Here is one source. If you google "Mark 152", you can find several others: http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Mark152/

I find it nearly impossible to believe that this digital, that Kurzweil advertizes as setting "a new standard for quality keyboards" drops notes when the pedal is held down 33 notes in succession. I think there is a new definition of the word "polyphony" abroad in the land, and I think this is what I heard on a little $600 Yamaha at Guitar Center. This is not to say that all manufacturers agree with the new definition, and have the technology to support it.

My best guess is that notes MUST be played simultaneously -- or nearly simultaneously (within a tenth of second inside the "attack" phase of the ADSR envelope) -- to build to the 32 note limit. Once a chord is played, and a split second passes, it never drops out. I don't know this for sure, but it's one possibility.

But polyphony ain't what it used to be -- I do know that for sure.

Rick

Rick,
You said something similar in your other post, " I think they really might mean SIMULTANEOUSLY, as in, notes played in sequence are unaffected -- even with the damper pedal down."
I am not a polyphony expert, but my opinion is your wrong. These keyboards are not pianos (obvously), if you keep the damper down, then the notes must keep on playing. The processor requires the horsepower to keep everything playing. If the processor can't keep everything sounding, then there has to be dropouts. I assume the software knows what is the maximum number of notes that can be played simultaneously by the cpu, and drops (hopefully) appropriate notes.
Starkeeper

every tone needs his own engine.

All these instruments work with smaple playback. a sample is played basically in 3 parts, begin, loop, end. if you put in your damper peddal, the sample stays in the loop.

So 32 voice polyphony is 32 tones at once, including dampered tones. But in these kurzweil instruments, every instrument is one stereon tone, where in Yamaha instruments some of the sounds are consisting 4 tones....so basically the polyphony of this Kurzweil equals a 128 Tyros 2 engine

Hi,

don't think that "32 voices" means polyphony, it's the total amount of sounds (like piano, ep, harpsichord, bass, etc.) available.

The polyphony is not declared here.

Just my guess.

Bye.

Me WRONG??? Welp, stranger things has happened, Starkeeper.

Some of the ads say "32-voice polyphony" Booby.

Wicki

Starkeeper is right. I was wrong.

I'm cross posting the below from "Polyphony a phony issue?" because it's relevant.

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OK, I finally got the $600 Yammie at GC to exhibit some note droppng. It was just a gliss up from middle C with flute and strings layered together. After exactly 16 notes a bunch of the lower ones dropped out. When I started with a low E flat and D flat -- held with pedal -- neither of those two dropped out. So it gives precedence to notes separated from others by time and/or pitch and/or harmonics. Not sure which. Didn't think I could stand there forever playing glisses, thinking up tests.

When I switched to piano/strings -- which is what I tried the other day -- polyphony became 32 notes. Which I spose is cause they have a piano/string "voice" in ROM. So it switched to that without informing yours truly. VERY hard to hear anything drop out with piano/strings.

I also learned that Kurzweils generally have four oscillators per voice, and when they say "32 note polyphony" they really mean 192 oscillators max. Kurzweil should make it very clear in all their specs that their polyphony means 2 to 4 times as many voices as a Yammie or Privia. (Roland? Korg?) How many people cept me are crazy enough to dig this out before making a purchase?

So the difference between the home market and the pro/stage market appears to be about 32 notes of polyphony. Plus you get an extra glob of sounds/features for a buck in the home market because they sell so many more home machines, and software and memory are cheap vs. oscillators.

Thanks for your patience. It's all coming together now. I think.

Rick