Better Gear - DIY Yamaha DX7 Realtime Controller (Tutorial) 

Thanks!

NivekNomad 08 thank u

Dexed is really impressive

It's completely digital, so really Dexed is just the synth's FM chip in a portable vst. Crazy how such an iconic piece of gear was able to be captured in a small, free program but, that's technology for you😁

Don't forget about the fact that there are hundreds, possibly thousands of presets from real cartridges of the DX7 available for download and use in Dexed. Hell, some of those files even retain the date they were made, dating back to the 1980's lol

@@angh3ll202 Things are never quite this easy. You cannot recreate Yamaha FM just from the chip datasheet, as the datasheet is deliberately a tiny bit vague and incorrect, so while functionally you will have something seemingly equivalent, the patches will not be really entirely compatible, and even capturing the chips with a logic analyser ran into some limitations - for more than 20 years, say Yamaha OPL2/OPL3 and OPN2 were not emulated 100% correctly. Finally some chips were decapitated and die-photographed by enthusiasts, and in a lot of hand work deciphering the pictures, ROM tables were dumped and quirks were discovered - i'm sure Dexed's developers learned from this too, but then the specific chips in DX7 were i believe not subject to the same treatment. I think the total recreation effort needed for these chips was not much smaller and potentially larger than Yamaha originally spent designing them, and i think the reverse engineering efforts will continue!

I have a Gen 1 dx7. Dexed is crazy close. But if you are in your studio and compare the two with good speakers and mic pres only one makes me smile more.

Great technique!

Or the DX is just underpowered

Some of those issues can be avoided if you went with the DX7IID. Most parameters still don't update untill the next note played, but at least it won't stutter when you do so. The problem of crashing when you overflow the midi input is still there, though. I had to deliberately limit the data flow somewhat to avoid this. Still better than being stuck with menus, though.

@@georgebarlow754 Yeah I figured there was a serial buffer overflow at play because sometimes it would recover without needing to power cycle it. As much as the Mark 2 improves things, I prefer the original for the grittier tone, and for the SuperMax expansion board which adds a lot of nice features to the OS that you can't get in the Mark 2. Plus I prefer the look of the original, but that's just an aesthetic choice haha!

@@AudioPilz haha yeah, that's it in a nutshell.

Yup, pd or max is a standard candidate for prototyping diy control interfaces of all sorts. I expected some nerd coming out of the woodwork pointing out the possibity ...and you did! Well done btw. (;

Good to know

I love the BCR2000, I still haven't found a midi that matches its features

Yeah, there has been some progress in the FM world;)

I have to give that one a try!

Family values

It's a tricky one

Nice technique!!!

​@@AudioPilzhonestly the Atari ST and Amiga almost deserve their own episodes

Thank you!!!

Is it vaporware?

@@AudioPilz Covid must have got to the company so they couldn't work on it and showcase more this year. It was displayed at NAMM in like January of this year but they didn't say a word about it, what it would sound like, or what it would feel like to operate.

Sysex can be quite annoying

You had me at bagpipe emulator ;)

Thanks! Great ideas!

The mod wheel technique is super powerful!

It's like a neverending story ;)

Good to know!

Cockroaches will perform live sets at post-apocalyptic raves in radioactive deserts with those midi controllers

Nice to have some first-hand insight

Cool! Good to know...

Thanks!

Nice technique!!!

Thanks!

Great keyboard but I've noticed the low velocity values, too

That CME stuff was quite powerful

It works as a plugin but it blocks the midi port. Virtual midi ports didn't work though

Classic sound!

Wow, didn't know them. Thanks for posting!

Great controller

That sounds like a nice combination. Love Pajen firmwares

AudioPilz I guess it’s possible on DX7 too. Only issue is that old BCR2000 is complicate to find. Quality issues... you probly need to buy 2 or 3 to get one that works.

I need to get a BCR, too!

Way to go!

I feel so honored!

Nice setup!

Thanks!

Haven't seen one of those for quite some time...

Thank you so much!

Thanks!

The MegaFM was mentioned rather often. Interesting

Thanks for watching!

Thank you so much!

Viruses are great (the synth, not the actual virus;) I'll take a look at it

Really interested in the Volca FM but as they just announced the Sample 2 I will be waiting if there is some new FM coming up, too

I think software is one area where FM can often beat hardware. I have the reface dx and volca fm but I find software can generally get the nastier or more complex sounds I want, as well as fast and varied parameter access. I'd expect eurorack FM modules to be ahead of software in terms of desired sound quality. I control my hardware FM synths in the DAW. For Volca FM I find the sounds created on dexed sound different when transferred to the volca fm so I use an editor called volcako. You can tweak sounds in real time with no issue and you learn the volca FM really fast. All FM synth behave different

@@eremiteghost1572 Most FM synth including stuff like the DX7 and OPL/OPN are done digitally, so there's really going to be no difference to software as far as what's coming out of the digital side of the system, but I could see how one could have an appreciation for how the preamps and all that can make the output sound. I definitely prefer a hardware soundblaster for how DOS game music can sound versus how DOSbox tends to sound on a modern PC's relatively clean, less filtered output. Just too tinny and harsh. There can also just be differences in the implementations between different hardware and software devices.

@@AudioPilz Me too - a Volcafm2 with increased polyphone and usb would be nice.

@@eremiteghost1572 damn, is the editor free ? Cuz my little box be sitting in my drawer for way too long and I only put new presets in there every once in a while since it is a huge pain to program...

This looks like exactly what i need. thanks

❤️Tischhupe❤️

@@AudioPilz ^-^ Nicht meine eigene Wortschöpfung. Das Wort hab ich 2008 mal in einem Musiker Forum gehört wo ich den Yamaha PSS680 musikalisch präsentierte. Ich mag die Kiste immer noch sehr.

I assume the CPU is just pushed to the limit

@@AudioPilz Slow automations on single parameters are no problem though, very useful. Do you know Gstormelectro? He has really nice videos of Stereoping implementation with the TX81z.

Thanks!

Isn't that called a modular synth?

@@AudioPilz well yeah but in that case it would be a FM synth, something to experiment the topic.... only oscilators, a bunch of them, and several mixer and splitter modules, and a couple of vcas. in a modular synth oscilators are either low freq or audio freq, to make true fm synthesis you need to be able to cover all of them with the same oscilator, or even higher. and make shure that oscilator is capable of modulating the same oscilators freq, so you need to cover a specific voltage for that... audio out and cv out should be the same plug on an fm synth. it's possible to use osc3 that way on a minimoog voyager, but you can cover all frquencys if my memory is good (sold mine a long time before i started to study audio electronics)

Producing videos like this make me pretty adverse to mixing my synths with computers😅

Thanks!

Thanks!

Great idea, thanks!!!

Well, then I will finally have to get hold of one of the BCR/BCFs. Nice guerilla sequencer firmware out there for it as well

Good to know

That BCR feature is VERY unique!

Welcome to Fraud Gear

So. Many. Presets.

Thanks but unfortunately I'm not much of a patch saver ;)

Thanks! Unfortunately I wasn't allowed to oberwrite any presets on the synth and forgot to save it in dexed

@@AudioPilz OK, no problem.

Looking forward to the OPsix , too!

envelopes*

Wow, DT7 is really nice but I can understand that software might be the better option in many cases

DX7 mk2 is supposed to respond well in realtime.. DT7 manual mentions the problems using it in realtime with mk1/TX7/TX816. I wouldn't mind trying the DT7 with a bunch of TX802s..

Good to know, I still haven't tried that one!

The MegaFM looks interesting!

@@AudioPilz Definitely not "bad gear" material 😄

Which ones should I cover?

AudioPilz the Electribe 2. I’ve seen a lot of comments over the years of how limited they are, which is why Korg eventually added a firmware update with a Song Mode, but the most limiting FB aspects seem to be the 4 bar loop limit. And also the fact that the Sampler and Synth models are exactly the same under the hood but are limited in their function, because apparently some people have hacked their e2 and added sampler functions to it. There is also the very limited sample time per pattern for a piece of gear that came out in 2015...

maxforlive.com/profile/user/midierror link

Cool find. Didn't know that!

Isn't Tina Turner in her 80s now? ;)

@@AudioPilz yes but pleaseeeeeeeeee tell me the answer!

What a banger!

@@AudioPilz Indeed. She still bangs to this very day!

Is there a DX template?

@@AudioPilz Yes! DX7 at least. As I understand it's one of features that they had in mind when making it. Watch promo video for it (with people on the couch). Looks like an essential tool for DX workflow . But you did a great job also! With enough willpower everything is possible :D

True that!!! The horror!!!

I would say they are more of a "Gear Crime";)

I was going to argue that they're not since the Roland SH-101 is a keytar, however their prices are definitely a "Gear crime."

@@SirRigbyBaconKaiser SH-101 is bad keytar but nice monosynth.

Yeah, those Behringer can do Sysex natively

Still wanna try one;)

Dexed is REALLY good!

Thanks!

Great! Keep us posted

check out CTRLR

@@heymynameisharry Ctrlr is great, but still is software. I made a prototype with Juce and it's also functional, but porting that to a microcontroller would be hell. My idea is to just make a MIDI connection stand alone device, with passthrough. Make profiles and load them, even edit values on the sysex word on the fly to no rely on a PC for configuration

ignacio falcato that’s tight

Haven't tried the reface but heard good things about it. Sampling is always an option

Sonic soundtracks were great

Great idea! Somehow I lost track of all the tools for FM synths;)

Dexed is great

It's on the list but I can't find one atm

Yeah, wasn't convinced by the layout, either

@@AudioPilz i'm surprised nobody has written an app for Android yet. A touchpad tablet would make a GREAT controller interface with sliders and customizable GUI.

Maybe they want to keep it;)

And I guess a midi in would be nice so you could still control it through your daw while the system exclusive messages would be 'injected' into that midi stream.

Great! Which microcontroller are you using?

AudioPilz depends on how elegant I want to make it. I think I'd go with an ESP8266 for now because it's fast enough to reliably run multiple software serial inputs without having multiple hardware serial ports. Also I have a few spares lying around so that's nice too. I'd be using the Arduino IDE for programming since I've been messing around with midi in there lately so I'm fairly familiar with programming midi in there. If I wanted to make it elegant, I'd find an AVR with enough (hardware) serial ports and program it in pure C to make it run faster and more reliable. My Arduino Mega would work but that one's currently in use in another project of mine so I'd rather leave that one in there. Also it's a 5 volt micro and my usb host (MAX3421E) is 3.3v so if we want usb, that one won't work. Another reason ESP8266 + Arduino IDE (+ USB Host Shield Mini) is nice is that it's all common parts so if I put it on GitHub, anyone can make it. Better still, anyone can improve it. If you don't feel like making it yourself, I could probably send it to you but we'll worry about that when I have a prototype ready to go. For now, do you have any ideas about which controllers you want to use? I mainly need to know if they are usb midi or physical midi. The actual cc mapping can be done later so you don't need to choose the exact device yet. Also, sorry for making you read through all this. I just woke up so I'm too sleepy to make it shorter...

@@AudioPilz I got started on a prototype (this seems like a fun project so I got a little impatient 😜) so let me know if you want to help test it and/or if you want me to customise it for use with your controllers.

@@AudioPilz I have a working (in theory, that is) version for physical midi controllers. It works with a serial connection at the correct midi speed so I don't see why it wouldn't work with the real thing. I do need to get myself a few opto-couplers to make my midi in ports comply with the midi specs but other than that, everything should work. I'll get started on the USB version some other time.

I've heard about that

Had one for years and finally sold it. Tried to tweak it with a JL Cooper controller but massive lag so no real time filter sweeps. There's a software for it, too

Yeah, that one came up a few times!

Fear is the mindkiller...

;)

👍👍👍

So true!

Most probably never even set foot into the same city like a Jellinghaus ;) Sorry, hard to tell...

AudioPilz the controller works fine with my tx802 but not with the plugin..

Thanks!

Great idea, thanks!!!

BCRs are probably the right choice for that task

Getting better all the time

Interesting. Never thought of Jack for that application

The DX7 fountain of knowledge homepages.abdn.ac.uk/d.j.benson/pages/html/dx7.html

@@diglet553 I found a document on the SysEx packet format for the DX7 on that page, thanks. I've been working on something else but I could take a break and throw something together. It will be command line based though.

@@diglet553 Using the documentation I found I made a basic implementation and uploaded it to my crustymidi github repository as cc_to_dx7.cvm. I'm not a super professional developer or documentation writer and this is all kinda written from a linux programmer's perspective so it might not be the most intuitive to figure out how to get going but if anybody wants to figure it out and test it, that would be helpful. All I've been able to test is that it emits sysex messages that should be in the right format, and that's about it. Also I would provide a link to the github but I know youtube can sometimes be weird about posting URLs and I don't want to take a risk, sorry.

Yup!

Some Novation controllers can do it (and the Roland A01)

@@AudioPilz Thanks I will check that out! I've read NRPN isn't much more complex than CC messages, just haven't taken the time to fully understand it yet

FM7 was my first FM Instrument. Great software and very easy to use