A silly question: What is Multi-timbral?

[Cygnus X-1]

Let me phrase it like this: Is having a 4 part multi-timbral hardware synth with 2 oscillators is like having 4 instances of Synth1 running at the same time?
So, does this mean that with this hardware synth, I could come up with a patch that utilizes the 2 oscillators in two different ways (different modulation and filter routings for each timbre), so in a way it's like having a total of 4 oscillators as wave generators?

Now, the next question would be how polyphony is counted now? Let's say the hardware synth has 8 notes max polyphony per voice (don't know what the heck "voice" means). Is voice = timbre? Or it is something that depends on the processing needed for a patch, so if I have a patch consisting of two timbres, one consumes 6 voices, then does this mean I only have 2 voices left for the other timbre before notes start to drop out?

Any light on this subject will be illuminating. Dealing with soft synths is so much easier I got spoiled I guess

[Squids]

Each oscillator takes up a voice. If it is 4 part multi-timbral and each part has two oscillators then it's kind of like having 8 oscillators... except that the modulation and everything would likely be discrete to each set of two oscillators. It's more like having 4 different patches you can either stack on top of each other or use on separate midi channels when sequencing.

Good luck!

[beej]

Let me phrase it like this: Is having a 4 part multi-timbral hardware synth with 2 oscillators is like having 4 instances of Synth1 running at the same time?

Yes, with each "instance" ersponding to a unique MIDI channel.

So, does this mean that with this hardware synth, I could come up with a patch that utilizes the 2 oscillators in two different ways (different modulation and filter routings for each timbre), so in a way it's like having a total of 4 oscillators as wave generators?

Yes, that's just a layer of two different synths/patches.

Now, the next question would be how polyphony is counted now? Let's say the hardware synth has 8 notes max polyphony per voice (don't know what the heck "voice" means). Is voice = timbre? Or it is something that depends on the processing needed for a patch, so if I have a patch consisting of two timbres, one consumes 6 voices, then does this mean I only have 2 voices left for the other timbre before notes start to drop out?

Generally, it depends. Most hardware synths have a hardware voice count. So if a synth has 32 voices, then a preset which uses a layer of two patches, each using 2 oscillators is using 4 voices per note, therefore is 8-note polyphonic.

Typically each oscillator uses a "voice", so if you have X number of total voices, then the polyphony is X/total number of oscillators in use.

[Cygnus X-1]

Thanx. I really appreciate it, and ooops, I meant a "total of 8 oscillators". Thanks again.

[funkadil]

Its kind of pointless in soft synths obviously. Its like having multiple synths at once but from the same box.