Bottom line....yes you can. The polyphony is not an issue in my experience at all, as I have previously stated in detail (rather than stating it again in such detail).aron wrote: Can you confirm that you can have 10 tones ready to go - muted, but still play 2 - piano+strings/pad and have decent polyphony?
As to the "patches" you can create.....the JP80 has a lot of flexibility in this regard. You can build tones, live-sets, and registrations. Depending on your individual requirements, you may wish to use one or more of these containers to achieve the sounds you seek. There are thousands of preset tones on board. These cover the gamut. So certainly you can have a piano tone and a string tone loaded into a live set (with all sorts of performance parameters such as splits, layers, modulations, arp settings, and effects routings), and have these muted or un-muted and ready to go. But then, you may wish to layer a few tones into a bigger patch, so you create a live set, and you can have a few of these ready to go. The bottom line is, you have abundant flexibility.......but fundamentally as you describe yourself......Yes, you can load up 10 separate tones, have them muted, and ready to go, and mix and match them at will in real time.
One thing I will say, is that the Kronos has much better effects routing for such a diverse "combi-type" set up. The JP80 effects themselves are outstanding, but the routing is limited while still being very functional, compared to Kronos. If I was you and contemplated using a array of tones in a "combi" as you describe...I would not concern myself (in the JP80) with the architecture for a combination of tones, or with the polyphony....those two areas are fine. I would carefully research the effects routings to be sure its adequate for your needs in this application. Kronos spoils us with the utmost routing flexibility. JP80 has a fixed and limited ability by comparison......but still is very good and adequate for my needs. Just goes to show you how EVERYTHING has its pros and cons.