polyphonic synth problems (3 osc.)

Laurin Baumann's icon

Hi everyone,

I'm still getting the hang of max. I'm trying to recreate the Moog Model D in max. just so I can get more familiar with the program. I don't actually want to authentically try to recreate anything, more just the build and mechanic.

I've started with setting up the 3 oscillators to act as a poly synth. But I believe I'm taking the wrong approach here.

  • The notein for external midi doesn't really work properly. It only works if I first press a key on the kslider.

  • Then also idk how to get rid of the fact that whenever I release a note on the external midi keyboard, it jumps back to another initial note. (like a different note with on/off from a key)

  • And also the polyphony is not working the way I want it to. E.g. if I press one key, I want all 3 oscillators to play that note but now with the way I setup poly and pack, it just triggers one oscillator after the other. That also means, it only changes one note at the time and all others are getting retriggered with the same pitch when I just play one note.

Does anyone have any videos I could watch for this or have any solutions to my mentioned problems? I know that this is probably something that has been asked multiple times, but I didn't find any good resources on the forum yet. Maybe I'm looking for the wrong stuff. here is the patch:

Max Patch
Copy patch and select New From Clipboard in Max.

Looking forward to any help!:)


TFL's icon

I guess what you are looking for is to build one voice (with all three oscilators, filter and such) in a dedicated patch that will run inside of a [poly~] (which is very different than a [poly]).

Wil's icon

try this - poly~

p_s.zip
zip 5.66 KB

ps. you don't use $1 inside of [scale]

-better to [pack 0. 250] before line

Edit- I forgot to add [mc.mixdown~ 2] before the gain~ to hear all the voices – oops

Wil's icon

Here is an update to your synth.

p_s 2.zip
zip 6.16 KB


*** external midi info should be in the poly~ help files/midi help files