Minimax ASB 6 or 12 voice?

kjellg · Post by **kjellg** » Thu May 08, 2008 11:47 am

I have upload my new(wonderful) minimax. I,m already stunned by the 6 voice, but shouldnt it be 12?
The strange thing is sometime I get 7 and 8 voices out of it....
Any thoughts?

Kjell

ScofieldKid · Post by **ScofieldKid** » Thu May 08, 2008 7:05 pm

Are you on the final version of the firmware? I think you can still download the latest firmware if you want to give a try to updating it...

kjellg · Post by **kjellg** » Fri May 09, 2008 12:04 am

ScofieldKid wrote:Are you on the final version of the firmware? I think you can still download the latest firmware if you want to give a try to updating it...

I think its version 2.0 or 2.2-I had version 1.0 before the updating and one of the reason for the update was to get 12 voices...
Schould I try one more time to update it?

I asked Ralph and he suggest one of the chiips could be damage?
As I understand its two chips each of them gives 6 voices.

Kjell

meyersaxel · Post by **meyersaxel** » Mon Jun 02, 2008 12:51 am

Hi there,

The MINIMAX seems to be a six-voice Instrument. I asked the guys from SONIC-CORE at the MUSIKMESSE Frankfurt this year. They had a MINIMAX there and that one also had only six voices.

regards
Axel

kjellg · Post by **kjellg** » Mon Jun 02, 2008 1:51 am

Hi there,

The MINIMAX seems to be a six-voice Instrument. I asked the guys from SONIC-CORE at the MUSIKMESSE Frankfurt this year. They had a MINIMAX there and that one also had only six voices.

regards
Axel

Hi Alex!

Thats strange, because on their webpage http://www.sonic-core.net/en/products/minimax.html
under specifications it says: Number of Voices 12

This is why I think it should be 12 and not 6 voices.
The guys from Sonic-Core told you to expect 6 voices from the minimax?

Kjell

meyersaxel · Post by **meyersaxel** » Mon Jun 02, 2008 2:26 am

Hi kjellg,

no, the situation was a bit different. I asked for the number of voices, the guy at the MUSIKMESSE said ( we talked about that in German...) - "here we have a MINIMAX - let's take a look at it..." he took a keyboard and pressed key by key holding the former key. After having pressed six keys at a time the sound did not change any more and he said something like "hm... seems like there are only six voices available."

But - for me it is not that important to have 12 or only 6 voices. In another thread I even recommended to play only 5 voices at a time because the sixth one is not always certain - it depends on the sound that is used. Patches with a longer release sometimes steal voices.

...and when I look at the big picture created by the CREAMWARE MINIMAX, I have to say, that I'm still happy with the MINIMAX. On stage I do not need 12 MINIMAX-Voices. The mostly needed kinds of patches which I use are Leads, Basses oder some Polysynth-Patches, which should not be played using 12 voices. The MINIMAX sounds that fat, that even three notes at a time should be used carefully. I think that this might have been similar using a real MEMORYMOOG - I've never played one but I think it is better to compare a 6-voice-MINIMAX with a Memorymoog because the Minimoog was a monophonic Synth...

And I don't like to see CREAMWARE/ Sonic-Core bashed for this. But you are right - they better should change their advertising with 6 voices instead of 12 Voices according to the MINIMAX. Another question that I never got an answer for is, why the Review at the German Magazine KEYBOARDS did not mention this 6-voice-Phenomenon.

Regards
Axel

kjellg · Post by **kjellg** » Mon Jun 02, 2008 2:55 am

meyersaxel wrote:Hi kjellg,

no, the situation was a bit different. I asked for the number of voices, the guy at the MUSIKMESSE said ( we talked about that in German...) - "here we have a MINIMAX - let's take a look at it..." he took a keyboard and pressed key by key holding the former key. After having pressed six keys at a time the sound did not change any more and he said something like "hm... seems like there are only six voices available."

But - for me it is not that important to have 12 or only 6 voices. In another thread I even recommended to play only 5 voices at a time because the sixth one is not always certain - it depends on the sound that is used. Patches with a longer release sometimes steal voices.

...and when I look at the big picture created by the CREAMWARE MINIMAX, I have to say, that I'm still happy with the MINIMAX. On stage I do not need 12 MINIMAX-Voices. The mostly needed kinds of patches which I use are Leads, Basses oder some Polysynth-Patches, which should not be played using 12 voices. The MINIMAX sounds that fat, that even three notes at a time should be used carefully. I think that this might have been similar using a real MEMORYMOOG - I've never played one but I think it is better to compare a 6-voice-MINIMAX with a Memorymoog because the Minimoog was a monophonic Synth...

And I don't like to see CREAMWARE/ Sonic-Core bashed for this. But you are right - they better should change their advertising with 6 voices instead of 12 Voices according to the MINIMAX. Another question that I never got an answer for is, why the Review at the German Magazine KEYBOARDS did not mention this 6-voice-Phenomenon.

Regards
Axel

Hi Axel!

I,m 100% agree with you about the use of to many voices and 6 is plenty for me. The annoying thing is the promise about 12 when in fact its 6 voices
Sonic-Core should change the advertising as you suggested.

If I remember correctly, when the first rewievs came I think the minimax started out as a 6 voices synthesizer and later they change it to12 with some software upgrading. I,m not shure if this is correct....someone?

I,m perfectly happy with this synthesizer!

Kjell

meyersaxel · Post by **meyersaxel** » Mon Jun 02, 2008 3:04 am

hi kjellg,

I'm pretty sure that I did a sucessful update - sending version by version that actually means two updates - but the number of voices did not change. I hoped like you do but the updates did not change that.

Version 1.4 changed the interaction of the knobs (there where steps to hear by moving any knob in the Filtersection) but this phenomenon disappeared with Version 2.0. Therefore the effects sounded a bit different after sending in 2.0. That should not be problematic in the first weeks.

Regards
Axel

kjellg · Post by **kjellg** » Mon Jun 02, 2008 3:45 am

meyersaxel wrote:hi kjellg,

I'm pretty sure that I did a sucessful update - sending version by version that actually means two updates - but the number of voices did not change. I hoped like you do but the updates did not change that.

Version 1.4 changed the interaction of the knobs (there where steps to hear by moving any knob in the Filtersection) but this phenomenon disappeared with Version 2.0. Therefore the effects sounded a bit different after sending in 2.0. That should not be problematic in the first weeks.

Regards
Axel

Hi Axel!

I think I have the version 2.0. I have been in contact with Ralph and they would like to send me a new MiniMax with 12 voices!
The shop where I bought it will take care of this and they dont charge me until its ok with the 12 voices! I,m very pleased with this kind of customer treatment.

Kjell

the19thbear · Post by **the19thbear** » Mon Jun 02, 2008 4:01 am

good service!