[sdiy] Six/6 voice synths

[Tom Wiltshire]

Hi All,

Just a quick question; Is there any technical reason why so many  
polyphonic synths have six voices?

I was just looking at the schematics for the Kawai K3 (Interesting  
synth; 8-bit digital oscillators something like the PPG Wave,  
followed by SSM2044 filters) and saw that the oscillator  
demultiplexing uses 6 out of 8 channels on a 4051. "Why didn't they  
just use the other two channels?" I wondered to myself. I've seen  
similar things on other schematics, I'm sure.

Thanks,
Tom