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

[schiing]

Here's a little Linn kick and snare quickie.

I talked about Linn with TheNeverScene, and we started wondering whether the SE PolyMod could get close to it.

Of, course only Linn is Linn. So, well, it is what it is:

With a little eq boost at around 60dB and 7.5kHz the kick sounds pretty good. The snare body would ideally cut off a little before the rasping does, but I didn't look into that... round off the top end with a high cut filter, put some '80s reverb on it and it's all good

(a buggy little thing: The kick preset seems to change the attack a little bit every time I load it - if it sounds a little pitchy to your ears, try adjusting the VCF1 Eg (the Moog one) a tiny bit, to something between 13 and 14.)

Feel free to use as you please, of course.

http://thebytehop.com/music/linnish.zip

[doctorbob]

Thanks Terje, been doing some percs myself.My snare sort of seems OK, and my kick, but will check against yours and steal the best bits!

Getting some reasonable sounding hats - tricky though. Now I need to get a really good bass and piano and then I am all set!!!!!!!!!

A more traditional dB track this time round. [ For my "fans" … hehe ]


dB

[doctorbob]

Anyone been able to tease a realistic piano out of this synth? My attempts so far are more "electric" piano, and not even Rhodes style either … any help much appreciated ...

Bass is OK with this beast if you tone down the filters!

dB

[Carl_saved]

Hmm ... here's what I got so far. It uses a lowpass and a bandpass filter in parallel to (try to) create a more realistic spectrum. See if you can use it

[TheNeverScene]

Anyone one else experiencing note dropouts seemingly not related to envelopes?

[schiing]

Nothing apart from the frustrating 4-note polyphony limit.

I do however have to "restart" the "mono off" to get polyphony every time I load a preset.

[Taron]

There are a few strange things in there:
- "Overriden" mode will ignore Mono On/Off and will always be polyphone
- I believe, envelope release can be longer than you actually hear a note, but it will prevent a new note from being triggered or some confusion thereof. It's not quite clear, who truly acts as master envelope, but in "exp" mode, even the AMP envelope's release will swing a lot longer than you can hear! Switch to "lin" (linear) to get a better idea for how slow the envs really are!

Now I will play around, see, if I can make a decent piano sound for ya', Rob!

[Taron]

OK, here's a piano for ya'! It works best in the high notes, of course, but it seem to have good potential to blend in functionally across the board. Of course, the limited polyphony restricts the use of it, but hey... there you have it!

[doctorbob]

Thanks Mr.T. - I'll give it a whirl. the 4 note poly is a pain in the a*se! I'll just treat the ting as a mono and route notes to their own instances. The limit also seems to conflict with notes not being released when you expect them to be (as you point out!), and I find I get notes which don't seem to have the right attack, or worse, have odd envelopes triggered to the filters which make the sound all wrong!

I will report back when I have done the poly->>>mono thing. Hopefully it will cure the issues.

dB

[TheNeverScene]

I seem to be having weird issues that nobody else is having. lol. Fun times! Makes me feel special.

[doctorbob]

@taron and @carl_saved, the patches didn't seem to load correctly - or at least, only had slight resemblances to a piano! I wonder if I need to start with a fresh copy of PolyMod, or even a fresh one set to the INIT patch? At the moment I just loaded the patches to replace what I had already on the track.

I'll start a new project and see what happens in the two cases above …

It sure is an odd beast. Really not consistent, and quite easy to have a modulation happening somewhere you don't know about!

Onwards and upwards - well, to bed now, yawn … getting too old to stay up late...

dB

[Taron]

@taron and @carl_saved, the patches didn't seem to load correctly - or at least, only had slight resemblances to a piano! I wonder if I need to start with a fresh copy of PolyMod, or even a fresh one set to the INIT patch? At the moment I just loaded the patches to replace what I had already on the track.

dB

So... doesn't have even a slight resemblance with a piano you say, hmm...
https://soundcloud.com/taronium/nothing ... no/s-WpJKc

[Carl_saved]

I seem to be having weird issues that nobody else is having. lol. Fun times! Makes me feel special.

I guess it has nothing to do with 4 note polyphony? I don't know. Only on some patches my envelopes are inconsistent and I blame it partially on some release tails leaking to the next note. But haven't met any note dropouts apart from 4 note limit

[doctorbob]

****update *****

If I load a fresh instance of PolyMod, select the INIT patch and turn the KXmod to zero - then load your piano patch, it does indeed sound the same as the tune you posted! I'll maybe make a few mods to it to see if I can move it away from the electric/Rhodes feel and more towards an acoustic - but yeah, thanks it sounds OK.

dB


--------------------------
Thanks T, but really when your patch is loaded over an existing patch, it doesn't sound like that … as I said, I'll try it with a fresh instance and/or from INIT.

It's not that I don't believe you, just that for me it didn't work … sigh …

dB

[Taron]

Really, really interesting. Maybe I haven't loaded over an existing patch, yet, but...no, no, I did this a bunch of times, but somehow I haven't noticed any troubles, yet. Makes me wonder, if I have a different version or so?!
SE PolyMod KX 1.08 - SE 1.4273©KX77FREE

Anway, it's a stretch to make a decent piano with it, no doubt. I'm rather pleased with its resemblance, but can imagine it could go a lot better. This was just my first attempt. I like how it sounds in the upper octaves, though. Nice for some melody lines!
I might play around a bit more, because, well, it's fun!
Thanks for turning me onto this, Rob! ...and I'd be thrilled to share a better attempt with you then, too!