<div dir="auto">Agreed but don’t forget that synths also have sustain ;) and you can always use one finger for 2 keys</div><div><br><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sun, 26 Jul 2026 at 22:59, Mike Bryant <<a href="mailto:mbryant@futurehorizons.com">mbryant@futurehorizons.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
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<div style="direction:ltr;font-family:Aptos,Aptos_EmbeddedFont,Aptos_MSFontService,Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif" role="presentation">From a pianist point of view 10 voices are plenty.. ten fingers ten voices..</div>
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Not sure I agree with that. Pressing the sustain pedal and playing fast you could have 20 or 30 notes audible.</div>
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<b style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">From:</b> Synth-diy <<a href="mailto:synth-diy-bounces@synth-diy.org" target="_blank" style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">synth-diy-bounces@synth-diy.org</a>> on behalf of H.Sergio Alves via Synth-diy <<a href="mailto:synth-diy@synth-diy.org" target="_blank" style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">synth-diy@synth-diy.org</a>><br>
<b style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">Sent:</b> 26 July 2026 22:10<br>
<b style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">To:</b> Mattias Rickardsson <<a href="mailto:mr@analogue.org" target="_blank" style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">mr@analogue.org</a>><br>
<b style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">Cc:</b> synth-diy <<a href="mailto:synth-diy@synth-diy.org" target="_blank" style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">synth-diy@synth-diy.org</a>><br>
<b style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">Subject:</b> Re: [sdiy] Polysynths: 8 voice or 16 voice?</div>
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<div style="direction:ltr">From a pianist point of view 10 voices are plenty.. ten fingers ten voices..</div>
<div style="direction:ltr">From an experimentalist point of view 16 are enough but 24 would be great…</div>
<div style="direction:ltr">From a producer point of view 1024 would be enough </div>
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<div style="direction:ltr">On Sun, 26 Jul 2026 at 22:07, Mattias Rickardsson <<a href="mailto:mr@analogue.org" id="m_3403499905210032235OWA64d3f74d-39bf-b913-e513-f266af9f7aaa" target="_blank">mr@analogue.org</a>> wrote:</div>
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<div style="direction:ltr">> 8 or 16 voice. ... What do you choose, and why?</div>
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<div style="direction:ltr">Not sure, depends a lot on what to use it for. From a pianist's perspective 8 voices will not be fun, and even 16 can be limited. </div>
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<div style="direction:ltr">Personally probably 8, unless the price is low or it has other tricks justifying those 16 voices.</div>
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<div style="direction:ltr">> What markup would 16 voice have to be over 8 voice where you'll say</div>
<div style="direction:ltr">it's not worth it anymore? Ranging between 0% and 100%.</div>
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<div style="direction:ltr">This can depend a lot in the price. For a really expensive instrument your budget might be broken already by the 8-voice version, so 16 is out of the question regardless of the markup.</div>
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<div style="direction:ltr">Somewhat similar with a cheaper instrument if it's not very interesting - then why spend more to get more of it. (-:</div>
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<div style="direction:ltr">/mr</div>
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<div style="direction:ltr">Den sön 26 juli 2026 22:23Tom Wiltshire <<a href="mailto:tom@electricdruid.net" id="m_3403499905210032235OWA48cc4e8c-989b-c1db-5d94-73ff92dcab59" target="_blank">tom@electricdruid.net</a>> skrev:</div>
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<div>If you consider the actual cost of the voices as part of the cost of the entire synth, that more-or-less gives you your answer.<br>
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The hardware cost of a synth is a *big* percentage of the final build price - the case, the interface, the keyboard, knobs, switches, etc etc. That's entirely the same between 8 and 16 voice. I'm not talking about the *final price* - that has transport and
dealer mark-up and all sorts added on. I'm talking about the price to actually build the instrument, the price at the factory door.<br>
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Then there's the development cost. That's the same too. Adding more voices once you've done the voice design is basically zero-cost, beyond the cost of the actual parts on the board. Writing software that can handle plugging in an extra eight voices is basic,
so there's no cost there.<br>
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In general, I think the extra that companies charge for the 16-voice version over the 8-voice version is far more than is justified by the actual extra costs of a 16-voice instrument. Whether that's because they priced the 8-voice version extremely competitively
to give them a way in to a lower tier of the market, or whether they're simply increasing their mark-up on a "luxury" product, I dunno. But I don't see any technical reason why the two prices should be as far apart as they mostly seem to be.<br>
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HTH<br>
Tom<br>
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> On 26 Jul 2026, at 19:57, cheater cheater via Synth-diy <<a href="mailto:synth-diy@synth-diy.org" id="m_3403499905210032235OWA0b0111bf-c1d2-4acf-25bf-dc3f22b4130e" target="_blank">synth-diy@synth-diy.org</a>> wrote:<br>
><br>
> Let's say you're making/buying a polysynth. You can make it 8 or 16<br>
> voice. It's equally practical to do 8 or 16, it's not larger or<br>
> bulkier, the 16 voice costs 25% more, it doesn't do multitimbrality,<br>
> so there's only one sound coming out of it at any time. What do you<br>
> choose, and why?<br>
><br>
> What markup would 16 voice have to be over 8 voice where you'll say<br>
> it's not worth it anymore? Ranging between 0% and 100%.<br>
><br>
> Thanks!<br>
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