Members ElectricPuppy Posted July 6, 2009 Members Share Posted July 6, 2009 Hypothesis: 2 VCOs is enough and anything more is a waste. Evidence: Very few analog synths have more than 2 VCOs. Conclusion: 3 or more VCOs provide diminishing returns. Discuss. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members drxcm Posted July 6, 2009 Members Share Posted July 6, 2009 An extra VCO can provide an extra LFO, or act as an FM modulator... handy.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members The Real MC Posted July 6, 2009 Members Share Posted July 6, 2009 Third VCO that can act as LFO = ultra cool voice modulation Third VCO as audio for polyphonic = overkill for most patches Third VCO as audio for monophonic leads = you haz phat leads Third VCO as audio for monophonic basses = bass FX, not always for bass lines (Some EML synths had FOUR VCOs...) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ElectricPuppy Posted July 6, 2009 Author Members Share Posted July 6, 2009 Well then, if more VCOs are better, then why didn't more synths have them? Clearly, then, the P5, JP8, etc. are crap since they lack enough oscillators. :poke: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Logicat Posted July 6, 2009 Members Share Posted July 6, 2009 The Revolution, with its single osc, is one of the synths i use the most, because that filter sounds just great. Beside that, the Perfourmer allows me to setup a 4-osc monster bass...Although i admit i'm using it mainly as a bi-timbral 2-oscs instrument :poke: I think 3 oscs are very good for thick and juicy leads (think Moog) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ChristianRock Posted July 6, 2009 Members Share Posted July 6, 2009 Yeah, you also left other 1-VCO synths like the SH-101 and the TB-303 out of this Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ElectricPuppy Posted July 6, 2009 Author Members Share Posted July 6, 2009 You're right, I did. But then you bring up a few very well-known synths that only have 1 osc and do what they do very well. Which brings me back to, "does anyone really need more than 2 osc?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Tony Scharf Posted July 6, 2009 Members Share Posted July 6, 2009 Well then, if more VCOs are better, then why didn't more synths have them? Clearly, then, the P5, JP8, etc. are crap since they lack enough oscillators.:poke: thats very poor logic. The reason many synths have 2 VCOs instead of three is economics and not anything to do with sound. To have three VCO's per voice on a P5 you need to add 5 more oscillators...and all their routing and memory matrix and all that junk. On a JP8, you would be adding 8 VCOs. good VCO's are not cheap. On a monophonic synth, otoh, your adding one more VCO per voice and adding a lot to what it can do sound wise. That third VCO definitely has uses as discussed above. Is it necessary? No. Just one Oscillator is necessary to make a sound. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Tony Scharf Posted July 6, 2009 Members Share Posted July 6, 2009 You're right, I did. But then you bring up a few very well-known synths that only have 1 osc and do what they do very well. Which brings me back to, "does anyone really need more than 2 osc?" Someone does, or there would never have been any 3 oscillator synths ever. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Gribs Posted July 6, 2009 Members Share Posted July 6, 2009 Don't forget about oscillator sync! Two oscillators with one sync'd to the other then use the third as a sub to add a little oomph. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members marino Posted July 6, 2009 Members Share Posted July 6, 2009 Every analog synth should have *at least* 3 REAL oscillators (no "sub" crap) per voice channel. By law. Need only one or two? Use only one or two. All other reasoning is just economics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members marino Posted July 6, 2009 Members Share Posted July 6, 2009 Don't forget about oscillator sync! Two oscillators with one sync'd to the other then use the third as a sub to add a little oomph. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members stikygum Posted July 6, 2009 Members Share Posted July 6, 2009 The 3rd is the key to ultra phatness. 2 osc gets you detuned, but the 3rd is like scoring a home run. For me personally, I have always wanted analogs with 3 osc. Is it because I can't do much with 2, possibly, but it depends on the synth I'm using. 3 Osc detuned can drive like no other. Just walk up to a Moog Voyager. It's another dimension. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Logicat Posted July 6, 2009 Members Share Posted July 6, 2009 Now i want a Voyager Select white-wash/fire. Thank you for the contribution to my GAS, people Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members AnalogGuy Posted July 6, 2009 Members Share Posted July 6, 2009 Hi guys. I have Yamaha CS-40M which is duophonic with 4-VCOs. This is much better than any other mono/duophonic synth because: 1. The oscillators are not shared which means I can have always 2 full voices with each 2-VCOs per voice... 2. ...but it have also UNISON which doubles as 4-VCO monophonic sound and my friend said it sounds more thick and powerful than his Jupiter 6 unison! 3. ...and still I have always 1 LFO separated. You may think about many synthesizers having more oscillators but we are now talking about having more than 2-VCOs PER voice. So Mono/Poly, Polymoog, PS-3100 and so on, can be forgot since they have either not true polyphony or just shared VCOs or only 1 per voice. And to answer for your idea of having more than 2-vco within true polyphonic synth: the COSTS and TROUBLES! To my own knowledge there is only two (analog) synthesizers having more than typical 2 oscillators per voice: Korg PS-3200 with 48 voices, 2 VCOs per voice (same said it's capable of 3-vco too??? Mayben not more than 2-vco per voice but still, OMG!!!) and MOOG Memorymoog, having 6 voice polyphonic with 3-VCO per voice, totally having 18 oscillators! And the result??? Korg polyphonic PS synths are one of the rarest!!! And the memorymoog cost simply too much that they were never able to finish this product and had a lot of troubles and were very much of unstable regardless of autotune feature. This caused Moog to close its doors!!! Still wanting more than 2 oscs? Let me show you something about Memorymoog and some principles of these things: - In MemoryMoog, Oscillators and envelope generators are not realized via discret circuits. Reason therefore might have been simply lack of space... For the VCOs Curtis Chips 3340 are used, ENV use 3310 chips. - Some musicians said the Memorymoog never really left the status of a prototype instrument. - "About Memorymoog there is one golden rule: applying less than all three VCOs is sometimes better for musical results. Being used as solistic instrument, the MM sounds ferfect in any way. But in a mix sound often is overwhelming. Ascetic use of the VCOs is the solution..." - "Memorymoogs had problems with the auto-tune function. If the oscillators drift too far out of range, the auto-tune doesn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Synthmatic Posted July 6, 2009 Members Share Posted July 6, 2009 Think MEMORYMOOG! Use the 3rd VCO Tri wave to modulate the Pulse Widths of the other two VCOs. This gives a great string sound. As far as mono synths go, I like 3 VCOs so you can tune them to diferent notes. For example: VCO1 root, VCO2 a forth, VCO3 a fifth and voila, Aquatarkus.3 VCOs = more sonic posibilities. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ElectricPuppy Posted July 6, 2009 Author Members Share Posted July 6, 2009 thats very poor logic. The reason many synths have 2 VCOs instead of three is economics and not anything to do with sound. To have three VCO's per voice on a P5 you need to add 5 more oscillators...and all their routing and memory matrix and all that junk. On a JP8, you would be adding 8 VCOs. good VCO's are not cheap.On a monophonic synth, otoh, your adding one more VCO per voice and adding a lot to what it can do sound wise. That third VCO definitely has uses as discussed above. Is it necessary? No. Just one Oscillator is necessary to make a sound. Let me rephrase me question, then: Does more than 2 oscillators expand the sonic palette enough to justify their cost? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members The Real MC Posted July 6, 2009 Members Share Posted July 6, 2009 And to answer for your idea of having more than 2-vco within true polyphonic synth: the COSTS and TROUBLES! I'll add lack of design experience, to be clarified below. And the memorymoog cost simply too much that they were never able to finish this product and had a lot of troubles and were very much of unstable regardless of autotune feature. The reason Memorymoogs (and many vintage polyphonics) were unreliable were its cheap IC sockets and tin-plated pins used on PC board interconnects. Cheap IC sockets suffer from oxidation and degrading spring force on the leaf contacts. Over age the two would combine to cause all kinds of foibles directly related to tuning problems. PC Board interconnects have to be reliable, and tin-plated connector pins oxidize quickly. I owned my Memerymoog since 1985 and in less than four years into ownership I was cleaning off oxidation off the pins, by the tenth year they were beyond cleaning. I also owned an ARP ProSoloist that was older than the MM, but was very reliable. A study revealed gold-plated contacts, not tin plated. Al Pearlman used to design products for the military, and military standards demand gold plating on connector pins. Tin plating lasts ten years, gold plating last TENS of years. So I took on an ambitious project to replace the critical IC sockets and connector pins with gold plated equivalents. When I was done I have a Memorymoog with the best tuning reliability on the planet worthy of steady gigging. And I have not had to clean any contacts since then. The designers of the Memorymoog lacked the design experience of Al Pearlman. The cost of gold-plated IC sockets and connector pins is not much higher than tin-plated, but considering the original $4495 retail of a Memorymoog Plus they had to cut corners somewhere. And they made the wrong sacrifice. This caused Moog to close its doors!!! Nope... The banks killed Moog as did the Yamaha DX-7. Moog had another finished product in the pipeline, the SL-8. The Yamaha DX-7 closed the door on ANY analog synth market. Moog had to re-finance and the terms of the bank stipulated NO MUSIC INSTRUMENT PRODUCTION. That killed the SL-8, it never got in production. - Some musicians said the Memorymoog never really left the status of a prototype instrument. Owning a Memorymoog is like owning a Triumph. It's a serious machine but you have to be prepared for the price of admission in the form of high maintenance. If you apply the hot-rodding that I did, the maintenance is much easier. The Memorymoog is also a complex machine that can be overwhelming to novices. Few techs will touch a Memorymoog because they don't have the system analysis experience necessary for troubleshooting them. - "Memorymoogs had problems with the auto-tune function. If the oscillators drift too far out of range, the auto-tune doesn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members drxcm Posted July 6, 2009 Members Share Posted July 6, 2009 IMO, for a monosynth, yes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members raffor Posted July 7, 2009 Members Share Posted July 7, 2009 It really comes down to what the 3rd oscillator can do. I always felt like the Prophet could use one more audio oscillator since it can modulate almost everything. In this particular case a third oscillator would be welcome in addition to an LFO (especially the PWM control with an audio signal is great). Just to sum the oscillators up to fatten up the sound, I think you would be better off doing the 2 oscillator thing with one having a sub-oscillator. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members cram1960 Posted July 7, 2009 Members Share Posted July 7, 2009 Well then, if more VCOs are better, then why didn't more synths have them? Clearly, then, the P5, JP8, etc. are crap since they lack enough oscillators.:poke: Possible reasons: 1. Laziness of the designers.2. cost too much.3. Just when they were about to add more in came FM synthesis with 4 and 6 operators and analog synthesis was kaput. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members StompBoxLover Posted July 7, 2009 Members Share Posted July 7, 2009 can somebody please post the picture of the 'poly'-Pulse? not that it would advance this thread in any way, but... still... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mildbill Posted July 7, 2009 Members Share Posted July 7, 2009 With the A6, if you select Unison-X mode, you can play 32 detuned oscillators with one key. From the manual: '...In the classic sense of the word, unison is a performance mode which slaves allvoices to one key or one received MIDI Note. In the A6, unison is a set of keyboardmodes in which Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mate_stubb Posted July 7, 2009 Members Share Posted July 7, 2009 For a polysynth, 2 audio oscillators per voice is enough, provided you have at least one lfo per voice. If you need more than 2, that's what layering is for. For monosynths, 3 audio oscillators provide justifiable value. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members acidolem Posted July 7, 2009 Members Share Posted July 7, 2009 My Korg Monopoly synth has 4 VCO's . After 5 min for them to warm up it is a blast to play. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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