Why Mono unison?

[Frocktar]

I guess this applies too all the DSI synths (to the best of my knowledge at least), but why does unison with say only 2 voices make my Rev 2 a Mono synth (on that layer at least of course).

I’m curious the rationale for it as it seems such a shame. I haven’t seen this on any my other synths over the years so it came as a bit of a surprise at first.

I’ve accepted it long ago, even own two of their synths now (Rev 2 and P12), but always been curious as to why.

[hageir]

Yeah I kind of thought about this the other day, maybe it's possible to add some kind of voice allocation for the Unison mode?

ps. on some synths that have MIDI Mono Mode (Guitar Mode; separate channels for each voice) you could achieve a pseudo-poly unison...

[shiihs]

I’m curious the rationale for it as it seems such a shame. I haven’t seen this on any my other synths over the years so it came as a bit of a surprise at first.

I wonder how e.g. a feature like "glide" could work if you make a "polyphonic mono synth". But it might still be interesting to add a second polyphony mode which is not really "mono" but rather "coupled voices".

[AlainHubert]

Historically Unison mode has been monophonic only, and a way to stack many voices of a polyphonic synth in order to get a very fat sound. As far back as the Prophet 5.
It's only with more recent synths that a dynamic voice allocation Unison mode appeared on some models from other companies.
But, as stated by DSI before, the company has never had the philosophy of following/copying what other companies do.
So the Unison mode from DSI is a static one, and there are no plans to add a dynamic voice allocation mode to it for a Poly-Unison on the REV2.

[guyaguy]

Split the layers and you can have a mono and a poly. 

[Frocktar]

Historically Unison mode has been monophonic only, and a way to stack many voices of a polyphonic synth in order to get a very fat sound. As far back as the Prophet 5.
It's only with more recent synths that a dynamic voice allocation Unison mode appeared on some models from other companies.
But, as stated by DSI before, the company has never had the philosophy of following/copying what other companies do.
So the Unison mode from DSI is a static one, and there are no plans to add a dynamic voice allocation mode to it for a Poly-Unison on the REV2.

I really don’t lose any sleep over it, but I must say I don’t find much weight in the historical argument for not having a more dynamic voice allocation on these synths.

The fact is that electronics have come a very very far way since the ‘historical’ synths and playing polyphonic unison notes on one of these modern prophets would be absolutely delightful.

Like I said originally, it didn’t stop me buying another of their synths but I think very clearly a massive shame that this option gets ignored by them.

As for the comment directly above mine here (assuming no-one else has posted while writing this), that’s not really the same though. A partial workaround, one that I use often in fact, is to use stacked mode with the same program in each layer, but that only achieves max 2 voice unison polyphonic playing. Still better than nothing of course.

[guyaguy]

As for the comment directly above mine here (assuming no-one else has posted while writing this), that’s not really the same though.

Thus the winky face.

Poly unison would be cool. But there are lots of features that the Rev 2 doesn't have that are pretty common nowadays: audio in, CV out, ratchet, Osc as modulation source, multetc. Like with any other product, there are only so many features a synth can have.

[Frocktar]

Hehe, touché...on all points.

Two voice unison is enough for most my needs anyway honestly, I’m just curious, and more from a synth design perspective why that wouldn’t be standard these days.  May well be that’s much harder to implement than one would assume.

[guyaguy]

Hehe, touché...on all points.

Two voice unison is enough for most my needs anyway honestly, I’m just curious, and more from a synth design perspective why that wouldn’t be standard these days.  May well be that’s much harder to implement than one would assume.

Maybe. But you also need to design an interface for choosing voice count, figure out how that would work with stacks and splits, and all of that. May not be rocket science but still a decent amount of work.

FWIW I wondered why it wasn't an option when I first got the Rev 2 as well. Then I stacked almost cloned detuned layers, which deliver 6 oscillators including the subs. Then, to simulate more oscillators, I added chorus on one layer and a short delay and no feedback with an LFO modulating speed just a bit. Then I decided I didn't care too much about poly unison any more!

[jg666]

I know it's not in the same league as the Rev2 but my Korg minilogue is the same - that has a Unison mode which is mono. Therefore when I got the Rev2 I just assumed it was normal !