[sdiy] Polyphonic issue revisited.

[Oakley Sound]

My first music synth project at the age of 17: An eight voice polysynth.
I thought it would be easy! But like all great engineering projects I
had underestimated the amount of work (and wiring) needed.

It took me four years to build, and in that time I watched the price of
Roland JP8 fall to something I could have afforded in the first place.

I used 2 x CEM3340 and 2 x CEM3310 with two pole SVF for each voice and
based it heavily on the Transcendant polysynth and the OB-Xa. It was
big, but probably no bigger than a Memorymoog. But without auto tune and
auto scale, it was less than perfect on stage. By 1989, I had stopped
using it in favour of a D50. That did stay in tune and was lighter. In
1990 the polysynth caught fire... actually, one of the toroidals burnt
out setting fire to the mounting. Made a terrible smell, all that
burning neoprene.

I salvaged it and made one four voice and one monster monosynth. I still
have the four voice although its propping up some boxes in the store
cupboard!

On a side note: I paid just over two pounds for each Curtis chip. And I
thought that was quite pricey at the time!

BTW: I have a spare Korg polysix voice card if you really want to go
that way.

Regards,

Tony Allgood                         www.oakleysound.co.uk

Oakley Modular Synthesisers      Penrith, Cumbria, England