Full Synth Manual is available in the Download Section of the Polyend Website
Thank you Polyend Devs, time for a
Deep
Dive
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Second this - OK it’s a draft version, but welcome anyway, and should be helpful answering some of the questions we have. Many thanks, Polyend, it’s appreciated.
Whether the Synth is considered anyone’s best synth or not it’s an impressive music machine.
Can we please get this in a normal single page per page format please? This 2-up page layout is tedious to read and navigate on screens. Thanks.
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Indeed, I tried to browsing the manual it on my iPad, and gave up after 2 minutes. On my large desktop screen it’s nice, but that is nowhere near my Synth.
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Having perused the manual to create a small number of wishes, I found three things that I don’t quite understand:
(1) What is the difference between a preset and a patch? It appears to me these words are used most synonymously, but I guess I’m just missing something.
(2) The term slot is used to refer to the 3 synthesizers, which is obvious (“Synth has 3 synthesizer slots”, p.49), but also in relation to scenes and presets/or patches, e.g. in “A scene can be saved at any time to the original slot” (p. 33).
In my limited understanding of the Synth, a scene is simply a named folder in the SD card, and also presets/patches are simply named files on the card, and there is no identity of these entities other than their name, so what exactly is the fixed “slot” or location that refers to?
(3) Where are Macros (including velocity/AT) and Modulations stored, in the Synth presets or in Scenes?
On p.30 the manual lists Macros and Pressure/AT (which probably includes velocity as well) as components of a scene which are depicted separately from a “synth preset patch”, Modulations are not mentioned.
In the diagram on Page 24, Macros exist on the boundary of Synth slot and Scene. In the picture about the settings Menu on p. 26 the Macros are labeled neither als “global” (which I take to mean “scene level” in this context) nor “per synth”.
Later on, Macros are explained in the Chapter about Synths (p. 85), which might indicate they actually belong to the synth presets. However, Modulations, which I would assume belong to the Synth presets, as they only relate to Envelopes and LFOs, are explained in the chapter about Effects & Modulations.
I would assume both modulations and Macros (including Velo and AT) are stored and recalled in a synth presets?
Another thing I noticed: Modulations work in a different way for ACD and FAT (a smaller number of fixed modulation paths), which is confusing because the illustration above the parameter grid still shows “Modifier-Destination-Amount”. IMHO another good argument for explaining modulations related to synths, and not related to effects.
@synthdawg, maybe you can shed some light on this?
@Lizard-of-Oz as more questions get asked we will try to integrate the answers or at least clarity in future manual updates.
(1) What is the difference between a preset and a patch? It appears to me these words are used most synonymously, but I guess I’m just missing something.
There is no difference. The SD card states patches to stay consistent with the other devices. However presets play bigger role in Synth and this is the terminology used. You can use the terms interchangeably, generally not just for Synth.
(2) The term slot is used to refer to the 3 synthesizers, which is obvious (“Synth has 3 synthesizer slots”, p.49), but also in relation to scenes and presets/or patches, e.g. in “A scene can be saved at any time to the original slot” (p. 33).
This is a good point and the context in which you are working is relevant. With synths there are 3 synth slots. You could call them Synths but we figured people would get confused by the synth engines. The explanation for scenes follows a similar logic in that it is also a location, but this time in the context of the existing library of scene locations of which there are up to 1000.
In my limited understanding of the Synth, a scene is simply a named folder in the SD card, and also presets/patches are simply named files on the card, and there is no identity of these entities other than their name, so what exactly is the fixed “slot” or location that refers to?
There are 1000 scenes available. They are stored on the SD card.
(3) Where are Macros (including velocity/AT) and Modulations stored, in the Synth presets or in Scenes?
Macros in Scenes. Modulation in Presets .
On p.30 the manual lists Macros and Pressure/AT (which probably includes velocity as well) as components of a scene which are depicted separately from a “synth preset patch”, Modulations are not mentioned.
In the diagram on Page 24, Macros exist on the boundary of Synth slot and Scene. In the picture about the settings Menu on p. 26 the Macros are labeled neither als “global” (which I take to mean “scene level” in this context) nor “per synth”.
Later on, Macros are explained in the Chapter about Synths (p. 85), which might indicate they actually belong to the synth presets. However, Modulations, which I would assume belong to the Synth presets, as they only relate to Envelopes and LFOs, are explained in the chapter about Effects & Modulations.
I would assume both modulations and Macros (including Velo and AT) are stored and recalled in a synth presets?
Another thing I noticed: Modulations work in a different way for ACD and FAT (a smaller number of fixed modulation paths), which is confusing because the illustration above the parameter grid still shows “Modifier-Destination-Amount”. IMHO another good argument for explaining modulations related to synths, and not related to effects.
The modulation is in the modulation section, shared with effects. This is purely to help organise the manual structure and have the minimum amount of chapters. It arguably could be in Synths, In a chapter alone or shared. Section 6.9 explains the fixed / limited modulation routing for some synths.
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I think in that case it is good practice for a manual to select one term and use that consistently, everything else will lead to confusion. It already has 
Curious, I played around with this a bit, and I was only able to see a maximum of 255 scenes in the Synth, even though the folder on my SD card contained 500 scenes. But when I delete the first 250, I then can see the second 250 scenes.
Maybe calling that slots it just confused me, because I took a look at the file system and the files, and I wrote a wish for changing scenes via program changes. Now, if the scenes actually were organized in slots, implementing that wish would be dead simple, but in fact there doesn’t seem to be a slot that can be referenced, right?
Interesting. I just tested this, and to me it looks like Macros are saved with a sound preset. Here’s what I did:
- created one init sound and saved it as “new”
- created another init sound, renamed the first macro and deleted one of the mappings in it, saved that as “new2”
- then I loaded “new”, checked the macros: they had the normal names, and two parameters were mapped
- loaded “new2”, and the macro had the changed name and one mapping only.
So if the Macro were part of the scene but not of the sound, that would not have happened, right?
Also, if the macro were part of the scene, and you change the engine, the some of the parameters the macro points to would no longer exist.
Interesting idea. And yet, grouping the modulations with the synths would have led to the same number of chapters. 
Indeed, now that I know what it means I can see that. 
I just expected these “limited options” to be in the same schema as the other modulations.
Noted. There are a lot if terms thrown around during development by PMs, Deva etc. its always good to have a strategy for the schema, terms, structure etc. The aim is to try to make this fit the user journey as opposed to the technical device. Time is usually against this being perfect at launch. In fact the manual is a bit like the firmware. It’s better to get people using it and iterate improvements going forwards. All feedback is therefore welcome.
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In that case I’ll say that your team work producing these manuals is fantastic and very appreciated. Also the fact of showing up here to take feedback directly and respond. Thank you very much!
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Yes, I know, it’s impossible to have the perfect manual at launch. I’m bringing this stuff up in support of that iteration. You did a great job with this manual, and I’m also aware how the S4 manual evolved over time with the feedback you got on Discord.
Thanks for the support. It will keep moving so all feedback is valuable.
Some info on CPU management that had come to light also ought to be somewhere in the manual.
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Its done @vros. The team should be uploading latest ver today if not already done.
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@synthdawg Thank you for the updates. I really appreciate the single page format. Your work is so good I have purchased several of your “non Polyend” manuals from your website.
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Thank you. Very much appreciated.
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