Polyphonic Synths with Glide/Portamento

[Arturo00]

I recently acquired a Prophet 5 and realized that the Glide only works in mono mode. I was a tad disappointed as I love the polyphonic glide effect I get out of my Jupiter 4. I read a few posts about getting the Prophet 5 (rev 2?) to glide in polymode. But it's a one shot effect that works if you switch from Unison to Poly-mode while holding down the appropriate keys. I haven't tried it on mine (rev3.3) yet, but will surely do so in the near future.

But it got me wondering, what other analog (mainly vintage) polysynths have portamento? I did a search and couldn't really find much.

So I pose this question to all of you, off the top of your heads which polyphonic analog synths have glide that work in poly-mode?


...
A while back I found this video, which pretty much sums up everything I love about polyphonic glide!


And another (the beginning sweep):

[Synthaholic]

All the Jupiters... Juno-106... OB-8 and I believe the OB-X and Xa too... Andromeda... Prophet '08... just about any VA in existence...

There's lots of them out there.

Now as for how well poly portamento is implemented... some synths use round-robin voice allocation which doesn't lend itself well to poly portamento. The Rolands have Poly 2 mode that helps some.

[Arturo00]

I figured all the Jupiters did.

... just about any VA in existence...

But this statement seems a little odd to me (I assume that "VA" means Vintage Analog). I have 5 vintage polysynths: Jupiter 4, Prophet 5, Polysix, Poly800MKII and a Juno 60 and only the JP-4 has poly-glide. Is it a feature that's mainly seen in higher end synths?

[Synthaholic]

I figured all the Jupiters did.

... just about any VA in existence...

But this statement seems a little odd to me (I assume that "VA" means Vintage Analog). I have 5 vintage polysynths: Jupiter 4, Prophet 5, Polysix, Poly800MKII and a Juno 60 and only the JP-4 has poly-glide. Is it a feature that's mainly seen in higher end synths?

VA = Virtual Analog. Synths like the Nord Lead, Korg MS2000, Microkorg, JP-8000, etc.

A lot of vintage digital synths have it too... including the ubiquitous DX7 and D-50.

But if you're talking just vintage analog polys, yes, mainly the higher-end and more "recent" models have it. As technology allowed for more powerful microprocessors, more synths started to offer it as a feature. Probably the lowest-end vintage analog poly to offer it was the Juno-106.

[Arturo00]

Aaaah yes. VA = Virtual Analog. But who really cares about those?

But yes, I was mainly concerned with RA (ie. "Real Analog"). And more in the vintage scene...Even though I used the sunsyn as an example.

[devetron]

The Prophet 600 has it/does it.

[adhmzaiusz]

All the polys I've tried don't always trigger the portamento all the time which is kindof weird, you might want to mess with your p5 a bit to make sure. Even the crappy sequential split 8 had polyphonic port but it never triggered all the time. All the ones Ive tried are jp8, ob8, split8

[pricklyrobot]

Yeah, the 600 does it; weird that the 5 wouldn't.

Casio CZ series have it, though I think it sounds better in mono mode. CZs have really nice-sounding portamento in general; it's probably my second favorite, after my—departed—Moog Source.

[dr funk]

Rhodes Chroma and Chroma Polaris both have it.

Frank

[Synthaholic]

Yeah, the 600 does it; weird that the 5 wouldn't.

Well, the 5 was SCI's first microprocessor-controlled poly, and it used a slow Z80 CPU.

I don't know what the P600 uses, but being a later vintage it probably had a faster CPU, or better coding of the firmware to allow for poly portamento.

[psionic11]

I like that famous poly-portamento riff at the beginning of, what was it, THX movies? Slooow glides, every voice mooooving separately, to all finally, glissfully, focus in on one grand chord. Ta-da!

I used to do that with my Juno 106 and my Korg DW8000.

[Arturo00]

I like that famous poly-portamento riff at the beginning of, what was it, THX movies? Slooow glides, every voice mooooving separately, to all finally, glissfully, focus in on one grand chord. Ta-da!

Oh yeah, the THX sound! That's another great example! Though I have no clue what they used...

If anyone has any video/sound clips of various poly-glide examples (like the ones I posted above), I'd love to hear those too! Once again, preferably Analog synths. But really anything is welcome!

ps. Pitch bends don't count...

[tekkentool]

I like that famous poly-portamento riff at the beginning of, what was it, THX movies? Slooow glides, every voice mooooving separately, to all finally, glissfully, focus in on one grand chord. Ta-da!

Oh yeah, the THX sound! That's another great example! Though I have no clue what they used...

If anyone has any video/sound clips of various poly-glide examples (like the ones I posted above), I'd love to hear those too! Once again, preferably Analog synths. But really anything is welcome!

ps. Pitch bends don't count...

there was an entire article on music thing about it.

it was made on a big arse mainframe computer. programmed to randomise slightly each time.'

http://musicthing.blogspot.com/2005/05/ ... sound.html

[mung]

The beginning of this song obliterates. My fav example of PolyGlide.

[Denms20]

JX8P has it. So did a broken minimoog I messed with tonight at guitar center. Wasn't exactly polyphonic, just duophonic (one oscillator was acting quite a bit independently of the keyboard, sometimes it glided, sometimes it modulated to a saw wave, think it needs surgery).