MuTools

Crackbaby · Post by **Crackbaby** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 10:02 pm

Ahh i see, it makes sense keeping the polyphonic parts separate.
Though you could use the keysplitter and have one synth for each key and that way get polyphony

"rules" are for breaking, aren't they

Fluffy, Mux itself is neither monophonic or polyphonic. The modules and/or vsti's inside can be either though. I don't know how much you know about modular synthesis etc but in order to get polyphony you need to duplicate the chain of soundgenerators and modifiers for each key you press.
When you add the oscillator in the 'normal' mux, then it is just one oscillator and thus monophonic. When using the polysynth where you only can use polyphonic modules, they will get duplicated for each key.

Mr mutools is very welcomed to correct me, but this is how i understand it.

One thing i wonder though: Is the polysynth mux container special or is it that whenever there's only polyphonic modules inside a mux it will be polyphonic? Add a monophonic and that's what you get (monophonic)?

pljones · Post by **pljones** » Tue Jul 24, 2012 7:55 am

IIRC, there are some "poly-only" modules but none that cause the poly-synth to become mono - i.e. poly-synth wraps some extra bits around any mono modules to make them run poly in the signal chain.

Crackbaby · Post by **Crackbaby** » Tue Jul 24, 2012 8:28 am

oh that's cool!
Thanks

fluffy_little_something · Tue Jul 24, 2012 1:08 pm

@crackbaby

"When you add the oscillator in the 'normal' mux, then it is just one oscillator and thus monophonic."

Is that so? I didn't know that

Maybe we are not talking about the same thing.
I just did the most primitive synth one can imagine in Mulab, input->oscillator->output. It is polyphonic as I can play chords with it. To me it seems that software synths are by default polyphonic as they work differently from hardware synths, where indeed you need a separate oscillator for every voice. With software only the CPU is the limit. It's like the signal chain is just a recipe that you can cook as often as your computer allows.

Crackbaby · Post by **Crackbaby** » Tue Jul 24, 2012 2:10 pm

Hmm.. im using Mux but im not sure if there if a difference.
When i try it here, it's monophonic.
Are you working "inside" the polysynth preset?
Are you able to add a vst effect to the chain also? Because that is, for me, not possible inside the polysynth preset. If i doubleclick to open up the "add module" menu, only the built in modules are there.

fluffy_little_something · Tue Jul 24, 2012 2:45 pm

Within the polysynth I am also only offered the standard components, no VSTs. Those are offered one level above the polysynth.

I never really knew the structure of all that stuff and what the differences are.
On the level above the polysynth (I suppose that is the MUX?!) there is indeed just one voice, regardless of how many oscillators I add. So, I assume that upper level is the only way to force a monophonic sound, right?

AndreasD · Post by **AndreasD** » Tue Jul 24, 2012 3:06 pm

To clarify this Poly/Mono thing:

The polysynth and the sampler modules are the ONLY Mux modules that are polyphonic!

There is actually more to a voice than an oscillator, you need a master envelope as well, telling the voice when to stop (= release the voice). The samplers play the sample, then stop. The polysynth stops a voice when the main envelope has finished.
If you use an oscillator in the main Mux (top level) it will just oscillate at current note pitch without stopping.

So, the polysynth allocates a voice whenever a note on arrives and release it when the main envelope has finished.

Now, why not put everything inside a polysynth?
There are some practical reasons:
MUX can include VSTs. Say you put one inside polysynth. This would require to load the VST when a note on arrives. Imagine the latency for this voice when using your favourite GB piano VST. And that is just for one voice. Now you play the next note and you have to load the second instance of that piano VST. You want 32 voices? You need to load 32 instances of the piano! Pretty much impossible.

There are reasons where you don't want/need things to be polyphonic.
Like effects. You don't want to have one reverb for each voice. You want to have all voices mingle together in the reverb to achieve this nice rich sound. The same for other effects.

To summarize: Whatever you want to have a treatment per voice, put it inside the polysynth. Anything that handles all voices together goes outside the polysynth and in the MUX.
The possibilities for modules in the polysynth are restricted so that you can't do wrong.
And the possibilities in polysynth are well chosen. ANY other synth is built this way.

I hope this helps!

fluffy_little_something · Tue Jul 24, 2012 3:47 pm

Yes, interesting, thanks for the explanation

And where does Musynth fit in all this? When expanded, its components seem like those of Polysynth, just a different user interface so to speak, more orderly, yet more limited.

MuTools · Post by **MuTools** » Tue Jul 24, 2012 4:17 pm

What do you mean with "when expanded"?

fluffy_little_something · Tue Jul 24, 2012 4:27 pm

Well, when you click on those little symbols in the corners in order to open, say, the oscillator or envelope windows. If I am not mistaken, those windows look exactly like those in the polysynth deep editor.

AndreasD · Post by **AndreasD** » Wed Jul 25, 2012 4:23 am

fluffy, could it be that you are refering to a MuSynth?

A polysynth itself has no parameter. It all depends on what you put inside.

fluffy_little_something · Wed Jul 25, 2012 2:16 pm

Yes, I was referring to MuSynth as I said a few comments earlier.
I was just wondering what MuSynth is, how it fits in, as it seems to consist of the same components as the MUX or Polysynth.
My brain needs structure to understand something, thus I am trying to figure out what all those components of Mulab are and what their relationships and differences are.

Crackbaby · Post by **Crackbaby** » Wed Jul 25, 2012 2:57 pm

I wonder if it's possible to make a gui with the same gui parts as MuSynth has? I've only managed to get knobs so far.

Mr Mutools.. if you only knew how many cool mux gadgets i've built so far

MuTools · Post by **MuTools** » Wed Jul 25, 2012 3:49 pm

Crackbaby wrote:I wonder if it's possible to make a gui with the same gui parts as MuSynth has? I've only managed to get knobs so far.

It's possible but not yet supported.
Allowing the user to build rich custom editors (MUX Devices) is one of the challenges for M5/M2.

Mr Mutools.. if you only knew how many cool mux gadgets i've built so far

You make me curious! Do you want to share them?

Crackbaby · Post by **Crackbaby** » Wed Jul 25, 2012 6:32 pm

I think i need to organize a little better first.. and all but one make use of my vst's

Some are made with just freeware though .. i think

My agenda when making these is to use them in maschine but i think anyone could use synths/effects almost fully controllable with 8 or 16 knobs.
The hardest part is to get good curves using the modulation mapper to control two parameters like dist+vol to make sure the output stays the same. Other fun things is to just use one knob for envelopes where you first get decay which then continues with attack.
I intend to build stuff just using the mux modules but it's so easy to cheat with ready vst's

MuTools

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MUX Vst : What do you need?