[LAD] Selectable limit for polyphony of virtual synth

[Hannu Savolainen]

Albert Graef wrote:
> hollunder at gmx.at wrote:
>   
>> One obvious question there is:
>> what should the synth do when it reaches the limit?
>> There are several things that are possible and afaik implemented in
>> synths. It could drop the first note played, or the highest, or ...
>>     
>
> Well, that's called voice stealing. Most synths do it, if they don't
> have dynamic voice allocation. Usually, you assign voices in a round
> robin manner, and the oldest note has to go when you're running out of
> voices.
>
>   
Ideally the synth should use some kind of priority mechanism when 
stealing voices. Killing the oldest one is not the best way. For example 
some kind of psychoacoustic algorithm could be used to find voices that 
are masked out by the other voices playing at louder levels. Some voices 
may have decayed to inaudible levels or their pitch may be close enough 
to the new note to be played.

Best regards,

Hannu