One Synth Challenge #120: SE PolyMod KX by KX77FREE (Voting Time!)

[Taron]

Knobs behave in a weird fashion with ableton live, probably compatibility issues.
Sometimes you have to do a circular gesture with the mouse to mimic turning a knob (for authenticity?) and a few moments later you dont have to, or halfway turning a knob it will jump back and forth. Its driving me nuts, when i turn a knob to the left it musn't turn to the right, right?
Frustrating rodeo because the synth seems powerfull and sounds pretty good.

Yeah, it's a bit wacked out. Really a wrestle for no reason. It's a simple flag in the vstgui. Would be nice, if the dev comes in here, too, and takes in some of the feedback! This one at least sounds good. Would be nice to make it more workable.

I like the challenge of feature limitations and unusual architectures (noisetar <3), but fighting cluncky ui or registration on website (mok) is not for me i guess.
Maybe i get the spirit of osc wrong; anyway it's a free synth and i'm ranting.
Good luck!

Well, this one only has a clunky ui, so that's a plus! ...I think, this one is very much in the spirit of the OSC, though! (LOADS of pain in the beginning and eventually a bunch of us will love it?! There is that chance.)

[functionform]

Grr how do actually set it to poly? So quirky.

[Taron]

Lower right corner has a bunch of toggles. One of them says "mono" by default. Click on it and you can select poly, if I remember correctly from the 10 min I was spending with it.

[functionform]

Now that's bizarre, I swear that didn't work for me, but now it does

[doctorbob]

So, when you click on the name of a mod in the matrix - you get a row of little knobs! Any ideas what they do in? Is it just simply the amount of that mod source for that destination? Of course, once you click the name again, the knobs go, and you could easily forget how much modulation you were applying …

Routing is odd - but I see you can do serial or parallel filters - need to look into the VCA's and see what routes into what … all a bit strange … but it is OSC!

dB

[Taron]

That matrix always kind of excited me, the idea of a less cabled modular approach, but in a vst form one forgets what it does very easily. It is literally replacing the cables you'd find on the old analogues. Therefore you connect one thing to the other, just using a pin instead. I hope and wish my eyes won't tear as I explore this one, but I am kind of excited about this synth (carefully).

[doctorbob]

Yes … VCS3, Synthi-A and Synthi-100 being good examples of the pin matrix approach. I even used a pin matrix (yes, you could buy them!) one a synth I made back in the mid 70's from various commercial modules. Did you click on the parameter name T? e.g LFO and get the row of tiny weeny knobs?

Am I right in thinking you can route VCO1 to one VCA and OSC2(+sub) to the other VCA?

In terms of polyphony, I wonder if treating it like a monosynth and having multiple instances for chords would be a better choice?

There seems to be loads of knobs around which do not intuitively have apparent actions - playing with them and listening may be the only way to decipher the synth in the absense of any manual to FTFM!

Will be listening out for words of wisdom from the masters!

dB

[Taron]

Yeah, there are a bunch of mysteries on this one for sure! Those tiny knobs show their name in MuLab, which is nice, revealing that much of them are velocity controls. Still have to play with it again. Thanks for the tip about the parameter click. That's great, now I just have to get a better understanding for how things play together!
Man, if I didn't know the horror of managing a real bulk of analogue gear, I would've still been thrilled about it. Used to almost dream of something like it, but nowadays... I'm happy with vsts!

[bh9090]

How is the CPU performance on PC? 6 instances and pop, sizzle crack at 100% on MacOS.

[Taron]

Haven't gotten that far. Only made 2 instances and have no problems to report. ...more on that later!

[Eauson]

How is the CPU performance on PC? 6 instances and pop, sizzle crack at 100% on MacOS.

http://kx77free.free.fr/data/kx-polymod ... d-help.htm

Check FAQ @bottom of page.
This will hopefully resolve some issues.
I'm assuming that the SE is the same
Helped me anyways and I'm totally clueless

[functionform]

So, when you click on the name of a mod in the matrix - you get a row of little knobs!

Epic! That is really useful. Nice find. I have a feeling this thread will function as the official manual.

I also get VCS3 vibes, but you don't route to output. Still though I'll take a mod matrix any day over pages and pages of hidden menus (don't mean any synth in particular)

[Eauson]

So, when you click on the name of a mod in the matrix - you get a row of little knobs!

Epic! That is really useful. Nice find. I have a feeling this thread will function as the official manual.

I also get VCS3 vibes, but you don't route to output. Still though I'll take a mod matrix any day over pages and pages of hidden menus (don't mean any synth in particular)

I dont know if its the same with all version, the darkened text hide menus, like on adsr the 2 addition dials, k&v I think have a number of settings which I assume are for drums attack etc.
This synth can do also some crazy bass

[TheNeverScene]

I can't seem to get anything in the matrix to do anything. Just trying to use an lfo for some PWM with no luck, but I did manage to use the lfo as an oscillator in the process as well as that 3rd (or 4th) oscillator, which seems handy.

I like the synth. Makes me want to listen to On the Run by Floyd.

[Taron]

Oh yeah, this thing is quirky and unruly, but I am already beginning to feel my way into it. There are things I don't quite feel, yet. Especially the Envelope on filter...it's ...ah... doing things. ...I can't yet make sense of what it does or wants, but it surly isn't straight forward.

Before you bother with the matrix, wrap your head around the rest first. There's much to explore and you can get to some excellent results quite soon. I've done a really neat organ already and am right this second working on my first kick drum, hence the Eg on VCF dilemma. I did get a killer kick, but then something opened the window and cold air detuned my cpu or so, hahahahaha.... no seriously, it's quite finicky. No such thing as a reliable attack or so, at least not for me just yet. But it can sound super cool...very authentic, I find.