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KQ Dixie new AU FM synth

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Comments

  • Part of the aversion to “the sound” may be due to the difficulty of programming the original hardware so many people just used to presets which became cliched.

    As this app shows (and Doug demonstrated) just playing around with the operator config can result in radically different results.

    Just downloaded the in-app bank copy/paste update, nice. To AUv3 I go ...

  • @Carnbot said:

    @SheffieldBleep said:

    @ExAsperis99 said:
    That wasn't very nice. I don't want to rain on anybody's parade. But I just totally don't get it.

    I’m sort of with you on this until you start mangling the patches at which point you can hear Aphex BOC and lots of industrial shananagans rather than Rick Astley

    I know exactly what you mean, I didn't like it FM first for all the same reasons. I think because it's a really hard form of synthesis to program meant people relied on the same patches which lead to generic sounds and this gave it a
    bad name. But I like it for the otherworldly BOC/Autechre/Aphex /Eno stuff too. The range of sonic possibility is huge.

    Please point me in that direction. Because all I have in my head is a loop of the opening of Madonna's "Borderline." (But maybe that was actually a Rhodes.)

    Either way, what Aphex uses a DX7?

  • edited January 2018

    @ExAsperis99 said:

    @Carnbot said:

    @SheffieldBleep said:

    @ExAsperis99 said:
    That wasn't very nice. I don't want to rain on anybody's parade. But I just totally don't get it.

    I’m sort of with you on this until you start mangling the patches at which point you can hear Aphex BOC and lots of industrial shananagans rather than Rick Astley

    I know exactly what you mean, I didn't like it FM first for all the same reasons. I think because it's a really hard form of synthesis to program meant people relied on the same patches which lead to generic sounds and this gave it a
    bad name. But I like it for the otherworldly BOC/Autechre/Aphex /Eno stuff too. The range of sonic possibility is huge.

    Please point me in that direction. Because all I have in my head is a loop of the opening of Madonna's "Borderline." (But maybe that was actually a Rhodes.)

    Either way, what Aphex uses a DX7?

    Aphex used pretty much everything at one time or another, earlier stuff used a DX7 a fair bit.
    Look he's even been involved in making a patch generator for the DX7 https://fo.am/midimutant/

    hmm, actually I think I might have a go building one of those when they release the instructions :)

  • Update just hit

  • Useful update. Finally I can upload my Enola Gay tribute to Soundcloud without feeling like a second rate John Shuttleworth. Thank you Ryouta.

  • @tarquino said:
    Useful update. Finally I can upload my Enola Gay tribute to Soundcloud without feeling like a second rate John Shuttleworth. Thank you Ryouta.

    Fav post of the thread.

  • @tarquino said:
    Useful update. Finally I can upload my Enola Gay tribute to Soundcloud without feeling like a second rate John Shuttleworth. Thank you Ryouta.

    Enola Gay is three years before the DX7. Which comes as a huge relief to me.

  • Loving this one :)

  • @RyoutaKira copy zip to AU presets is excellent. Thank you for listening!

  • updated - thanx dev

  • @Samu said:

    @Carnbot said:
    There's a little bit more body and top end bite in the hardware as you'd expect but it's a nice recreation.

    And that's most likely due to the DAC & Sine-Tables used on the original?

    Are we comparing the iPad's 'headphone output'(with or without measurement mode being on) or thru a dedicated audio-interface. These parameters alone affect the end result of the comparison.

    Not sure about this. The proprietary DX7 chipset from the 80s has often been modeled "purely mathematically" which does not reflect exactly enough what the Yamaha chips effectively did, resulting in audible differences unrelated to the DX7 DAC circuitry. One of the better emulations are done in this open source synth that can be found on github: asb2m10/dexed
    Dunno what emulation was chosen by Mr. Kira.

  • edited January 2018

    @Littlewoodg said:

    @Carnbot said:

    @oat_phipps said:
    Maybe I have price = quality bias, but not seeing the big deal with this. Loading sysex is awesome, but less so when the sound quality isn’t there. This doesn’t have the bite of the DX7...just compare the good ol’ Bass 1 preset to FM player’s, which is sampled, but still. The Dixie synth sounds like ‘In the style of...’ karaoke versions of the DX7 patches.

    No, it's really nice in comparison, I have a DX7 II (TX802 rack mount) and have been comparing patches all afternoon in a mix. There's a little bit more body and top end bite in the hardware as you'd expect but it's a nice recreation.

    It not quite the usual analog v Virtual analog thing in that the original was digital. Im sure someone’s done the analysis of what artifacts the hardware version introduced into the sound. I bought a DX7 for my kid, it had a raw unruly digital quality that I really liked, and I found it quickly in Dixie by mucking about

    The original dx7 will sound a bit different, because of its AD converters. The yamaha engineers probably also tweaked the outputs (post digital synth engine) to accentuate the sound in certain ways. Also the circuitry was very different back then.

    A good example is Mpc's. They are all digital but all have very different sound profiles (and not just from samplerate, also from the circuitry)

  • Oh wow. Awesome update. Folders never been so beautiful.

  • @RyoutaKira - Great update! Totally clears up the AU issues. I can’t remember being this excited about a new app release. It’s been a long time!

  • So now I have about a million patches to sort through...

  • @StormJH1 said:
    @RyoutaKira - Great update! Totally clears up the AU issues. I can’t remember being this excited about a new app release. It’s been a long time!

    I was just about to,post the same thing. This app has increased my level of happiness. Days of fun ahead.
    High fives for @RyoutaKira

  • @anickt said:
    So now I have about a million patches to sort through...

    After the ecstasy the laundry....

  • @ExAsperis99 said:

    @tarquino said:
    Useful update. Finally I can upload my Enola Gay tribute to Soundcloud without feeling like a second rate John Shuttleworth. Thank you Ryouta.

    Enola Gay is three years before the DX7. Which comes as a huge relief to me.

    I was gonna say the same! Enola Gay was the second cover song I ever learned in band. 99 Red Balloons was first, Electricity (OMD's) was third. Rocked the crowd with my Casio MT-45 and my Casio MT-100 on an ironing board.

  • edited January 2018

    @JohnnyGoodyear said:

    @anickt said:
    So now I have about a million patches to sort through...

    After the ecstasy the laundry....

    Well, that's the title of my autobiography sorted.

    (edit) Nuts, it's taken. :D

  • @ExAsperis99 said:
    That wasn't very nice. I don't want to rain on anybody's parade. But I just totally don't get it.

    I'm not a fan of the original base sound set for the same reasons. I have no nostalgia for most of the music made with those sounds. Well, maybe Take on Me and Blue Monday... :) And others I'm not thinking of, surely, but yeah, that sound just... just... I never wanted one back in the day either.

    But yeah, it's a synthesizer, not a preset machine. It got famous because it could create a wide range of normal/bread-and-butter sounds that were hard to find on a keyboard before it was released but I'd take that as an indication of what it can produce, not what it must produce. Especially with a graphical editor, you can make some freaky deaky stuff.

  • edited January 2018

    The 80s cheese potential isn’t as formidable here as with some other synths for me (fm or otherwise see iM1, Wavestation)

    Partly because the 30,000+ presets in the links upthread include tons of absolutely loony stuff, (if I could I would delete all the presets that name a familiar instrument...on the other hand the Tim Conrardy banks - just one example - are a master class in how to make an fm synth sound like absolutely anything)

    I think the GUI here is friendlier than some other potential cheese machines for sound design/goofing, and I find fm to be a very direct route to the kind of transgressive sounds I’m after. That’s what I liked about the original, it was pretty easy to tip it over into sounds that exhibited depraved indifference to naturalness or familiarity.

  • plus plus on the depraved indifference...

  • Remember just about every synth created especially in the early days of presets, tried to emulate acoustic instruments, most were dire.

  • edited January 2018

    This is a fantastic emulation of the DX7. Also having fun trying out all the DX7 syx patches. I have one request though. I'd love to see a unison voice with voice detune function to make the sounds richer and fatter like what's on the DX7II FD. This function or even a chorus function would be most welcome because I found the DX7 sounds came alive with unison detune and a touch of reverb. I found the unison function handy when programming and creating atmospheric sounds on the DX7. Anyway keep up the great work on Dixie.

  • @dvlmusic said:
    $4.00 people.
    $4.00!!!!!!!
    What a time to be alive.....

    very very sad time... for developers..

  • @Artmuzz said:
    This is a fantastic emulation of the DX7. Also having fun trying out all the DX7 syx patches. I have one request though. I'd love to see a unison voice with voice detune function to make the sounds richer and fatter like what's on the DX7II FD. This function or even a chorus function would be most welcome because I found the DX7 sounds came alive with unison detune and a touch of reverb. I found the unison function handy when programming and creating atmospheric sounds on the DX7. Anyway keep up the great work on Dixie.

    The app is AU so just set up a couple of instances :)

  • @Artmuzz said:
    This is a fantastic emulation of the DX7. Also having fun trying out all the DX7 syx patches. I have one request though. I'd love to see a unison voice with voice detune function to make the sounds richer and fatter like what's on the DX7II FD. This function or even a chorus function would be most welcome because I found the DX7 sounds came alive with unison detune and a touch of reverb. I found the unison function handy when programming and creating atmospheric sounds on the DX7. Anyway keep up the great work on Dixie.

    Indeed, though in the meantime theres FAC Chorus which is like whoa with Dixie.

  • @ExAsperis99 said:
    That wasn't very nice. I don't want to rain on anybody's parade. But I just totally don't get it.

    The AU automation alone in this app means it doesn’t need to sound like anything that has gone before. The sonic potential is huge. Just drop as an AU in say BM3 and record some parameter tweaks - incredible (for me) :)

  • @Trueyorky said:

    @Artmuzz said:
    This is a fantastic emulation of the DX7. Also having fun trying out all the DX7 syx patches. I have one request though. I'd love to see a unison voice with voice detune function to make the sounds richer and fatter like what's on the DX7II FD. This function or even a chorus function would be most welcome because I found the DX7 sounds came alive with unison detune and a touch of reverb. I found the unison function handy when programming and creating atmospheric sounds on the DX7. Anyway keep up the great work on Dixie.

    The app is AU so just set up a couple of instances :)

    Can I do this on BM3? And how to I get a couple of instances of Dixie AU playing at the same time?

  • @Artmuzz said:

    @Trueyorky said:

    @Artmuzz said:
    This is a fantastic emulation of the DX7. Also having fun trying out all the DX7 syx patches. I have one request though. I'd love to see a unison voice with voice detune function to make the sounds richer and fatter like what's on the DX7II FD. This function or even a chorus function would be most welcome because I found the DX7 sounds came alive with unison detune and a touch of reverb. I found the unison function handy when programming and creating atmospheric sounds on the DX7. Anyway keep up the great work on Dixie.

    The app is AU so just set up a couple of instances :)

    Can I do this on BM3? And how to I get a couple of instances of Dixie AU playing at the same time?

    I just did this. All Dixie inside BM3...

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