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Voice & assign

This panel controls how MIDI notes map to voices within a single layer. Layer-level decisions about which layer receives MIDI live on the Key Modes page.

Each layer has 8 channels. Assign Mode picks how those channels are spent.

Assign Mode

ModeChannels per notePolyphonyNotes
Poly18 (per layer)First-free voice, oldest-steal when full. Standard polyphonic behaviour.
Unison81All 8 channels stack on every note. Per-channel detune (Unison Detune) and phase decorrelation. Mono — one note at a time. Level-compensated by 1/√8.
Solo11One channel, last-note priority. With Legato on, the envelope doesn’t retrigger when you slur.
Twin24Two channels per note at ±Unison Detune and a 90° phase offset; 1/√2 level compensation. Effectively halves polyphony to thicken each note.

In Whole key mode, Poly spreads notes across both layers (16-voice round-robin) and Twin doubles to 8-note. Unison and Solo are inherently mono and run on the Upper layer only — the second layer’s channels are idle. In Dual and Split, each layer is independent: you can have Upper in Solo for the melody and Lower in Poly for the chord, for instance.

Glide (Portamento)

Glide Time (0–0.5 s, exp taper) sets the per-voice pitch slide time. It applies in all assign modes — Solo, Twin, Unison, even Poly (where each new voice glides from where its channel last left off).

Legato only changes behaviour in Solo mode:

  • Legato Off — every new note retriggers the gate (and so retriggers Env 1 / Env 2 and LFO 1 unless Free-Run is on).
  • Legato On — overlapping new notes glide but don’t retrigger. Use this for expressive lead lines where you want continuous envelope decay through a phrase.

In Poly mode, Legato is silently ignored (every new note takes a fresh channel; there’s nothing to “slur into”).

Unison Detune

Unison Detune (0–50 ct) is the per-channel detune spread for Unison and Twin modes. In Unison, all 8 channels are spread across the ±Detune range. In Twin, the two channels sit at +Detune and −Detune exactly.

A small value (5–10 ct) gives subtle thickening; larger values (25–40 ct) move into chorus / ensemble territory.

Layer level and Spread

These two parameters live on the same panel but are independent of assign mode:

  • Layer Level (0–1, default 1.0) — per-layer gain applied after rendering, before effects. Used to balance Upper and Lower in Dual mode.
  • Spread (0–1, default 0) — pans voice slots across the stereo field. At 0, all voices are centred. At 1, voices fan out into a wide stereo image. The spread is per-voice-slot, not per-note, so a single note hits the same pan position across plays.

Parameters

ParameterRangeDefaultUnitNotes
AssignPoly / Unison / Solo / TwinPolyenum
LegatoOff / OnOffboolSolo mode only
Unison Detune0–5012ctPer-channel detune spread
Glide Time0–0.50sExp taper (mid 0.1)
Layer Level0–11.0linearPer-layer gain
Spread0–10linearStereo voice spread