Synth 1.3 is a massive update that includes a new Synth engine, DWA, new factory content, including a sample pack of 100+ samples from Palettes, and scenes and patches for DWA.
New Features
New Synth Engine - DWA
Experimental Sample based Synth Engine
New factory content including a Palettes “sampler” sample pack to use in DWA, 50+ factory DWA patches and new scenes
MIDI Input Pad Mapping to make grid pads playable with MIDI inputs
Accessed Via Main Menu → Synths → More → Pad Mapping
New MIDI Instrument - Engine #10
Save and Load MIDI CC mappings
Shift + Seq to Customize MIDI CC mappings
Map up to 5 CCs to Macros
Support for MIDI Input Channel Pressure and Polyphonic Aftertouch
System setting for Aftertouch Type: Channel or Polyphonic
New customizable colors for each Synth engine
Change colors in System Settings > Colors
New 3 in 1 and 2 plus 1 Grid layouts to play 3 or 2 synths simultaneously
Select multi-synth layouts at the bottom of the Grid Layout menu
Multi-synth grids are only playable in Note mode
Fixes
Switching from Chord Pack to Note mode could cause incorrect sequencer playback.
A red incorrectly highlighted pad no longer appears when switching grid layouts
Changing WAVS/GRAIN patches via PC now loads the correct sample
Scenes with over-allocated synth voices no longer freeze on load
Memory use optimization
Pads in follower mode incorrectly scrolled through notes when adjusting the grid scale or chord parameters.
Audio engine stabilized when playing the highest pitches with the high amounts of pitch modulation
Copy the .psf firmware file to your Synth SD card → Firmware folder
Add new patches, samples, and scenes for DWA. Place the DWA sample folder in the “samples” folder on the SD card. And the “DWA” patches folder in the patches folder on the SD card. Copy new scenes to the “Scenes” folder. Optionally: Add your own samples to the DWA sample folder, up to 256 samples.
Best Practice: save your current scene to avoid any potential data loss
On the Synth menu navigate to Main Menu → System Settings → Firmware → Update Firmware → .psf file
Click the encoder and confirm with Yes
After the update create a new scene to initialize the config settings
First impressions on the DWA synth. Very cool! I’ll have to check that long video because I still need to grasp some details. The presets sound great!
Spaking of which, the txt InstallGuide says:
Registered users can download the new DWA sample pack in their Polyend accounts here.
Is this the DWA folder in the /samples pack or is there an additional palette somewhere?
About the MIDI instrument engine, very cool as well! Obvious note: even if the “synth” takes only one voice, we can press all the pads we want/can, and they all send notes “polyphonically”. (fun story, first I got nervous because I could only select one voice and could only send one note at a time indeed, but it was because I had the sequencer enabled – turned it off and was relieved to heard the simultaneous notes).
EDIT: I get a bit of lag scrolling through DWA and GRAN presets. The other engines offer instant scrolling. Maybe it’s because the samples are loaded while scrolling?
