A Faithful Emulation Of A Legendary Synth

A few factors were key to the creation of the iconic sound of the PolyM’s glorious ancestor, the Polymoog synthesizer. First was replicating the two T.O.D (Top Octave dividers) Oscillators, each with PER NOTE Pulse Width Modulation, initially used to get a big polyphony (unique at the time). Secondly was that iconic gritty Moog designed 24dB Ladder Filter, the essential acoustic Filter Bank and, finally, a rich full of character Resonator Bank.

More than two years were spent analyzing the Polymoog synthesizer. It convinced XILS-Lab that the most important part in recreating the true character of the sound was the Top Octave Divider Oscillators. So, during several months, they worked on modeling the Polymoog’s oscillators in a way no one else had before. They successfully developed a Divide Down algorithm that brings out the true sound of the Polymoog.

The legendary Vox Humana sound, popularized by Gary Numan in his song Cars, can now be played by anyone with Xils PolyM. It is now possible to deliver that authentic vintage sound you would never have found without using the original classic synth itself.

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Inside The PolyM Synthesiser

PolyM distinguishes itself from other synths by having extraordinary features and a unique sound, it offers much more than a string machine or Organ like synthesizer.

Thanks to its huge modulation possibilities, to the possibility to tweak the internal filter parameters and despite some musical limitations brought by the Top Octave Divider oscillators (see below), it is a full-featured synthesizer while keeping the character of the original machine.

The Core Sound: Top Octave Divider Oscillators

In this technology, a high frequency oscillator is first divided into 12 intervals of an equal-tempered scale to reproduce a full octave, which is then divided by multiples of 2 to create the needed additional octaves. All notes are therefore locked to a single oscillator, and are always played with the same relative phase, resulting in a unique sound, aside from giving the biggest polyphony (Which was the reason why this technique was invented back in the day).

The PolyM accurately reproduces this divide-down technology, while adding a never before seen feature: Polyphonic (Per note) Pulse Width Modulation.

Master Gain Control: The Mixer

You can mix up to 4 sources in the Mixer, and set the global volume with the GEN slider. DIRECT is the raw sound of the oscillators. MOD gets its input from the Acoustic Filter module, while RES takes its source from the RESONATOR FILTER BANK output, and VCF from the 24dB Moog designed Ladder filter.

VCA/Amp

The VCA envelope has two modes, LEG (for Legacy) and ADSR. In the first case, the envelope has been designed to match the original instrument as closely as possible, while the ADSR (Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release) is a standard analog modeled envelope generator that adds a lot of versatility to the PolyM.

VCF & Acoustic Filters

Each note goes through its own 12dB filter, which can be modulated by its own ADSR envelope. This is an important improvement from the original model, which only offered VCF modulation via its simplified VCA envelope.

Moreover, with the PolyM, you can change the filter type from Low Pass to High Pass or Band Pass.

The RESONATOR FILTER BANK

This was responsible for a major part of the specific sound of the original instrument, and offers 3 parametric filters. You can adjust the Frequency, Level, and Resonance of each filter, and choose between LP/BP/HP/6/12dB modes.

These filters have a strong character, as you will immediately notice when you tweak them. Furthermore, you can control all of their parameters via the Matrix Modulation to create evolving sounds, which, as you can guess, was impossible on the original model.

The VCF Second Filter

A Moog designed 24dB Ladder Filter (capable of self-oscillation), created with XILS-Lab 4th generation zero-delay filter algorithms. It has its own envelope, LFO, and Keyboard tracking parameters, and is controlled by the Keyboard in a MONOPHONIC way.

What does that mean? You can retrigger its envelope with every new keystroke, and add movement to a Pad or a Strings patch for example. It can also be assigned to the LOWER or UPPER parts, or…both.

The Modulation Matrix

Not only did we expose many internal parameters that were not accessible in the original model and add a lot of new features to increase its versatility, we also made them available as destinations in the Modulation Matrix.

Which means you can modulate the PWM, Vibrato or volume of each Oscillator, control the parameters of all Filters, the Mixer individual gains, Envelope segments, and even all the parameters of the Resonator filter bank with many polyphonic, or monophonic sources to create incredibly deep, rich and evolving sounds.

Preset Manager

Single Window integrated Preset Manager: Find the right patch in seconds, manage presets, soundbanks and create your own tags.

More than 440 presets created by fantastic sound designers Nori Ubukata, Kevin Ford, Soundsdivine, Adam Borseti, Zensound, Lotuzia, Vic Emerson, Status, EmptyVessel and others….

The Effects: Four vintage effects for adding space, vibe and life to your sounds.

The Advanced Arpeggiator: A new Extended Arpeggiator has been integrated: Much more than the standard playing up and down the notes of a chord, this arpeggiator added cycled modulations and mute possibilities for sparkling notes that are a full of life.

NKS Compatible

The PolyM is also NKS compatible. And with the Advanced Preset Manager, you’ll be able to find the right sound in seconds, thanks to its multi-criteria search engine, as well as to easily manage all your sound collections.