Synthesizers and Voicings (Mono Legato Poly and More)

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On to voicings. This is a very important and distinguishing feature of subtractive synthesizers often overlooked by instructors. This is how you can get your sound “fat” and “huge” by modern standards. When you see settings for things like Unison Detune it’s referring to voice stacking. Every synth will have a limit to the number of voices it can generate. That or your computer crashes when you exceed a certain number. In theory the more voices (slightly detuned and subtly panned) the richer and denser the sound. We’ll go through several examples and see that it is possible to have too much of a good thing. Remember that when you're making an actual song you need to leave room for a lot of sounds not just larger than life synths. Use this feature on your instruments but do so responsibly and wisely.