Doepfer

tbh if u really wanted to do that you lose so much flexibility (more important to me than tedious subjective notions of "analog sound quality") that you might as well have a digi module doing virtual VCOs for polyphony with gates, and then bung that through the modular, which i do a fair bit. 


--- In Doepfer_a100@yahoogroups.com, Monroe Eskew <monroe.eskew@...> wrote:
>
> This is probably old news to some of you, but I was just reading about
> the Korg PS-3100 analog synth and it is interesting how they did the
> polyphony.  They just had twelve fixed oscillators, one for each note
> on the scale, and then frequency dividers to go down in octaves.  Then
> each of the 48 keys controlled a separate gate with its own envelope,
> VCA, and VCF.  The oscillators just hummed along with no voltage
> control besides uniform pitch bend via a wheel.
> 
> That is quite different from how analog synthesis is usually done
> these days, and seems to use a lot of machinery to get it done-- i.e.
> 48 independent VCAs.  However this same kind of idea might be useful
> in a big modular rack with sequencers and all.  Imagine a module
> consisting in twelve oscillators, each with only a pot for its
> frequency, no voltage control.  There may be switches for waveform.
> Then with a bunch of frequency dividers, VCAs, VCFs etc, one could
> replicate the Korg architecture.  It's a different way of doing
> things, and it is probably less efficient and less flexible, but it
> may be useful once in a while.  If we scaled it down to say 4
> oscillators and used some of Doepfer's current and forthcoming quad
> modules, this may actually save space and money-- given a simple
> non-VC quad osc module.  Something to think about at least, to expand
> the patch-possibilities in your mind.
> 
> Monroe
>