Free FM Synthesizer Dexed (VST Windows and Mac)

[Failed Muso]

Thanks for the reply.

Yep, I think i have all of that set up. I was able to send new patches via MIDI-OX, though it seems like it freezes up the DX7 at the end and I need to power cycle it, but once I do, they are all in there. Does it matter if I am using Dexed as a VST or standalone? When does Dexed try to send patches? I can see the lights on my midi adapter working when I hit keys or change knobs in Dexed, but not when selecting new patches/cartridges...

So, if you want to send a single voice to your DX7, and you've turned off Memory Protect on the synth and ensured that DEXED has the correct MIDI connection settings, then you can send voice and cartridge data to the synth in a number of ways.

1. From the CART menu, right click on the *.syx file you want to send. This will transmit the sysex cartridge, i.e all 32 programs in the cart sysex file, to the DX7.

2. From the CART menu, select a cart sysex file and then, from the patch listing on the right, right click on the individual patch you want to send, and send the program to the DX7.

3. From the CART menu, double click a cart sysex file to load it into DEXED and from the patch listing at the bottom, right click on the individual patch you want to send and send the program to the DX7. You will also have an option to send the entire cart from here too, just like option 1 above.

If you have created a new patch by using DEXED as your editor, you can either save that patch directly on the DX7 using the standard save procedure, or you can click on the STORE button on DEXED and save it in the current sysex cart file, create a new copy of the sysex cart file with your new patch or store it to your DAW's plugin song state. Remember that storing patches in the sysex file may overwrite existing data.

Hope that helps?

[Ckafoweeth]

Yes, thank you so much! Right clicking was the key. I had not seen that instruction anywhere online.

[Ckafoweeth]

If there is documentation for this stuff somewhere, please point me to it, but I have another question.

If I have Dexed set up in my DAW (Reaper, in this case) as a virtual instrument plugin, with the midi parameters all hooked up, is there a way for Dexed to send the note info to the DX7? It seems like it is sending CC data, and sending patches works great, but when I run midi into it, or use the plugin keyboard, it doesn't look like anything is being sent. Since Dexed controls those midi ports directly, I can't use the DAW to send anything either.

[EvilDragon]

AFAIK Dexed doesn't do that.

[bharris22]

I'm very late to the party here, but I had a quick question I was hoping someone could answer. I know that there are 50,000+ presets for the DX7 available on the web, and several sites have collected these for easy loading into Dexed. I am wondering if anyone has categorized some of these presets into pads, strings, keys, leads, etc.? I would love to be able to browse through presets (or cartridges) in some of the traditional categories without loading sysex files blindly.

Thanks in advance!

[arkmabat]

Apart from this, http://bobbyblues.recup.ch/yamaha_dx7/dx7_patches.html , I have nothing new to offer. If you have them all in one folder, you can actually switch between them pretty quickly. There are also the original factory patches https://homepages.abdn.ac.uk/d.j.benson ... ml#patches , which this host identifies as in the public domain. The banks rom1a.syx and rom3a.syx hold a lot of easily recognizable patches.

[Etienne1973]

Bobby Blues' DX7 All The Web Collection contains:

• Folder 'Dexed v1_0 (Black Winny)' with a subfolder 'Instruments'. Sysex banks categorized by type.
• Plus folder 'Bridge Music Recording Studio' with a subfolder 'Set 4 Instruments'. Also categorized by type.

Most patches are duplicates, slight variations or just sound weird.

But categories and it's easier to get an overview what people have achieved program wise on the DX7 back in the days.

[bharris22]

Great - thank you very much!

[KillerTofu]

Sorry guys for the noob question - I wanted to post this question on the Dexed GitHub, but it wouldn't let me post even though I was logged in:

--------------------------------------

(How do I change my Cartridge Directory)?

I figured out how to install Dexed onto my external SSD, and how to download all the DX7 patches. (I'm noob)

When I try to load all the sweet DX7 BlackWinny patches however:

When going to Cart, the patches don't show up, I restarted ableton and everything.
It want's to only load them from the default C:\ drive plugins folder, and not the SSD Custom Plugins Sources D:\ drive that I assigned in Ableton preferences. I know I can go to Cart > Load and manually load them in one by one, but since there's hundres or thousands of patches, was hoping there's an easier way.

Can anyone please help me out with this?
(My C:\ drive doesn't have much room so I can't store plugins and patches there)

[zzz00m]

Dexed_cart_1.0.zip with all the DX7 patches is only around 10MB in size. Shouldn't be an issue with that much space on the C: drive.

When I click on 'Cart' in the Dexed UI, and then 'Show Dir', it takes me to the Dexed cartridges folder in my user appdata path.

'...AppData\Roaming\DigitalSuburban\Dexed'.

It's been years since I installed Dexed, so I can't recall if that path was set by the installer, and I've never tried to change it.

Update: discovered that I was running the older version of Dexed 0.9.4 with VST2.
So I updated to the current Dexed version 0.9.6 by the Surge Synth Team (build date March 4, 2021), and this one is VST3 only now.

I don't know how it did it, but the new installer seems to have found my existing Dexed_cart_1.0 presets folder in my existing Digital Suburban folder and is using them. Guessing the presets path is hard coded so all version know where to look?

[evg]

Tired of "controlling" Dexed with a mouse?

If you are using Reaper, I would like to advertise the free ReaLearn extension in combination with my parameter mapping presets that map the Behringer X-Touch Mini controller to Dexed.
(Update May 13: I added mappings for OB-6 and Prophet-6.)

You can install it via ReaPack, documentation is here on github: https://github.com/vonglan/realearn-sy-presets (there are lots of mappings for analog synths, but there is now also one for Dexed).

Update May 13: There is a bug in ReaLearn 2.9 preventing the operator/area-switching, so you need to use 2.8.2. for the moment

What do you get?
- All Dexed parameters mapped to the 8 encoders (upper button row switches operator, lower row switches between main/envelope/scaling parameters)
- LED rings show the current parameter value
- Some extras like resetting parameters to initial values, and a selection where the encoders represent all operator coarse frequencies or levels side-by-side

[Echoes in the Attic]

Was there any plans to update the GUI on this? Something with a DX7 feel like Arturia's would be nice.

[EvilDragon]

There were no concrete plans. Just adding 2x assets so that things look sharper when scaling up.

[Swiss Frank]

Does anyone, such as @asb2m10, have info about how EXACTLY the following work?

-- Actual LFO speed in say microseconds from LFO settings of 0..99
-- how to calculate segment durations and levels from ENV settings
-- how precisely the key-track mods work
-- how to map Hz from coarse/fine/detune

Also curious: is the dexxed code literally exact for the DX7? In other words if I simply used the dexed answers to the above questions is that exact? Or is it merely kind of close? For instance the LFO speeds seem to give a weird stairstep effect in Dexed, and I'm curious if this is simply a copy of how the real keyboard works, or is it the result of simply not wanting to use floating point and so on?

[EvilDragon]

Yes the LFO is stairstepped in the OG at faster speeds. Dexed is trying to be as close to the OG as possible.