so layering up (eg-2 to 4 tones)is OK since players demand for sound of fuller stacked modules.

Polyphony is not a lie.it just happen to shift from early-mid 90's straight forward 1 wave-1patch )to multi wave layered patches after late 90's , because KB makers trying to make fuller individual patches(to impress the potential buyer compared to competitor),so ofcourse they do sometimes suffer from dropouts in seq/smf situation .

synth wise(not talking about early roland gm/gs arrangers)
Roland synths - 4 tone patchs (some of them are 2 or 3)
Korgs - 2 tone patches .

But arrangers are different.They need polyphony,KB maker/sound-style programmer must make sure that there should be no drop outs with regular playing,occational 2 patch layering, etc.Dynamic allocation helps but styles must not use too many layered voices or if they want to do so they should increase the polyphony accordingly.



[This message has been edited by jamman (edited 04-15-2006).]