While it was the DX7 that took the world by storm, Yamaha had a couple of seriously high-end machines lurking in the background: the utterly awesome, light-your-studio-into-the-bargain DX1, and the slightly more slimmed-down (though still built like a tank) DX5. Both machines shared the same sound architecture and internal electronics – which were carefully hand-picked, unlike the mass-produced DX7 – and differed only in the impressive slab of editing feedback offered by the '1.
Crucially, the patches for the DX1 and DX5 were specifically created by Yamaha's patch programmers to work in pairs: there's an "A" and a "B" version of almost every patch, which are supposed to be layered and often detuned within the synths' Program memory slots for a really thick, rich, warm sound. Though this idea was later adopted in the DX7 II, which allowed layering, the intensive work of programming dual variations on patches never filtered down to the '7, making these custom-written sounds something of a distant dream for most musicians.
Until now, of course, when you can just lump 'em into Kontakt
Rhythmic Robot's DX KEYS DELUXE brings you all 19 Piano and Electric Piano factory patches from the DX1 / DX5 (the two top-end machines shared the same factory sound-set) and presents them in a simple-to-use format that recreates a Program slot, complete with pan and detune controls. There are also Chorus and convolved Lexicon digital reverb dials, to add some gloss and polish.
If you've only ever heard DX7 samples, we think these may come as something of a surprise – there's a great deal of warmth to the "bigger" Yamahas, which isn't an adjective we usually associate with FM synthesis!
http://www.rhythmicrobot.com/downloads/ ... o_demo.mp3
Lots more information, audio demos and pretty pictures are on the website here:
http://www.rhythmicrobot.com/product/dx-keys-deluxe
...and we've got some neat deals going on our DXs, too. You can either grab DX KEYS DELUXE at an introductory price of 20% off, or, if you want to throw the DX7's pianos into the mix too, you can get DX KEYS (see below!) plus DX KEYS DELUXE in a bundle deal that saves you a whopping 50% of the cost of the higher-priced instrument. Hope that's tempting
The link to the bundle deal is on the product page above.
Finally, we're not stopping with the piano sounds. In the next few weeks we'll be releasing a PatchVault edition of all the other DX1 / DX5 Patches and Programs (but excluding the pianos and EPs – you'll need to grab the KEYS instruments to get those)... so you can build yourself your very own DX monster synth in Kontakt!
Happy music making,
The Professor (and Mongo)