What are 'Voices?'

S

Sequence2

Member
Would any1 care to explain what 'voices' actually are/ mean when it comes to production? Such as in my VST synth there's an option for me to increase the voices in the synth (Up to 16?) or when reading books/ manuals for equipment and production and it says something like:
LFO Mode - In polyphonic mode, each of the voices involved is assigned a dedicated LFO
 
i think voices is how many keys you can play at the same time.
so if you have 16 voices. You can hear 16 keys at the same time. so if you press 18 keys on your keyboard you won't hear 2 of them.
if you have 1 voice. it's monophonic. you can only hear 1 key at the same time like on a lot of analog synths.

mono means 1.
poly means more than 1.

i think
 
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It is actually a bit more subtle than that. A voice is a single signal path in your synth. Each signal path can generate a sound. If you synth has more than one voice you can have polyphonic operation, up to the number of voices available and/or you could allocate more than one voice per key (this can be useful for producing "thicker" sounds).

Hope this clarifies.
 
A voice is a resonating medium. A full piano can have up to 88 voices. A guitar usually has six (each string is a voice). Some instruments, like woodwind, brass, and the human voice, only have one "voice". Number of voices on a synth/vst is the number of notes you can play at once. The term "voicing" refers to what notes each "voice" is playing and how they are spread.
 
i think in certain vsts they refer voices as a function to feedback the signal path back into the synthesizer and stack however many "voices" you want. Definitely widens the sound a LOT if you do it on the right patch. but yea besides that voices are exactly what the dudes above me are saying
 
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