Plogue OPS7 (bit-accurate DX7 emulation!)

[D-Fusion]

i told him if he could pass it up the chain that it'd be great if they made an FM synth that looked like a nordlead rack.. a bunch of knobs! and focused on FM instead of all this other stuff.

If you want an awesome FM synth that is easier to program than any other FM synth or plugin available and also sounds better and is far more versatile, get a Nord 3 or a Nord Rack 3. Not only does the Nord 3 have the best interface of any hardware (or software for that matter) synth ever developed, it's got a great VA engine as well. It's simple but super hi-fi 4-operator FM synth engine is fantastic. You don't need to know anything about FM synthesis to get great FM sounds out of it.

The Nord 3 was originally sold as a Virtual Analog synth with some FM capabilities. But it's actually an amazing FM synth with a knob per function interface that makes programming the synth as easy as any classic analog synth. But make no mistake, the Nord 3 FM synthesis is where it's at. It's not about stupid FM brass and oboes (that software samplers do so much more realistically and expressively,) but fantastic modern FM textures.

The Montage is a workstation joke by comparison.

Sorry to say this but the Nord Lead 3 is the weakest sounding HW synth i have played.
If you really like the sound of the NL3 you would love Synth1 which sounds just like the NL 3 as a VA Synth.

[Gadget Fiend]

How many feedback operators on the NORD 3
How many envelopes per operator on the NORD 3 ?
You really are a NORD 3 fanboy , and while it can do some great FM sounds it lacks in several departments
It's easily trumped by the nord modular and the montage , so please S.U.

That's the thing. Clueless people think you need a feedback oscillator on every operator and 100 other mostly useless features to create great FM sounds. The Nord 3 proves that you don't. It's a synth for musicians who want to create modern sounds with an FM flavor.

[Gadget Fiend]

Sorry to say this but the Nord Lead 3 is the weakest sounding HW synth i have played.
If you really like the sound of the NL3 you would love Synth1 which sounds just like the NL 3 as a VA Synth.

You were clearly playing the presets and didn't program any sounds of your own. Otherwise you'd know that what you are saying is nonsense. Plus, I have plenty of "fat" sounding synths (e.g., my MKS-80). I don't need another analog poly (and certainly not some FM workstation garbage like the Montage).

[fmr]

And if there are SO MANY looking for what you say, I wonder why THIS wasn't a commercial success (BTW: It looks a lot like OPS7 )

Maybe because that DX7 controller was €1250 and looks nothing like the OPS7.

It looks simplistic, with just a bunch of knobs, VERY MUCH like OPS7

Regarding the price, the post I quoted said:

it'd be great if they made an FM synth that looked like a nordlead rack.. a bunch of knobs! and focused on FM

How much would you think something like that would cost? How much costs a nordlead rack? On eBay I can see them around 500/600 euros. And an FM synth would need A LOT MORE knobs and sliders. I doubt anyone would build one for less than 1.200 euros.

What you posted is merely a controller. It’s not a synth.

It has many of the components that make a synth expensive. It only lacks a logic board with a microchip and a DAC.

[gentleclockdivider]

How many feedback operators on the NORD 3
How many envelopes per operator on the NORD 3 ?
You really are a NORD 3 fanboy , and while it can do some great FM sounds it lacks in several departments
It's easily trumped by the nord modular and the montage , so please S.U.

That's the thing. Clueless people think you need a feedback oscillator on every operator and 100 other mostly useless features to create great FM sounds. The Nord 3 proves that you don't. It's a synth for musicians who want to create modern sounds with an FM flavor.

Of course you don't need feedback on an operator to do fm
BUt without feedback you will never ever have a sharp saw , square wave and mimick a low pass filtered square -saw ( or both etc..) .
Pulse width moudlation on fm , is also only possible with feedback operators and phase shift ( start degree of the operator ) ..I bet you didn't know that .
So if there is one person who is clueless , I think it's you ..
Things really get interesting when there are 2-3 operators in the same feedback loop , that's when it can get dirty and nasty and sadly your beloved nord rack 3 can't do that either .
What a monster of an FM synth the nord 3 is
I just think you don't have that much experience with FM and currently the nord 3 is the only synth you have , so no wonder you defend it in every thread .
When it comes to Fm , nord modular and tg77 are top notch ( I own both )
No need to reply , oh wait you can't

[dayjob]

lols. i own a nordlead 3 rack. it's great and has nice simple fast implementation of FM synthesis that sounds great.. but it's not quite the same thing as an FM synth w/all the bells and whistles and possibilities of modern FM or even vintage FM.

as for cost of an FM synth covered in knobs.. i don't see why it'd have to be so expensive. something more complex than the DIgitone or the Korg Opsix is certainly possible.. i'm sure there's someone capable of making a good interface on a hardware FM synth that won't cost a fortune. but people pay a lot for less complex wavetable synths that are only 1 or 2 parts multitimbral.

that being said it's not something i actually want. software is really really good for this kind of thing especially today. between all the software true FM synths on the market there's some amazing sounds to be had and at their core they sound good. and the interfaces are all varied so they're bound to find users who dig them and find a good fit.

my anecdote about speaking to yamaha rep is just me having a forehead slapper about what they could do vs what they did in regards to modern FM and wondering wtf why don't they do it better in a dedicated FM synth.

btw.. worth mentioning.. the smaller series of synths they did.. the Reface series..was the passion project of one engineer who had to claw his way thru the bureaucracy to get them produced. they all sound really good and the reface FM synth is a nice 4 op FM synth with a pretty fast interface and some nice tricks to get interesting sounds. last i heard that engineer had left yamaha but i can't really recall the details of that conversation so i could be wrong about it.

[dayjob]

his reply was "We hear that from EVERYONE. literally everyone says that to us.... but it's a big company and trying to get that message heard is difficult.. especially coming from a rep"

Yet, all the later FM only synths they launched were flaws I guess that "EVERYONE" is simply a noisy minority. Fact is the Montage is a great synth, that goes way beyond FM, and even FM is way more powerful than anything you can achieve with OPS7.

If you want a powerful FM only Yamaha synth, look for an FS1R (a great FM synth that was ALSO a flaw - I wonder where EVERYONE was back then ).

And if there are SO MANY looking for what you say, I wonder why THIS wasn't a commercial success (BTW: It looks a lot like OPS7 )

obviously ymmv. i hated working on the montage. detested it and thought it made a good doorstop but not as a good as a phonebook. it's a very powerful synth and i described my reasons for not liking it. the FM engine is nuts but imo would be much better in a dedicated synth covered in knobs and a streamlined interface with out all the other 'crap' that's in the montage. as it is it's a great synth for kicking out the jams at the coffee shop at barnes and noble book store during the holidays.

i owned and Fs1r and it's incredibly powerful. there's a price to pay for programming that thing too.. it's the classic "paint the inside of the house thru the mail slot in the front door" approach to programming.

also.. when i said the rep said "EVERYONE" tells us that i wasn't referring to "BACK THEN" but only like 5 years ago.. when the montage was still recent-ish in its production. so, i'm not talking about the 90s when the fs1r came out.. which btw they discontinued and sold at $300 towards the end of its life. i should've bought a couple of them then! hindsight being what it is.

so, i'm only griping about the possibilities going untapped. obviously korg and elektron saw the demand for a smaller dedicated FM synth built around a workable interface.. and i'm not saying either of those synths are capable of what the montage is capable of when it comes to FM. obviously the montage is more powerful even just w/it's FM engine but it's very expensive, no fun to program and is too fvcking big. but yamaha is going for a different market and isn't interested in making a synth for people who just want to do complex stuff with FM on a synth with lot's of knobs and a decent screen w/o spending $3k or however much the montage costs (though i guess the ModX exists at half that price but is still too damn big and lacks a good interface).

anyway... i'd still take OPS7 everyday and twice on sunday over a montage.. OPS7 + arturia DX, FM8 and other FM stuff in various synths gets me all the way there w/what i need to do.

i'm sure someone is doing something interesting w/a Montage so good for them. i have no use for it.

[BenfordLaw]

The Montage sounds pretty cool. I never played one myself, but I had a DX-21 back in the 80s.

Here's the Yamaha Montage TX816 Epiano. Listen to how magnificent it is!
It's 8 layers, each 16 voice 6-op, each detuned, panned, or changed in a different way in the operators. You can browse those patches easily and have heavenly sound.
There's no reason not to have such implementation in Plogue OPS7 - at least as an option. It's a world of amazing sound which was used only in the top productions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDUbu842ZtQ

1 Ops7 instance = two dx7 's
Load another 3 instances in your daw , control them all from the same midi channel and you've got your tx816.
Let's not bother the developer with requests that we can easily achieve by ourselves.

Yes, why do any VSTs come with built in effects either? We can all add effects within our DAWs... (sarcasm)

I, for one, would be very interested in OPS7 if they implemented a TX816 Epiano option, with 8 layers. As it is, I haven't heard any decent presets coming out of the OPS7. The whole point of using software is that it should be making life easier for you.

[masterhiggins]

Picked this up during Black Friday’s sale. Can’t go wrong at that price. Also picked up a couple other synths of theirs. Love them.

[dayjob]

The whole point of using software is that it should be making life easier for you.

looks at my max/msp patch.

for real though.. sometimes the idea is putting effort to build the thing that then makes life better/easier/faster for making tracks or sounds.

so, while i get the sentiment about it should be easier w/software there are also many options for doing amazing things w/complex systems that would be otherwise impossible.. which i guess means that yes it's making things easier in some context but isn't necessarily easy

a softsynth that is modular is still a modular. it's still going to have those same pitfalls and learning curve and creative solutions discovered by the user to get to a certain result.

if all you want is easy and fast then you should probably find the ultimate sample library of DX stuff which is likely to be full of all the E-pianos you can swallow.

but, and ymmv, i think if a person wants to explore FM synthesis and make their own sounds then OPS7 and other software solutions are excellent places to look.

[sqigls]

The preset browser could be a bit more straight forward.
I'd like to be able to run through a shedload of old DX7 banks and save single patches into a folder, then make a bank of them. The current 'browser' situation makes that idea a bit off-putting.

[Winstontaneous]

I demo'd OPS7 (in 4-minute bursts) around BF. Don't "need" it so didn't buy it, but it's definitely a labor of love and seems to be making people happy around here!

There have been a few DX7-centric threads on Hacker News lately(focusing on reverse engineering and circuitry) that may interest peeps:
The Yamaha DX7 synthesizer's clever exponential circuit, reverse-engineered
Yamaha DX7 Technical Analysis
Reverse-engineering the Yamaha DX7 synthesizer's sound chip from die photos

[tristan-]

Let's not bother the developer with requests that we can easily achieve by ourselves.

Yes, why do any VSTs come with built in effects either? We can all add effects within our DAWs... (sarcasm)

I, for one, would be very interested in OPS7 if they implemented a TX816 Epiano option, with 8 layers. As it is, I haven't heard any decent presets coming out of the OPS7. The whole point of using software is that it should be making life easier for you.

Thank you! That's ALL I was trying to say.
You already have 2 layers. Make an option for 8 layers. It's already fairly modular.

Perhaps TX816 mode can be just an option? Choose between 2 or 8 layer architecture.

Ofcourse you can do everything within a DAW. Load 4 or 8 instances of a plugin, adjust each plugin separately for any minor adjustments? Save each preset as a project? this definitely makes no sense.

Once you understand the power of TX816 programming its easy to understand why it was and still is so in demand.

It's not only simple chorusing effect, but creating each layer just a little bit different contributes to a massive and at the same time clear unimitable sound.

[tristan-]

The preset browser could be a bit more straight forward.
I'd like to be able to run through a shedload of old DX7 banks and save single patches into a folder, then make a bank of them. The current 'browser' situation makes that idea a bit off-putting.

My thoughts as well. I'd like a preset browser with an easy way to audition and create my own banks out of the gazillion banks I have, basically separate the wheat from the chaff.

[fmr]

The preset browser could be a bit more straight forward.
I'd like to be able to run through a shedload of old DX7 banks and save single patches into a folder, then make a bank of them. The current 'browser' situation makes that idea a bit off-putting.

My thoughts as well. I'd like a preset browser with an easy way to audition and create my own banks out of the gazillion banks I have, basically separate the wheat from the chaff.

Forget it. I was pointing this flaw since day one, and was almost crucified by the developer (which muted me) and the zealots around here. You are only allowed to praise OPS, never criticize.