List(!!!!) of synths with per-voice (polyphonic) distortion

[Gam456]

I was able to get better results using MSoundFactory than I was getting with my Peak (which does have several ways to get per-voice distortion), so out it went. I was never really thrilled with its sterile sound anyway. I ended up with a Nina instead.

Checking the doc of the Summit, I was right and I confirm the saturation is after the VCA.
That's mean no polyphonic

Both overdrive are per voice and probably the VCA gain as well.

[ex-sprinter]

First in my personal list of distortion synths is the Rob Papen's "Raw". Well, it's all about distorted sounds for hardcore/hardstyle tunes.

[zerocrossing]

I was able to get better results using MSoundFactory than I was getting with my Peak (which does have several ways to get per-voice distortion), so out it went. I was never really thrilled with its sterile sound anyway. I ended up with a Nina instead.

Checking the doc of the Summit, I was right and I confirm the saturation is after the VCA.
That's mean no polyphonic

Both overdrive are per voice and probably the VCA gain as well.

You should probably learn your synths better before you start pretending that you know how they work.

[zerocrossing]

I'm going to try and get polyphony going in Reaktor Blocks and report back.

Damn I thought I'd done a video about this and our poly blocks, a few different ways.. one way to apply the same distortion (a poly block) to all 5 voices separately, or you could split up the signal into 5 mono and put a different distortion on each voice

Did things which surprised me when I was exploring..
Might be time to do it (a "here's all the ways you can do polyphonic stuff in ToyBoxAudio blocks") finally.

Are you one of the Toybox developers? Those things are amazing.

[Uncle E]

My hardare is a Summit with 2 analog overdrive and 1 analog saturation. My reference.
I can do whatever I want it's always musical and warmth.

Checking the doc of the Summit, I was right and I confirm the saturation is after the VCA.
That's mean no polyphonic

Both overdrive are per voice and probably the VCA gain as well.

It has digital polyphonic overdrive and distortion pre-VCA and analog overdrive post-VCA. I don't blame you for missing this detail, I never knew any of this and had to dig all throughout the manual to figure it out (actually, the first reply I made was full of incorrect assumptions, this is me eating crow and doing my due diligence):

"DISTORTION – controls pre-VCA analogue distortion"

"Overdrive – adds a degree of pre-filter distortion to the mixer output."

"The Effects section for each of Summit’s two Parts comprises three different DSP-based
processors producing time-domain effects, plus an analogue distortion generator"

"Distortion may be added with the single Level control 68 . A controlled amount of
distortion is added after the VCA, in the analogue domain, and affects the sum of all sixteen
voices and any external audio inputs applied."

[zerocrossing]

First in my personal list of distortion synths is the Rob Papen's "Raw". Well, it's all about distorted sounds for hardcore/hardstyle tunes.

RAW would be perfect if he'd include some oversampling options. It's great for lo-fi digital dirt, but I'm after something that's more evocative of transistor analog distortion.

[Gam456]

It has digital polyphonic overdrive and distortion pre-VCA and analog overdrive post-VCA. I don't blame you for missing this detail, I never knew any of this and had to dig all throughout the manual to figure it out (actually, the first reply I made was full of incorrect assumptions, this is me eating crow and doing my due diligence):

It's a complex synth with many gain staging, it's easy to be lost.

I don't know why they are keep saying pre vca distortion.
It doesn't sound like that, but like an overdrive/saturation.

The distortion is stereo after the VCA and sound like a distortion.

[zerocrossing]

It has digital polyphonic overdrive and distortion pre-VCA and analog overdrive post-VCA. I don't blame you for missing this detail, I never knew any of this and had to dig all throughout the manual to figure it out (actually, the first reply I made was full of incorrect assumptions, this is me eating crow and doing my due diligence):

It's a complex synth with many gain staging, it's easy to be lost.

I don't know why they are keep saying pre vca distortion.
It doesn't sound like that, but like an overdrive/saturation.

The distortion is stereo after the VCA and sound like a distortion.

It's super power is that there are a bunch of ways to introduce analog distortion into the signal path.

[Jac459]

First in my personal list of distortion synths is the Rob Papen's "Raw". Well, it's all about distorted sounds for hardcore/hardstyle tunes.

RAW would be perfect if he'd include some oversampling options. It's great for lo-fi digital dirt, but I'm after something that's more evocative of transistor analog distortion.

Looool! Indeed, you are right to say that Raw is far from transistor analog distortion haha. Or more like takes the transistors and rub it to your face while punching you in the stomach kind 9f distortion.

Raw and raw kicks are indeed very funny and gives an instant hardstyle vibe.... Not very usable for any other thing though.

[pdxindy]

I guess my quest comes from the fact that I keep the Analog Four around for basically that. It’s got a fantastic distortion built in, not just filter drive. Really rich sounding, but not harsh at all. It just seems silly to have that synth around for that one thing.

Seems like a good reason to keep it around! Plus you can p-lock stuff using the sequencer, also do some wild stuff with routing audio.

I have a second RYTM specifically for the analog distortion and analog compressor. Nothing I have tried in software even gets in the same solar system! There are software distortions now that have pretty good tone, but they are still fairly static and boringly predictable. On the RYTM, I can lower the level of one step and the resulting distortion is changes in predictable ways. It's a wild beast and even if you modulate the settings until the sounds turn into nothing but dirty grunge, it never sounds bad.

[zerocrossing]

First in my personal list of distortion synths is the Rob Papen's "Raw". Well, it's all about distorted sounds for hardcore/hardstyle tunes.

RAW would be perfect if he'd include some oversampling options. It's great for lo-fi digital dirt, but I'm after something that's more evocative of transistor analog distortion.

Looool! Indeed, you are right to say that Raw is far from transistor analog distortion haha. Or more like takes the transistors and rub it to your face while punching you in the stomach kind 9f distortion.

Raw and raw kicks are indeed very funny and gives an instant hardstyle vibe.... Not very usable for any other thing though.

I’m not saying they’re not good for stuff, I just would like to be able to pick how much oversampling I need to get the results I want. That’s why MPowerSynth is so good. You can really get under the hood and mess with things. Run it at crazy high oversampling, if you want. The down side of that means, you have to dig in and make your own character in a lot of ways.

The truth is, a lot of plugins do have per voice distortion, it’s just that it’s not that great. It must take a lot of oversampling to push that aliasing out of the realm of hearing. I find MPowerSynth starts to sound really good at about 8X.

[zerocrossing]

I guess my quest comes from the fact that I keep the Analog Four around for basically that. It’s got a fantastic distortion built in, not just filter drive. Really rich sounding, but not harsh at all. It just seems silly to have that synth around for that one thing.

Seems like a good reason to keep it around! Plus you can p-lock stuff using the sequencer, also do some wild stuff with routing audio.

I have a second RYTM specifically for the analog distortion and analog compressor. Nothing I have tried in software even gets in the same solar system! There are software distortions now that have pretty good tone, but they are still fairly static and boringly predictable. On the RYTM, I can lower the level of one step and the resulting distortion is changes in predictable ways. It's a wild beast and even if you modulate the settings until the sounds turn into nothing but dirty grunge, it never sounds bad.

Yeah, you’re describing why I bought them, but the truth of the matter is, I’m not really using them. Why? I’m not sure. They don’t take up much space, have good software integration, sound great, even more importantly, they sound really unique. Maybe I should spend tomorrow rekindling my love affair.

[Uncle E]

If Novation is using the term overdrive correctly, meaning it’s driving the filter into distortion, that’s kind of cool. But it’s all digital at that stage so not as appealing to me as the analog distortion. Anyway, the block diagram tells everything we need to know.

[zerocrossing]

If Novation is using the term overdrive correctly, meaning it’s driving the filter into distortion, that’s kind of cool. But it’s all digital at that stage so not as appealing to me as the analog distortion. Anyway, the block diagram tells everything we need to know.

Why would you say it’s digital at that stage? After the FPGA renders the oscillators in the analog domain, it stays analog until the digital effects, and the summed bus distortion is still analog. I mean, it could be digital. I’ve heard a lot of great digital distortions. I love my Roland Torcido, but I don’t think in this case it’s digital. It’s a bit of a tamer sounding distortion, but I think it’s analog.

[Uncle E]

Got it. Yes, I see what you’re saying now. Must be analog at that stage, too. What an odd synth.