YOU'RE WRONG ABOUT SYNTHESIZER POLYPHONY

Here is the perspective of a person whose career is about the history of synthesizers. Here is the perspective of a person who is a professional synthesizer historian. Here are the ravings of an ill-tempered old man who just can't let go of the little things.

P.S. "Language changes, man" is the dumbest excuse for improper word usage that was ever concocted by people who care more about being disagreed with than they care about words.

Seriously, though... I love you all, and I want you to know about the history of the development of synthesizers.

If you want to know more about the history of polyphony, or if you want to know why I have the audacity to assert what I have in this video, or if you just want to be more angry than you are right now, please watch "A History of Polyphony," my documentary on the history of polyphony:

If you want the infographics present in this video, let me know.

The music in this video was written by Marc Doty, performed on an ARP 2600 and shitty bandroom drums for his band Godfrey's Cordial, which is a band that emulates the kind of Moogsploitative music in the 1970s that would feature such poor engineering and shitty drumming.

[AlexBallMusic]

I'm glad you mentioned the ancient Greek thing, because that's what I've seen come up in discussions. The point being that it means "many voices" and that a paraphonic synth is often divide down and (of course) has only one articulative structure. So the argument is that it's one voice with many pitches. Although, I find that makes things even more confusing.

I also find "polyphony" being translated as "many sounds" which then avoids the "voice" issue.

Had an interesting one yesterday as (through the help of others) I discovered the Roland RS-09 "Organ" sound uses a switching matrix for the envelope release (allowing notes to have their own individual release) and also effectively has a VCA per note. The strings are taken from the organ tone generators and then go through another VCA for attack, making them paraphonic. So that's an interesting one. I'll await a video on it 😀

[loopop]

Excellent video - of course the big question is whether the way synths have been marketed since 1983 (or 1978 if you include the Prophet 5) can be called "temporal myopia". By the way, a term that's very relevant to this discussion that wasn't mentioned (unless I missed it) is "voice", especially in light of how Behringer describes Poly D. I know it's a tough request but it would be great if you could make a follow up addressing that from a historic and current perspective...

[mdreid]

Great rant. :) And very well explained.

Doesn’t part of the confusion come from the use of the stem “-phony” to describe both the number of notes that can be played simultaneously (polyphony, duophony, monophony) and the type of articulation structure (paraphonic, variophonic, multiphonic)?

I feel like a lot of the current confusion would have been avoided if articulation had used a different suffix or term. For example (I’m sure there are better ones), “para-expressive”, “vario-expressive”, “multi-expressive”.

Then one could talk of “mono-expressive duophony” without confusion.

[haydnr]

My head is about to explode but I enjoyed this presentation. You articulated a confusing subject extremely well. I'm actually looking forward to seeing your 2 hour historical epic! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

[AlbaEcstasy]

A man of courage is also full of faith (Cicero). I love how your passion for synths is present in the tone of your voice!

[ranzee]

I just like to know how many voices a synthesizer has and how those voices are setup. I often say polyphony two different ways. I'm heading back to making music ... just got a paraphonic synth literally today - the Novation Circuit Mono Station .... let the games begin! Cheers Marc!

[JD-xowz]

“The Heartbreak of Temporal Myopia”.... yep, that’s gonna be the name of the album!
In all seriousness, thanks for this video. People arguing about polyphony in behringer’s comment section on their poly-d videos has been irking the hell out of me. You’re the hero we need in this conversation.

[geerhoar]

Marc, you’re not THAT old (I even have a number of years on you). Regardless, I cannot thank you enough for 1) Being a historian, and 2) Being an educator, and 3) being willing to share. You are a great being! Thank you so much!

[Synthysynthsynth]

Thanks for this, Marc Doty. Could you kindly post a link where full resolution versions of the documents from the end of the video can be found? 🙏🏼

[GrootsieTheDog]

It’s crazy how people who really know a lot about synthesizer still don’t have an understanding about this. I asked this guy about the main LFO on the profit five and he still confused polyphonic with polyphony. Maybe you can clear something up - why is the prophet 5 considered a truly polyphonic instrument when it appears that the main Lfo is paraphonic - I can’t get the lfo to cycle at different phasing by pressing the notes at different times. I can use osc b as an lfo but the main lfo doesn’t act polyphonic or per voice.

[Davemech]

Hi Marc,
Great and thorough explanation, thank you
So I wonder where does Dominion 1 fit in all this? It's a monophonic synth, but it has a 'paraphonic mode' (so which in reality is thus a polyphonic mode) which let's you play the OSCs seperately resulting in 3 notes max. However, it uses a note priority system:
- When playing 1 note, all 3 OSCs are used
- When playing 2 notes, OSC 1+2 plays one note, OSC 3 plays the second note
- When playing 3 notes, each OSC plays a note

So is this a monophonic synth with a polyphonic mode that is paraphonic, or is this yet another variation because it doesn't actually have articulation like one would expect from a paraphonic synth where each OSC always plays one note? Or does it not matter and is this just paraphonic?

Cheers!

[xresonancex]

Your explanation of the original purpose of the synthesizer (spot on by the way) of not being designed as a traditional instrument for making traditional sounds at the beginning of the video is something the younger generation is missing as you pointed out.
Analog synthesizers are limited, . That is what makes each one unique sounding and appealing. It also forces you to use what you got. If every analog had the same feature set or handled polyphony the same way they would all sound the same. Kind of like the digital stuff.


I am not sure if you have done a video on this but perhaps you could do one on the early pioneers of electronic music and the limited technology they had available to them to make new sounds.
Great video, information, and explanations!

[MarshalArnold]

Funny how we just went through this same confusion when the MatrixBrute came out.

[johnhaynes]

Kick back with a cup of tea and catch-up watch a "rant" about polyphony. The perfect start to a Christmas Day. Merry Christmas Marc! :)

[patcummins]

Personally, I thought PARA D would've been a much better name

[erichkohl]

Extremely useful video with great info, I needed this and learned a lot. Thanks!

[ThatJerseyBloke]

I thought it was funny how the Poly-D polyphonic/paraphonic thing became such an issue. I was more interested and wowed that it had 4 oscillators and the Juno 60/106 chorus. Just make music with it already. If you can't make music with it, then there's a problem. ;-)

[drJoep]

Thank you for watching all of this. Please don't hate me.

[keys]

Thank you, Marc. This really needs to stick.

[scottharris]

I would think that as an "influencer" you might be more concerned with accuracy of description rather than semantics. It is more "wrong" to call the Behringer Poly D ... polyphonic than it is to call it paraphonic. The former is entirely misleading but semantically correct. The later uses one word which says what needs to be known. Yes ... it can do more than one voice but those voices are paraphonic. Calling it polyphonic requires a history lesson to properly contextualize it. You win the point but you lose the argument.