I traded a couple of emails with Dave, and the production Poly Evolvers are currently being manufactured. Dave's current plan is to begin shipping next week.

I just received another prototype Poly, and am doing some quick programming to help fill the rather large void that currently exists in the Combos banks. Happily, the Program banks are full, and there's a pretty nice variety of stuff in there. Dave's already thinking about plans for an even better "version 2" set of presets for the Poly, though!

[ April 17, 2004: Message edited by: Ski ]

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Anyway, when those Evo Programs contain sequences, and you start stacking them up in a Combo, things can get fairly complex. The possibilities are staggering, and no one has even begun to scratch the surface of these Combos.

I've put together about 32 Combos now, using the Programs that were already in the Poly Evolver prototype that Dave just sent me. (I was happy to find that many of the Progams in the Poly were mine!) Some of the Combos I put together contain sequences, so I quickly recorded a few short clips to share with you.

These are 100% Poly Evolver Combo sequences, with no overdubs or layering, no external effects, etc. etc. I just hit the "Start" button and recorded:

RollingHills.mp3 824 Kb
- Kind of a bubbly, atmospheric, drone/pad kind of thing.

Zeequence_3.mp3 550 Kb
- A funky rhythm made from a combination of my own sequences and one from another author.

MartianDance.mp3 592 Kb
- This was my best attempt to sound like the great Steven West! It helps to have a good subwoofer that goes *real* low for this one.

Hope you enjoy them. For those of you that are thinking about getting a Poly Evolver, I KNOW you'll enjoy THAT! I told Dave he's a dirty %@$^@*! for sending me a second Poly prototype, because now I'm hooked.

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BTW Stefan, in case you didn't already know, your "Massive" sequence is currently in the Poly Evolvers presets. It's one of the early Programs in Bank 1, if I'm remembering correctly. It's been renamed, though, and the new name escapes me at the moment. I'll holler back later after I fire up the keyboard rig and take another look. Several other programs of yours are also in the Poly presets.

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UrbanAmazon.mp3 712 Kb

I can't take too much credit for this one. It is a four part Combo, and I only authored one of the four parts (Programs). I can't even give credit where credit is due, because I don't know who authored the other Programs that make up this Combo. The end result is a very slick analog/digital electronic beat, though, and I thought you all might enjoy listening to it. I especially like the analog cymbal - which I hate to admit I didn't do!

[ April 18, 2004: Message edited by: Ski ]

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yeah i'd have to agree..
that Amazon demo mp3 sounds fantastic! - really unusual quality to the sounds... although to be fair I think the excellence of the demo is also partially down to very good composition on the parts of the four authors...

i'm also checking out the other poly demos listed above... your martians one is cool too IMO - really nice perc sounds in it - is that all evolver??! v. nice indeed....

are all of these demos the poly-evolver?? or four evolvers playing simultaneously?, (or just one evolver recorded four times and then mixed in a sequencer??)

anyway, whatever they are, the sounds are cool and definitely have something different to whats out there... nice

thanks
D

oh yeah one other thing... i noticed on the DSI site that the poly evolver is basically edited totally from the PC (editing on the front panel would be very laborious)... does the software editor for the poly have midi learn?? can you hardwire CCs form your controller to control all the knobs etc?? - i HATE twiddling with virtual knobs!! )

All the mp3 demos are simple "one take" recordings of a single Poly Evolver (s/n #00003) playing sequences in "Combo" mode. As stated above, no overdubs, no external effects, etc. were used.

Regarding editing, I do all my work with a combination of the Poly Evolver front panel (which isn't all that bad) and a "regular" Evolver hooked up to the Poly for use as a programmer, not to mention adding a fifth note of polyphony! This is pretty good setup for me - I prefer hardware interfaces, and once you learn the front panel on the Evolver, it's pretty fast editing. I don't mean offense to the author, but the PC editor is not yet mature, especially in its support of the Poly Evolver. I had some problems with it, and given that I was working under some short timeframes, I didn't have the time to troubleshoot and find workarounds to the problems. Again, don't take that as a slam against the program. It will be included free with every Poly Evolver, which is a big plus.

I'm pretty sure that Dave Smith will be offering some special pricing on Evolver/Poly Evolver combinations, and I think this is a great way to go. It's gives you a ton of programming and playing flexibility.

[ April 19, 2004: Message edited by: Ski ]

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Curiously when I had the prototype for programming I never hooked up my standard evolver to the Poly since it was such a short time. So I was curious do you install the same patch set on the evolver thats on the poly to get the same voices when editing patches so the edits are consistent? (although i imagine it will be fun to have different ones as well on both as well for some variation)

Thanks for putting Stefan's work in there. He has made some great sounds, and even better songs. Dave had already used a lot of Stefan's programs (and programs from other authors) from the "Evolutionaries" soundset.

I'm not sure why so many programs were renamed; I haven't talked to Dave about that. My guess is that most (if not all) of the programs that were renamed came from the "Evolutionaries" SysEx file, which did did not include program names. "Evolutionaries" was done before OS2, so all we could do was to put the program names in the PDF documentation.

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All product descriptions only mention 3x128 program banks and nothing about combinations...

An Evolver with OS2 installed has FOUR banks of Programs, for a total of 512 Programs.

Like an updated Evolver, the Poly Evolver also has four banks of Programs, for a total of 512. It has three banks of Combos, for a total of 384 Combos.

All 512 Program slots on the Poly Evolver are filled with Programs from the factory. However, currently only the first bank of Combos is filled from the factory - i.e. you have a total of 128 Combos from the factory. The second two Combo banks are empty, awaiting your own masterpieces.

Thanks for the kind words on the demo Combo sequences. Again, to be fair, some of those Combos utilitize Programs that were authored by people other than myself. I had the pleasure, though, of programming all but about 15-20 of the 128 Combos that ship with the Poly.

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You know, the Poly Evolver reminds me of my Virus C: Smooth, dark, & agressive

My favorite analog synths for synth bass are the dual oscillator monophonic models from Yamaha in the mid/late 70's - the CS-15, CS-30, and CS-30L. I actually think these underrated machines are better at synth bass than a Minimoog. There are some pics of these in the following topic if you're interested:

http://www.ex5tech.com/ex5ubb_cgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=22&t=000016

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Don't have mine yet, but will very soon

Wanted to ask if it's possible to control the Poly parameters with my Virus C?

1) Naming any new Programs you create.

2) Saving any Programs you create/modify.

3) Creating Combos.

All three of these tasks are actually fairly painless on the Poly front panel after you've done them a couple of times. The way that Dave set up the buttons to quickly navigate between logical groups of editing parameters really speeds the process.

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I'll have the Evolver soon and would hate to encounter overlapping sounds...

This question also relates to the Evolver 2.0 OS with those additional 128 programs...

The Poly Evolver preset Programs are almost entirely new. Not many of the Evolver's presets carried over to the Poly. A good number of the Poly's presets did come from our "Evolutionaries" soundset, though, so you may recognize some of those. However, most or all of the "Evolutionaries" Programs in the Poly's presets were renamed.

Of course, all of the Poly's "Combos" are new, since the Evolver can't do Combos!

Regarding your desire to avoid "overlapping sounds"... I'm not entirely sure if you mean that you want to avoid having the *same* sounds or *different* sounds on the Evo and Poly, but regardless, just remember that you can load whatever sounds you like into each, using the same SysEx file(s).

I've been running my Evo and Poly as a single instrument for five note polyphony, so I have the same soundset loaded into both of them.

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