[sdiy] Polysynths: 8 voice or 16 voice?

[rburnett at richieburnett.co.uk]

On a synth that doesn't inherently have several oscillators that can be 
detuned to get a rich sound within each voice, I would want more 
polyphony so that I can achieve Supersaw-like sounds with stacked 
detuning of whole voices instead.  It's an inefficient way to get the 
"thickness" or fatness but if your synth only has one or two oscillators 
per voice you don't have much choice other than layering up multiple 
takes with different tunings.

-Richie,





On 2026-07-27 19:02, Donald Tillman wrote:
> Harumph, this discussion is getting a little silly.  Of course, the
> answer completely depends on what the synth can do, and what you want
> to do with it.  If you want a piano, you should really get a piano.
> If you're going to the trouble of building your own poly synth, I'm
> sure it has some unique and wonderful capabilities.
> 
> I'll point out that the Rhodes Chroma, arguably the finest poly synth
> ever, has 16 voices, often split between two timbres, 8 and 8.  And
> that works really, really well.  And there was an optional Chroma
> Expander piggyback unit that doubled the voices.
> 
> And, contradicting what I just said above, the Chroma can do a pretty
> good piano sound that I have happily used in band performance
> situations.  But that's also due to the weighted wooden keyboard,
> which I'm guessing isn't what you're doing.
> 
>   -- Don
> 
> --
> Donald Tillman, Palo Alto, California
> https://till.com
> 
>> On Jul 26, 2026, at 11:57 AM, 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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