[sdiy] Polysynths: 8 voice or 16 voice?

[H.Sergio Alves]

Or a Sun Ra both forearms!!!
Those were wild solos!!

On Sun, 26 Jul 2026 at 23:05, Mike Bryant <mbryant at futurehorizons.com>
wrote:

> Or in the case of a certain Mr K Emerson, about 20 keys with one forearm
> 😄
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* H.Sergio Alves <theatomlabspt at gmail.com>
> *Sent:* 26 July 2026 23:01
> *To:* Mike Bryant <mbryant at futurehorizons.com>
> *Cc:* Mattias Rickardsson <mr at analogue.org>; synth-diy <
> synth-diy at synth-diy.org>
>
> *Subject:* Re: [sdiy] Polysynths: 8 voice or 16 voice?
>
> Agreed but don’t forget that synths also have sustain ;) and you can
> always use one finger for 2 keys
>
> On Sun, 26 Jul 2026 at 22:59, Mike Bryant <mbryant at futurehorizons.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>    - From a pianist point of view 10 voices are plenty.. ten fingers ten
>    voices..
>
>
> Not sure I agree with that.  Pressing the sustain pedal and playing fast
> you could have 20 or 30 notes audible.
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Synth-diy <synth-diy-bounces at synth-diy.org> on behalf of H.Sergio
> Alves via Synth-diy <synth-diy at synth-diy.org>
> *Sent:* 26 July 2026 22:10
> *To:* Mattias Rickardsson <mr at analogue.org>
> *Cc:* synth-diy <synth-diy at synth-diy.org>
> *Subject:* Re: [sdiy] Polysynths: 8 voice or 16 voice?
>
> From a pianist point of view 10 voices are plenty.. ten fingers ten
> voices..
> From an experimentalist point of view 16 are enough but 24 would be great…
> From a producer point of view 1024 would be enough
> 😆
>
> On Sun, 26 Jul 2026 at 22:07, Mattias Rickardsson <mr at analogue.org> wrote:
>
> > 8 or 16 voice. ... What do you choose, and why?
>
> 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.
>
> Personally probably 8, unless the price is low or it has other tricks
> justifying those 16 voices.
>
> > What markup would 16 voice have to be over 8 voice where you'll say
> it's not worth it anymore? Ranging between 0% and 100%.
>
> 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.
>
> Somewhat similar with a cheaper instrument if it's not very interesting -
> then why spend more to get more of it. (-:
>
> /mr
>
> Den sön 26 juli 2026 22:23Tom Wiltshire <tom at electricdruid.net> skrev:
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> HTH
> Tom
>
> > On 26 Jul 2026, at 19:57, cheater cheater via Synth-diy <
> synth-diy at synth-diy.org> wrote:
> >
> > Let's say you're making/buying a polysynth. You can make it 8 or 16
> > voice. It's equally practical to do 8 or 16, it's not larger or
> > bulkier, the 16 voice costs 25% more, it doesn't do multitimbrality,
> > so there's only one sound coming out of it at any time. What do you
> > choose, and why?
> >
> > What markup would 16 voice have to be over 8 voice where you'll say
> > it's not worth it anymore? Ranging between 0% and 100%.
> >
> > Thanks!
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