What are the differences between the Synclavier and the DX7?

[digitalboytn]

The difference was about $180,000

That's what I was going to say....

Synclaviers were rarefied ground and way above even the expensive toys like the Fairlights and Kurzweils...

Not the easiest business model to sustain

[Lint_Huffer7]

However I cannot work out the EG dials. THe graphic is too small to see what they are doing.

In the latest version of Dexed, you can increase the UI size (thank god, I agree the default is basically unusable unless you've memorized it).

Click "PARM" (lower-leftish, underneath the Dexed logo) and then change UI scaling to 150%.

I assume they are ADSR controls but they aren't producing results intuitively. Is there anywhere that has a labelled diagram of this interface? THanks

Welcome to the wonderful world of DX7, which itself didn't produce results intuitively

Unlike virtually every other ADSR, turning the dials up makes the corresponding stage shorter. You can think of it as "speed" if it helps - so, for instance, on a Moog or Serum or whatever, a maxed attack means "longest attack", but on Dexed or a DX7, a maxed attack means "it goes as fast as it can to this point".

A guy on Youtube named "Synthesizer Keith" made what I consider to be a pretty good introduction video. It's long, and a bit like school, but I like that he plots his plan out on a whiteboard so you can kind of pick up on the thought process - I think watching this leaves someone a bit more knowledgeable about what's actually happening than a flashy 5 minute jumpcut wacky high-def PROGRAM EPIC DX7 LIKE A BOSS sort of stuff does.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XbrTC0NndM

[xenofungus]

Dexed is less of a cpu hog. , simple install, no bells and whistles and it’s free ..
Oh. And it sounds great ... win/ win situation

I already own the Arturia and I'm pretty well covered with cpu throughput, I just want to know if Dexed is actually better in sound quality.

Dexed is probably more faithful to the hw it's emulating. But I never owned the original thing, so I wouldn't really know. I have it installed on my system and play with it once in awhile mostly b/c it's free.
There are number of youtube videos making comparisons, so give a listen yourself.