SYNTHESIS TECHNOLOGY
PAGE
16
MOTM-650 USER’S GUIDE
WWW.SYNTHTECH.COM
VG1Alloc
Solo
Voice Allocation Mode
- What is “voice allocation”? In an ideal world, we’d always have
all the synth voices we need to sound the notes we want to play. Unfortunately, there are
usually fewer synth voices than notes on the keyboard, so there has to be a way to allocate
the many possible notes to the few available voices. In fact, there are many ways to
allocate voices to notes, some having surprisingly different musical results.
The MOTM-650 has 9 voice allocation modes that are assignable on a per group basis.
Each voice allocation mode has a specific use, and is described below. For the sake of
understanding how they differ, set the
Voice Group Type
to
4
and pay close attention to
the voice gate LEDs (
V1-V4)
to visually grasp how the voices are allocated.
Solo
Solo
mode will only sound one note at a time. Which note is selected depends on the
setting of the global
Solo Note Priority
option – either the
Low Note
,
High Note
, or
Last Note
played. When a second note is played while the first one is still held, the
CV
output will change, but the
GATE
output will stay high. If the
Velocity/Trigger Output
is
set to
S-Trigger
mode, then the
VEL
output won’t retrigger. Only one voice is used in
Solo
mode – the first voice in the group. This the only allocation mode that doesn’t use all
available voices.
Solo Rot
Solo Rotate
also sounds only one note. However, each new note is assigned to a new voice,
rotating through all the voices in the group, starting with the first voice. This mode is good
for playing short, percussive sounds with a long release, because new notes will not
immediately interrupt the release with a new attack like in
Solo
mode (unless many notes
are played quickly). All available voices are used in
Solo Rotate
mode.
Solo Uni
Solo Unison
, like the other solo modes, only sounds one note. However, all available
voices are used to play this note. If the
Voice Group Type
is set to
1/1/1/1
, this means only
one voice is available, so
Solo Unison
will work exactly like
Solo
mode. If the
Voice
Group Type
is set to
2/2
or
4
, then more voices are available. Detuning the oscillators
that the
CV
outputs are connected to can create a very fat sound in
Solo Unison
mode.
Poly1
Poly 1
mode is polyphonic, meaning more than one note can be played at a time. Its
allocation algorithm is designed to preserve a note's release as long as possible. The last
note released is the last voice to be reallocated. For example: if A B C D are played in
