Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards What good is polyphony?

I'm not sure of it being a windows xp problem, but infact a motherboard problem

32-bit computers can address only 4 GB of memory unless you resort to trickery. Hardware devices require a part of this space and that's why Windows doesn't let you use the full 4 GB. (In fact, Windows takes up about half the available space for itself, although you can change it to use less.)

As DPs move to more advanced physical modelling they will use more polyphony. An example is sympathetic resonance: hitting a single key no longer just uses two voices - it also triggers notes on all the harmonics. This means each key pressed might need at least 8 voices for the next 3 harmonics

With enough keys pressed, at some stage all strings will be resonating. Does this mean the highest polyphony that you will ever need on a DP is 88x2 = 172 voices?

This question was asked, but never really answered. A polyphony limitation is only applicable to a specific piano, correct? If you use a module or software piano, that limitation is gone?

To make a more concrete example, the Casio PX-320 has 128 note polyphony and costs $700. The older Casio PX-310 has only 32-note polyphony. But it only costs $400. So the 310 is more limited than the 320. But if using it only as a controller, it makes no difference, correct?

Yes, I'm about 99% sure that is the way it works. The polyphony possible is based on the receiving synth engine, not the MIDI controller.

Absolutely correct, it is whatever the polyphony limits are of the receiving synth engine. You could of course use a synth for a controller and if you also used it's synth engine for sounds (i.e. local control on) in addition to your receiving synth module/software, then the synth used as a controller can run out of polyphony for it's own generated sounds but will not affect the receiving module/software polyphony. I hope I made that clear enough, let me know if I did not.
Clyde

My old old keyboard has 8 generators and was easy to fill up, esp. on 'Pipe Organ' setting that used 2 generators for each key. Easy to have more than 4 keys on, esp. when changing chords. The suppressed tones were unpleasant to hear.

So from what I gather is that ; when it comes to total polyphony being used ; the formula is this: Total Polyphony = layers + features + voices + styles + midi sounds + stereo + chords + individual notes
I might have missed something. How many years now that polyphony has been a feature on Dps? And no company as yet has NOT decided to add to their tiny screen display; "Amount of Polyphony Presently being used in this song " = 47 ? !@!@!$%^%#@!
or " You have presently gone over the polyphony limit, would you like to proceed?" Yes or NO ?

I think the manufacturers have not addressed a readout of how much polyphony is being used is due to the fact that for the average user it is not really an issue. Most people that run out of polyphony do so because they do not realize how to use their equipment properly. I can play all day long on my 32 note polyphony synths and never have an issue, even when using several different sounds at the same time. Based on posts I see in many different forums the biggest issue arises from over use of the sustain pedal. How many notes do you need to sustain while continuing to play new notes? Twelve? Twenty four?? At what point do you have a garbled mass of sound rather than music? I see posts from people all the time that complain they are running out of polyphony when their synth/DP has 128 note polyphony, I think they just need to learn how to use their gear properly. How much polyphony is enough? 256 notes? 512 notes? How much additional are we willing to pay for adding the hardware/software resources to allow monstrous amounts of polyphony?
Clyde

Orez, Even 2 gigs of RAM should be enough for a sampled piano. Some developers are recommending a hard drive that spins at 7200rpm. You might want to check the specs on your new machine.

Re running a software piano, unless your new machine is already spec'd with a soundcard which has a broad dynamic range, you'll need a third-party sound card and either quality external speakers or/and studio-quality headphones, to experience the true quality of your software piano.

When auditioning demo tunes, my ears prefer ones which do not include a lot of reverb and which do include exposed notes played slowly. Demos of the "Let me pump you up" variety may make a strong first impression, but that kind of instrument would quickly get on my nerves.

If I understand correctly, polyphony is constantly changing throughout a song. So your first example doesn't seem very useful. The second example seems downright awful. You expect the synth to stop in the middle of a song to ask?

Pianoteq, a software piano, does this. I was a little surprised to see that I easily managed to play about 48 tones at the same time just by banging out a few chords. Nothing too fancy.