The future of Monophonic Synthesizers ?

[Lotuzia]

But where is the option: A monophonic synths can be played polyphonic these days via your DAW, so i don't care.

In DAW yes. But I thought we're talking hardware here? One device - one voice.

Of course you can record monosynth and put it into a sampler to play chords, but it is not obvious how it will sound afterwards. If I will be getting a hardware synth, that's how I'm going to incorporate it in my workflow. There is no point to try compete plugins with hardware monosynths.

No, not only hardware monophonic synths. But software monophonic synths as well. And, if I go a bit further, not only synths, but all musical instruments.

But here ok, we can restrict the discussion to synthesizers. It's KVR

[Cinebient]

Another poll
But where is the option: A monophonic synths can be played polyphonic these days via your DAW, so i don't care.

Dagger is indeed the one i love the most (yet).

Hmm, not sure about what you say. how would you do that ? You stack/Layer several tracks with an instance of the synth on each track, possibly playing the same patch, and record simultaneously all tracks ? Ok to play intervals (always the same interval though), but would you decide that this instance play this note when palying chords ?

Also, editing daw based stacks/Layered tracks is usually a pita. I often stack an analog synth with an FM synth, but each time I do this, I think to myself that I'd better record it in one shot, and have zero edit to do.

Editing the presets themselves is not really an appealing task as well. You need to raise the cut-off, because you NEED to adapt the sound to your track, and you'll have to raise the cut-off in successive ways to all 4 instances of the synth for a 4 voice polyphonic part ? Then change it again because the part has evoIved and you need to simply change the cut-off -again- I really prefer to avoid this kind of workflow -when I can-

Dont misunderstand my words : Layering different synths has a lot of interest. In a lot of cases though, I prefer to find other solutions to perform certain musical tasks.

I split the midi channels and make a stacked track where i can hide all the others and record them on one track (at least that works in Logic so i thought it may be a standard feature?!).
Of course you need a multi-channel midi controller so that each note you play gets it's own channel.
This way you can make every synth to a 15 voice polyphonic synth.
Some synths offers midi mono mode of their own.
The good thing is you even could create slightly different (or totally if you want) patches for each voice to get a kind of extended round robin.

[ftech]

I love monosynths. They bring a certain mentality to composing - a positive restriction. Much well loved electronic music would probably not exist if monosynths had not been such a big part of affordable hardware synths back in the day.

Pretty much where I'm at too

Tubeway Army/Gary Numan is my biggest influence, and acts like The Human League, Ultravox, Japan, OMD, Depeche Mode etc all produced wonderful music with mono synths back when poly's were rarer and prohibitively expensive.

'A positive restriction' is a very apt way of putting it.

[Dasheesh]

Traditionally a good mono made use of modulation routings and pure muscle that poly's couldn't do. Like the mini, or the pro one. I think as we hit the ceiling of what current processors can do there is going to be a resurgence of monos that take advantage of the extra headroom to be higher quality with more modulation sources. ala carte style.

[beely]

Everything that makes any kind of noise, with any kind of / combination of features is a valid instrument imo.

What will *really* decide the future of mono softsynths more than anything else is market forces - if people make monosynths, but they don't sell, then devs will stop making them, and before long, generally everyone will know the market doesn't want monosynths.

However, my view is, there is always some place in the market for a good product. And if that good product happens to be a monosynth, and people find it interesting and use useful/desirable enough, then it will sell.

And just like some people refuse to buy a product if it's not in a particular format, or if it's from a particular developer, or if it has a certain requirement for copy protection - the people that find monosynths pointless, in whatever form, will also refuse to buy it - and that's ok too.

Different strokes, and all that...

[Dasheesh]

The trick is, if it's going to be a mono, it better be a high quality one with a few extra tricks up it's sleeve.

[Ingonator]

Traditionally a good mono made use of modulation routings and pure muscle that poly's couldn't do. Like the mini, or the pro one. I think as we hit the ceiling of what current processors can do there is going to be a resurgence of monos that take advantage of the extra headroom to be higher quality with more modulation sources. ala carte style.

Well, the new The Legend synth could do both a proper Minimoog in Mono the way it was originally done and additionally also 4-voice poly and 4-voice unison, all taht without killing you CPU while it still sounds great.
If you compare the Mono mode to the Poly mode there you could find a few differences in the Poly mode which includes a lower volume for single notes (where a 3 notes chord approximately corresponds to the volume of a single note in Mono mode) and legato is also switched off automatically.

So if the Mono/Poly switch is created properly i do not see a reason why it is not possible to use both properly (or to play the Mono properly while you still got an option for polyphony). Another option would be t have two plugin versions for Mono and Poly.

Concerning Minimoog emulations actually Monark seemed to be the only one to be used only monophonic while there is a tweak of the Reaktor ensemble to also play it polyphonic (while this could kill cour CPU easily).

Don't get me wrong, i had owned monosynths in the past (inckduing a real Minimoog Model D, Moog Slim Phatty, DSI Evolver desktop and others) and also currently own both a Waldorf Pulse 2 and a Novation Bass Station II which i really love using. For the Pulse 2 there is alraedy an option for the paraphonic modes within teh Osc shapes or creating a poly-chain with multiple units.
With the Bass Station II which is quite powerful in terms of features (e.g. 7 filter modes) and sound i sometimes wished this could be available as a polyphonic synth while i know that this would be quite expensive to do (i also got a Novation UltraNova which is polyphonic and great on it's own but not really an emulation and/or replacement for the Bass Station II). As a plugin this should be a much smaller problem while with the plugin of the "old" Bass Station Novation seemed to have limited it to being monophonic too.

[beely]

Hehe, devs should just do all synths as a monosynth initially, with in-plugin purchases to buy more voices ("voice packs").

[Ingonator]

Hehe, devs should just do all synths as a monosynth initially, with in-plugin purchases to buy more voices ("voice packs").

I guess that Korg should do a "Monosix" plugin then or is it better called "Polyone" then?

Xils Lab should also do a "KB" plugin based on the monophonic Kobol instaed of a PolyKobol II. And i guess a monophonic Synthex (maybe called "MonoMiniSyn'X") would be cool too, or not?

Roland will release a Jupiter-1. Who needs more than one voice with a Jupiter anyway...

Last but not least Waldorf will release a "Nave One". who needs polyphonic wavetable synths anyway. Oops, actually they somehow alraedy did that with their nw1 Eurorack module...

[beely]

Even one voice is too many...

Maybe a "no-no-synth"

[Echoes in the Attic]

Such a strange question. It's like discussing playing lead guitar vs playing chords. Or like comparing a one osc synth to a three osc synth. Having less is mostly about nostalgia and simplicity. But in the case of poly synths, there is always a mono mode, so it's a mono synth too. So I don't understand comparing a synth that works in mono but can also do polyphony to one that doesn't have polyphony. They can both be played mono. And unlike the question of having fewer or more oscillators, polyphony doesn't really affect the GUI at all. So it makes no sense unless a cost issue (as the case moreso with hardware).

"Hey look at this cool new guitar. You can only play one note at a time so it's just for leads, but you already have other guitars for chords. Nice and focused on leads. Pretty cool eh?"
"No. I can play lead with a normal guitar just fine".

No difference.

[Cinebient]

But it's so easy....if there is a market, there is a future. If not.....you know the answer

[Lotuzia]

Everything that makes any kind of noise, with any kind of / combination of features is a valid instrument imo.

What will *really* decide the future of mono softsynths more than anything else is market forces - if people make monosynths, but they don't sell, then devs will stop making them, and before long, generally everyone will know the market doesn't want monosynths.

However, my view is, there is always some place in the market for a good product. And if that good product happens to be a monosynth, and people find it interesting and use useful/desirable enough, then it will sell.

And just like some people refuse to buy a product if it's not in a particular format, or if it's from a particular developer, or if it has a certain requirement for copy protection - the people that find monosynths pointless, in whatever form, will also refuse to buy it - and that's ok too.

Different strokes, and all that...

yes the hemmm *Market* always has the last word and the final cut

However, if all pure marketing men analyse the market with the absolute *right* criterias, and apply the fruity results of their analysis to conceive the next generation of instruments, it will end in all companies making the absolute same synthesizer (ie the one that is supposed to ... sell the most)

Another thing the holy market can't take into account, is simply ... innovation. If something has not yet been invented, the *market* cant analyse it, by definition.

So that creators should listen to the market, and at least partly ignore it. Because if they dont do this, synthesizer will all be identical in a few years. Identical, to me, somewhat simply means boring. Market analysis is good, adventure and thinking out of the box is equally pleasing. A nice blend might bring some good surprises.

Don Buchla didn't listen that much to the market. His company did survive much longer than R.A Moog, and he didn't lost the right to use his name. Both were equally talented, and true pionneers of the synthesizers btw, and the musical instruments they invented still shine. I always think that this spirit should be kept, and the flame reanimated every time it's possible. Whatever says the market.

Or this poll

[beely]

Yep, hence why I said above: "...there is always some place in the market for a good product".

The "market" in this context is simply what people are prepared to buy.

[Ingonator]

But it's so easy....if there is a market, there is a future. If not.....you know the answer

Well, of course there will be a market fo the upcoming Pro One emulatiion by U-He as there are do no seem to be other properly modeled or decent sounding native alternatives (ther seems to be a DSP based one for the Scope platform inclduing soe advanced features like e.g. 8 filter models). Anyway this does not mean that everyone who is interested in this is not also interested in having an option for a polyphonic version (or at least a Mono/Poly switch).
Any way i also understand that ther is aslo a market for another dedicated Prophet 5 emulation (at the moment Arturia Prophet V3 seems to be teh best native plugin) so including polyphony with the Pro One would somehow make a dedicated Prophet 5 obsolete (even if the Prophet 5 is not exactly the same as having 5 Pro One synths in one). This is also one of the cases where the polyphonic synth was released before the monophonic one (at least if we talk about the first Prophet 5 revisions).

With The Legend, even if it has a decent sound quality, maybe quite many would not have been interested if it did not also include an option for polyphony and a few other advanced features. For me it would have been still great with only the original features but it is even better the way it is now. Sometimes you discover that you like or need something if you actually had the opportunity to use it (for example besides the polyphony and Unison i also liked using the 12dB filter mode in The Legend) instead of theoretical discussions...
With Monark there was alraedy a decent and good sounding monophonic emulation of the Minimoog so with a new one you have to do the modeling even better and/or authentic, have a reasonable CPU use (also with polyphony) and also add a few additional features (all 3 seem to be the case with The Legend).

Those who want to release new emulations of e.g. VCS 3, Odyssey, ARP 2600, SEM and some more will gave to deal with the alraedy existing emulations and if you decide to not include polyphony your new emulation has to be REALLY outstanding to justify this.
Like with e.g. The Legend to goal for future emulations should not only be sounding as authentic as possible but also having a reasonable CPU use (or at least offer different quality modes like withe e.g. Diva). IMO having just the best possible quality while the plugin kills most CPUs is not the way to go.