Someone's listening ...

"FANTOM users will experience an enhanced workflow as well as getting two new reverb algorithms; Shimmer and Modulation. The Master FX gets new templates and Mastering Comp and EQ sections get a user interface polish. The DAW control feature has been expanded to include profiles for Cubase and Studio One."

$200 firmware updates - the way of the future. Maybe wait for EX2 and see if you get EX1 included with it. Already the EX upgrade includes something you could have bought before and saved by waiting.

Back to the topic on hand. Now if Yamaha could provide 48 note polyphony one could at least play 6 note chords on 8 parts simultaneously. Lets see can I load up 8 instances of Diva and put them under Montage control for each part. Yep.

Hi for those who own the M series with the AN-X, could you clarify the polyphony for the AN-X engine.

I'm not sure I know how to go about doing that reliably.

What sort of 'test' did you have in mind? How would I set it up?

How would I know if 17, or more,notes were playing at the same time?

Andrew vs Andrew. I had no idea. All jokes aside. I would be interested in knowing what happens if one plays a 4 or 5 note chord pad sound on each part. how many parts before the sound cuts out. Also try running an arpeggio on a bass line, then a different arp on a lead. play a chorded pad sound on part 3 and another FX sounding chord on part 4. Then what happens adding a 5th part through 8th part?

Ok I found the Fantom specs here. quite a bit of reading but good info to have for comparison. https://gearspace.com/board/electronic-music-instruments-and-electronic-music-production/1278003-roland-fantom-6-7-8-a-252.html

Maybe Nov 14th during the AN-X tech talk - some insight on how AN-X polyphony is counted could be touched on.

I remember back when we were digging into FM-X polyphony Yamaha helped to clarify that each carrier doesn't use a unit of polyphony. There's just one unit per note no matter how you use FM-X's carriers. Which, in FM-land gives you the opportunity to have 8 carriers at one time consuming only one unit of polyphony per key.

I would guess that an "AN-X Voice" which is how they put a unit of polyphony is per Part that uses AN-X and per note activated for that(those) Part(s). Similar to FM-X. Such that using Osc1 and Osc2 and noise doesn't consume more polyphony than using just Osc1. And even with Unison 2 or Unison 4 activated - no impact on polyphony.

Ultimately, I'm not sure exactly how this works - but it would be good to get the same kind of understanding we eventually arrived to with FM-X.

[quotePost id=124400]
I would guess that an "AN-X Voice" which is how they put a unit of polyphony is per Part that uses AN-X and per note activated for that(those) Part(s). Similar to FM-X. Such that using Osc1 and Osc2 and noise doesn't consume more polyphony than using just Osc1. And even with Unison 2 or Unison 4 activated - no impact on polyphony.
[/quotePost]
I read that the AN-X has 2 & 4 note Poly Unison settings..!? If so, it would be interesting to know if a 4 note poly unison utilizes 1 or 4 notes of polyphony..!? On my DX7II, which has 4 note Poly Unison, it counts a single note as 4 notes of polyphony...

[quotePost id=124394]
Bill, I'm worried about you. You've too heavily adopted your new moniker.
I don't post on other forums. Just here. Yamaha has a special place in my heart. IdeaScale doesn't.
Should we be worried for your mental well being if you're also posting on other forums and disassociating with that activity, also.[/quotePost]
Pot, kettle, black!

https://manual.yamaha.com/mi/synth/montage_m/en/om02screenparameters0170.html

Unison
Creates thickness by layering multiple sounds.
Settings: Off, 2, 4

[quotePost id=124405] https://manual.yamaha.com/mi/synth/montage_m/en/om02screenparameters0170.html

Unison
Creates thickness by layering multiple sounds.
Settings: Off, 2, 4

[/quotePost]
This is EXACTLY what I was looking for that the DX7II-FD has, when I started this thread !! :
UNISON Layering - Montage FM-X

Thankfully, Unison 2 can be done with either "Pitch Change" or "Symphonic" in Ins A, and Unison 4 can done with either "Pitch Change" in both Ins A & B or "Symphonic" in Ins A and "Pitch Change" in Ins B (and vice-versa depending on if you want to stereoize it or not)... But it would be great to have a Unison option in the FM-X engine itself and I would be ok if it used 4 times the note polyphony for Unison 4 like it does on the DX7II... They enhanced AWM2 to be able to layer 16 times as many voices, and they enhanced AN-X to be able to layer 4 times as many voices per PART, so it would make sense to enhance FM-X by at least 4 times the voices as well!

If I were in a position to get a Montage M, I would be adding 'Unison' for FM-X as an Ideascale idea right away (for the 2nd time ... since I already added it for the Montage/MODX in 2019). It's what Manny Fernandez used on the DX7II to be able to emulate all those Roland D-50 sounds back in the day, and what many DX7 programmers used after II came out. And it's what makes many of the AN-X sounds/demos so much bigger and better!

Creates thickness by layering multiple sounds.
Settings: Off, 2, 4

But did you notice they don't actually tell you WHAT it does?

What does 2 mean and do? What does 4 mean and do?

Which 'multiple sounds' do they refer to? That image is the 'Part Common' display. Are they taking
the sound of this entire part and doing some sort of 'detune' to get the multiple sounds.

Does that setting affect polyphony if all they are doing is detuning what they already have?

[quotePost id=124412]
But did you notice they don't actually tell you WHAT it does?

What does 2 mean and do? What does 4 mean and do?

Which 'multiple sounds' do they refer to? That image is the 'Part Common' display. Are they taking
the sound of this entire part and doing some sort of 'detune' to get the multiple sounds.

Does that setting affect polyphony if all they are doing is detuning what they already have?[/quotePost]
Basically 'Off' means what you would think, which is that there is not layering and it's just the 1 single sound from the AN-X.

2 means they take that sound and layer the same exact sound twice (with itself) and detune them both as needed via the 'Unison Spread' knob. Basically like having 2 identical AN-X PARTs running at the same time layered & detuned the opposite of each other. Or like taking the same two AWM2 'Elements' in a PART and layering them in Element1 and Element2, then detuning each Element the same (i.e. -2 & +2)

4 means that exact same sound is generated 4 times layered when pressing a single note and each one is detuned the same amount. So from '0' they would be detuned (i.e. -4, -2, +2, +4), or perhaps each identical layer may be detuned such that they are the same amount from each other (i.e. -4.5, -1.5, 1.5, 4.5) = detune of 3. When I had all my DX7II Performances converted in the online converter Yamaha provides, it created a new Performance on the Montage with 4 FM-X PARTs that were identical except for the detuning from '0' (i.e. -4, -2, +2, +4). I also tried -4.5, -1.5, 1.5, 4.5, but it's sounds basically the same. It takes a violin sound and makes it sound like huge Movie Strings/Orchestra/Symphony, which I think is why they named the 'Symphonic' effect as they did. 'Symphonic' supposedly takes 6 layers and detunes and spreads the stereo field on them all...

Basically, having Unison in the Engine allows for this without using 4 PARTs. It uses 4 times the polyphony, but you still have 3 additional PARTs. It should sound identical both ways. If someone takes an AN-X PART with Unison 'Off', then copies it to PART 2, 3 & 4, then detunes all 4 PARTs as per above, it should sound identical to a Performance with a single AN-X PART with Unison 4 and the Unison Spread set to the right amount... Being able to use Unison saves using those 3 additional AN-X PARTs. Both Performances should utilize the exact same amount of polyphony, and should sound the same!

There are valid questions as to how exactly AN-X polyphony works. I hope this is touched upon in the upcoming tech talk.

2 means they take that sound and layer the same exact sound twice (with itself) and detune them both as needed via the 'Unison Spread' knob. Basically like having 2 identical AN-X PARTs running at the same time layered & detuned the opposite of each other

Thanks for the detail.

Have to do some testing

1. 'Unison Detune' - I thought that might determine the amount that the pitch of the first set (on either side) differs from the main pitch.

2. 'Unison Spread' - thought this was how far apart to make the sets.

The problem I had with #1 and #2 is that for Unison 2 there is only one set and the Detune would already determine how far apart the extra left and right are.

So I couldn't figure out why you needed both - especially for Unison 2.

Which raises, for me, the question: what does the MIDI data shows if you only play one note but get 3 or 5 sounds?