“How many voices of polyphony does the Novation D-Station have? Why are my drums sounds sometimes dropping out?”
Both the sounds from the 808 kit and the 909 kit are available to be played simultaneously. The quoted polyphony for the D-Station is for 8 simultaneous drum sounds. This is the maximum polyphony. However, the amount of processing power required to produce some voices can vary a great deal. For example, a 909 tom uses nearly 28% of the total processing power of the D-Station, but to create an 808 closed hi-hat uses under 10%. So in reality, the true polyphony is dependent on the types of voices used. Typically, there will not be a use for 4 toms at once, so the available processing power is adequate for most normal situations.
You may want to check your patterns and make sure haven’t unnecessarily layered some sounds together.
