KVR Audio

fmr · Post by **fmr** » Wed Sep 17, 2014 3:10 pm

arkmabat wrote: Well Yamaha doesn't have a clue. I couldn't even talk about synth patches with one of their American reps. It was the Japanese division who licensed FM8 to open DX7 patches...

FM7 was already able to open DX7 patches. Rhino idem. Sytrus too. And I'm sure there are others. Of course, the sound resulting of the conversion varies from one to the other.

arkmabat · Post by **arkmabat** » Wed Sep 17, 2014 3:15 pm

Idk. I'm still trying to decode this email from Yamaha...

"Sorry for my previous message. It was brought to my attention that Yamaha Japan at one point struck a deal with NI for the licensing rights of the DX7 voices. We do not have a software version of the voices but they do with the FM8"

FM8 has DX7 patches?!

Lee702 · Post by **Lee702** » Wed Sep 17, 2014 3:21 pm

FMHeaven could also load them.

EvilDragon · Post by **EvilDragon** » Wed Sep 17, 2014 3:25 pm

FM8 can load DX7 sysex, so I think that was what might have been licenced.

Dewdman42 · Post by **Dewdman42** » Wed Sep 17, 2014 4:07 pm

in the case of the DX7 I'm not sure any license is required because its just FM synthesis with sine waves. There are no copyrighted sample forms required. No license required to be able to read DX7 sysex. You may need a license to obtain and use the actual factory sysex files that Yamaha created, just as you would need to pay for any third party patch libraries. But the software itself does not need to worry about license to read DX7 sysex files and reproduce sound that is similar to the original DX7.

The D50 uses sample waveforms for a huge part of the process and therefore you can't get the same D50 sounds without those waveforms and a license (currently not available), would theoretically be required by anyone trying to actually replicate a D-50. Perhaps there are other products using similar synth methods as the D-50, but without the underlying PCM, its not going to sound very much like an actual D-50 in the way most people would expect.

BBFG# · Post by **BBFG#** » Wed Sep 17, 2014 4:32 pm

In the case of the D-550, it seems that whatever is produced, either by third party or Roland them self, has been reduced down to a no-win situation where subjective memories of the original seem to hold more power than any 'faithful or accurate' re-creation could ever deliver.

fmr · Post by **fmr** » Wed Sep 17, 2014 4:34 pm

arkmabat wrote:Idk. I'm still trying to decode this email from Yamaha...

"Sorry for my previous message. It was brought to my attention that Yamaha Japan at one point struck a deal with NI for the licensing rights of the DX7 voices. We do not have a software version of the voices but they do with the FM8"

FM8 has DX7 patches?!

I think that what it's meant in this message is that, at the time (when FM7 was launched), there was no soft synth that could faithfully recreate the FM the way it was implemented by Yamaha, and therefore faithfully reproduce the sounds. NI, AFAIR, and maybe to protect themselves of possible legal probelms, since they were already a major player, made an agreement with Yamaha that allowed them to do exactly that. Later, and perhaps because the patents expired, other VIs appeared that were able to read Sys-Ex from DX7 (but didn't even try to reproduce faithfully its architecture, although they were FM) like the mention Rhino and Sytrus. As a consequence, the sounds resulting from the Sys-Ex weren't exact replicas of the ones produced by the DX7 using the same parameters.

Anyway, right now, Yamaha is no longer after anyone who uses FM, and many other instruments appeared. But FM7 (and FM8, although not so faithfully) was the first, AFAIK, that was claimed to faithfully recreate the DX7 sound, even when translating Sys-Ex. Since I never owned the real thing, I never could make na A/B comparison, so I can't tell. But that is not an important thing for me - FM8 is a hell of a synth, that's for sure.

fmr · Post by **fmr** » Wed Sep 17, 2014 4:37 pm

BBFG# wrote:In the case of the D-550, it seems that whatever is produced, either by third party or Roland them self, has been reduced down to a no-win situation where subjective memories of the original seem to hold more power than any 'faithful or accurate' re-creation could ever deliver.

What do you mean? Even Roland themselves said that the emulation included in the V-Synth XT is the exact same code that's in the D-50. Up to the point of emulating the old D/A converters, if the user wants. Are you saying that the D-550 sounds different than the D-50?

BBFG# · Post by **BBFG#** » Wed Sep 17, 2014 4:56 pm

fmr wrote:
BBFG# wrote:In the case of the D-550, it seems that whatever is produced, either by third party or Roland them self, has been reduced down to a no-win situation where subjective memories of the original seem to hold more power than any 'faithful or accurate' re-creation could ever deliver.

What do you mean? Even Roland themselves said that the emulation included in the V-Synth XT is the exact same code that's in the D-50. Up to the point of emulating the old D/A converters, if the user wants. Are you saying that the D-550 sounds different than the D-50?

No, but I am saying the D-550 sounds different than the V-Synth/V-cards.
The only thing different between the D-50 and D-550 as I can remember was that one has a keyboard and the other didn't.
So it's a simple extrapolation that any software would be the 550 and not the 50.
In that case, the argument would simply come down to there being no 're-creation' of the D-50 unless it had its own keyboard. But that really wasn't my point at all.

Roland, trying to answer the market in pros and cons of the first inception and love/hate relationship it spawned caused a dichotomy in products. Where one was considered 'too clean' and lost all character and the other coming out as 'too cheesy' and had a very limited use to it. The 550 became somewhat of an anomaly that even the V-Cards had problems in context to other instruments that wasn't true with the original.

And often IMO, these 'recreations' give us more and more like
D-110 and D-70 types of sounds than anything D-550.

zerocrossing · Post by **zerocrossing** » Wed Sep 17, 2014 5:32 pm

The_Hidden_Goose wrote:I often wonder, when a vintage h/w synth emulator is constantly being asked about or proposed as an idea, whether the folks at Roland (or other manufacturer, altho Roland seem to be subject of a lot of these discussions) are watching these threads and deliberately holding off on licensing anything before they feel it's the right time to get the most profit. Letting people winge and whine until they're all so desperate for it that it'll fly out like hotcakes if they finally do it, or licence someone else doing it.

Can't say I blame them for that thinking, if that's the case.

I thought someone had done the D-50 recently. Maybe my mind playing tricks on me, and I'm just thinking about the last thread this was discussed!

Ha, I can't imagine anything remotely like this is going on, at least at Roland. Here's what's happening. Roland is sending people to weddings and churches and asking musicians there what they'd like to see in products. Occasionally, one of the guys in the wedding bands invites the Roland rep to their prog jazz show.

As for the latest Aira stuff... I think one of the grandkids of a Roland exec bitched and moaned until grandpa put a team together to make their latest toys. The only actual VSTi they have needs a crap controller to use as a dongle.

Is it good? I don't know. I don't care. There's no way I'm going to put a crappy keyboard in my studio just to find out... and then have Roland abandon that line in a few years.

Sorry so bitter, but at one point Roland seemed in the pole position to be the "cool music company" and someone made a command decision to get off that track and go to the mall. Smart companies like Novation, Korg, Access, etc, stayed on the track and continue to release cool stuff. Shame really. Yamaha too, though I give them a pass because I know they make good traditional instruments like pianos.

So... maybe Roland will get back in the race. Aira might have been a toe tip in that area. The ACB modeling on the TR-8 and TB-3 sounded good to me. The System 1... that seemed totally misguided and really doesn't sound any better than one of the dozens of software instruments I have that run rings around it in terms of features. Here's hoping that they get their heads out of their colons and take that tech to the next level and make something actually cool and not just cool looking. Imagine a synth with the Aira engines with a D50 emulator and next generation Variphrase tech and COSM effects. That would be quite an instrument but I don't' have high hopes of it happening and I'm confident that if it does it will not be a plug in (though I wish it was).

godly · Post by **godly** » Wed Sep 17, 2014 5:49 pm

The_Hidden_Goose wrote:I thought someone had done the D-50 recently. Maybe my mind playing tricks on me, and I'm just thinking about the last thread this was discussed!

Look what I've found !!!

http://www.irishacts.com/?download=d50-emulation

And here on the forum
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 1&t=203674

godly · Post by **godly** » Wed Sep 17, 2014 6:08 pm

Another one !
http://www.vst-control.de/D50v.html

The_Hidden_Goose · Post by **The_Hidden_Goose** » Wed Sep 17, 2014 6:18 pm

godly wrote:Another one !
http://www.vst-control.de/D50v.html

This one seems to be controller software for the actual synthesizer line, rather than an emu.

Cool if you've got one, mind!

Turello · Post by **Turello** » Wed Sep 17, 2014 6:28 pm

Casue the samples into D-50 are property of Mr. Eric Persing and he said:NO!!!

@godly: thanks for advice!

The_Hidden_Goose · Post by **The_Hidden_Goose** » Wed Sep 17, 2014 6:33 pm

zerocrossing wrote:Roland is sending people to weddings and churches and asking musicians there what they'd like to see in products. Occasionally, one of the guys in the wedding bands invites the Roland rep to their prog jazz show.

Well I suppose if that's their main market then you could forgive them for it. Shame though, as they made some of the most distinctive sounding h/w synths, imo.

All my piano-playing friends agree with you about them falling out of that race too, with Yamaha still making some great stuff in that world.

I never looked to closely at the AIRA thing. Seemed a bit expensive for me, and I wasn't sure if it would really give me anything extra - not enough to justify spending on it anyway. I remember briefly looking at the System-1 and SH-101 for that platform, but long before my interest was snagged enough I managed to cover those sounds with software so forgot about it entirely.

p.s...I recently came across someone with an original beat-up old sh-101 who lives in my village, so I have access to one if I really feel the need

Why did nobody ever recreate a D-50 or DX7 vst?