AKARSH SHEKHAR
What’s the difference between
Monophony, Polyphony
and Paraphony?
Confused about what these “phonies” are? “Monophony,”
“polyphony”, and “paraphony,” are actual terms used to
report the total number of notes that a synthesizer can
play in one sitting. Along with a recent analog synthesizer
renaissance came questions about the meanings of
these terms which are becoming more popular.
Music enthusiasts can either have monophonic,
paraphonic or polyphonic keyboards. Let’s look
at what that means and the differences:
What is Monophony?
Aside from modular synthesizers, the first “commercial”
synths in the early ’70s could only play one note at a time.
To confuse the issue, that one note could typically be made
from one, two, or three oscillators. So, even though you
could press one key and hear three distinct pitches, it was
still considered monophonic (one note) because you couldn’t
press a second key and hear three new pitches while the
original three were still playing. This was the basis for most
lead synth sounds, bass synth sounds, and various 2- or
3-note intervals that could be played across the keyboard.
If you had an arpeggiator, then you could have that one
note run up and down all the notes you were holding.
What is Paraphony?
Essentially, paraphony is a hack that lets you play two
separate pitches (and sometimes more on certain synths), but
the factual reality is that all the notes typically run through
the same filter and amp. This means that they all share the
same filter envelope and amp envelope. So even though
you can control more than one pitch at a time from the
keyboard, they all tend to attack and decay as a single unit.
playing chords or a lead with your right hand. At first, you
might think that you’d never need more than five notes of
polyphony if you’re only playing one note with your left
hand and one to four notes in your right hand. While that
can be true, more often than not, you’ll want the old notes
to continue fading away while your new notes are playing
— and fading notes count just as much as new notes.
Now that analog synths are almost as common as digital
synths, it’s worth examining the differences in their
polyphony. Many analog synths were (and still are)
monophonic. This is because an analog synth requires
all the audio components to be duplicated every time
there’s an additional note of polyphony. This makes it
impossible — or at least impractical and unaffordable — to
have the same polyphony counts that are relatively easy
for digital synths. (Digital synths often have polyphony
counts ranging from 16 voices to up to 256 voices.)
The differences:
Differences depend on how much you need. If you’re just
doing bass lines or lead lines, then you can get away with a
monophonic synth. If you only need to play simple chords
that don’t have long release times, then you will do just fine
with four to eight voices. Longer, ambient performances
may be easier to accomplish with 12 to 16 voices. But if
you’re playing multiple tracks of complex parts, each
using many notes, then you should focus on digital synths
that have 64, 128, or 256 notes of polyphony. And there’s
no problem at all with having both monophonic and
polyphonic keyboards. They all have their own advantages.
What is Polyphony?
Polyphony is the ability to play many distinct notes, with
filter and amp envelopes. Some early synths allowed two
distinct notes at once (sometimes called “duophony”),
which then blossomed to five (with the Sequential Circuits
Prophet Five) and six notes (with the Korg PolySix). This
made it possible to play a bass line with your left hand while
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