SWAY - a synth modeled after the Yamaha SY77

[himalaya]

You must be a collector then, not a musician.

Most certainly not .
And you had one of the finest synths ever made , years in storage

I never did! How did you get that idea?
My SY77 has always been in my rig, right behind me. Powered, all ready to go.
I just didn't have the time to play it as much as I used to. This thread has reignited my interest...

Honestly, the reverb and delay have nothing going for it. The worst effects in existence and I'm surprised to read that anyone would enjoy these on any sound.
The reverb rings in the most horrible way. It is hollow, metallic and fragmented, in any of the reverb modes.
The delays are extremely short and do not allow for any musical spread of delays.
Taken as a whole, this reverb + delay combo is detrimental to any and every sound. The FM/AFM/RCM sounds obtained from the SY77 can be sublime. It is a natural desire to want add some ambiance to a patch and store it together. Come back to the patch, load it, play it with some glorious effects, a nice reverberant space without having to switch the DAW 'on' and load your reverb of choice...but that's not possible since the reverb+delay are atrocious.

I mean, you could go back in time to some old, digital reverbs like the original Alesis, or Zoom ones (I still have Alesis Microverb 4 siting in my rack). Cheap, cheerful and some would argue full of that vintage-digital character, but this SY77 reverb ain't it. The Yamaha SPX90 has these infamous Yamaha metallic reverbs, with the plate reverb being used on snare, but the effects section in the SY77 isn't equivalent to the SPX90. In the SY77 we don't have some infamous, so-bad-that-they-are-good type of effects, we have bad-effects-that-are-bad.

Heaven help me! They want to smear the SY77 sounds in this horrible cacophony they call the 'SY77 reverb'.

[himalaya]

By the way, my SY77 has seen all the action it could see. It was my live synth for years and a studio workhorse. It's seen a lot of action, so no, definitely not in storage. Never has been.

[gentleclockdivider]

OK not storage then , renewned interest ..Sounds bettter indeed .
Hail tg-sy series

[himalaya]

'renewed interest' ...since using it from new, constantly for several decades. Bought it in 1992 (can't remember if it was 1991 or 1992).

[himalaya]

Feature request: if it's not already included, put a Mod Matrix in it.

I was going to mention something similar. One of the frustrating things about the SY/TG is any lack of deeper controller modulation. For example, the amount of time I wanted to modulate the ratio parameter....Even without a full blown mod-matrix, I can definitely see a benefit to having several new and well chosen mod-destinations.

[gentleclockdivider]

I am all for a 1:1 emulation
If a modmatrix will be added , , what will be next ???
Might as well buy something like F' em or steinberg Fmlab
Tg-Sy is glorious because it' sounds unique yet gritty , and this also part because of the older tech , lookup tables for operators instead of mathematically calculated sines etc..you can hear them alias when playing lower registers etc .
If the plugin will deliver the same 'in your face ' sound as the Sy-Tg, I 'll be seriouisly impressed .

[EvilDragon]

I am all for a 1:1 emulation
If a modmatrix will be added , , what will be next ???
Might as well buy something like F' em or steinberg Fmlab

Ditto here. Even including the OG effects as close as possible, I don't care. Can always use Valhalla externally in a pinch, but to get the actual thing (or as close as possible) ITB should (and also definitely seems to) be the goal here.

[himalaya]

The.reverb.is.utter.shite.

You don't want it.

There is nothing about it that screams "Give me that authentic SY77 reverb for that authentic SY77 sound".

SY99 improves on the reverb. Why not go with what Yamaha was aiming for: better quality of its effects.

[himalaya]

I am all for a 1:1 emulation
If a modmatrix will be added , , what will be next ???
Might as well buy something like F' em or steinberg Fmlab

Ditto here. Even including the OG effects as close as possible, I don't care. Can always use Valhalla externally in a pinch, but to get the actual thing (or as close as possible) ITB should (and also definitely seems to) be the goal here.

There is nothing nostalgic about this reverb, nothing deserving of 'emulation', and I hope the dev will come to his senses and at least provide an alternative.

Regarding modulation. SY77 assigns controllers in the most archaic of ways. Did you ever try it? I think a full blow mod-matrix is a lot to ask, but an extra window with a few more destinations would open it up to some amazing sounds. Trust me. I'm a doctor. Simply being able to modulate the 'ratio' parameter would create hundreds upon hundreds of new sounds.

[mholloway]

Simply being able to modulate the 'ratio' parameter would create hundreds upon hundreds of new sounds.

...immediately making this a non-accurate 'emulation' of the SY77.

It's an interesting philosophical dilemma, and one discussed much across this forum over the years. I totally get where you are coming from: "the reverb sucks, don't emulate it in your emulation" and "with this little tweak, it's a MUCH better synth..." -- but these are YOUR opinions, not everybody's opinions. Should a dev working on an SY77 listen to every opinion from every SY77 owner out there about "what makes the best updated version of an SY77" ? You see how quickly that becomes impossible, and how quickly an 'emulation' of an SY77 becomes just another Modern FM synth with all the Modern software bells and whistles, right?

I get these points all seem "obvious" to you, but what about to the dev? He just trusts you and you alone on where to deviate from the original design? Or everyone else, too? It's actually _easier_ to go the 1:1 route because it lays a clear, specific path, including limitations. The alternative is "guess I listen to all the forum folks on what they think makes a so-called 'better' synth than an actual SY77"... it never ends, and before you know it, as someone else posted already here, why not just buy F'em or something like that....

[EvilDragon]

I want to make that call regarding FX for myself, thanks.

Going by these no-outboard demos:




these are definitely usable, and better than for example Korg's MDE chip based spatial effects from AI/AI2 era. I've heard way way worse verbs...

[himalaya]

but these are YOUR opinions

It's an informed opinion.

It's a call to make a better SY77 plugin emulation. The SY77 reverb here is not part of any SY77 magic. It really isn't. In fact, it is really detrimental to the sound.

Considering how much people spend arguing about reverb plugins on music forums and even calling out some good sounding reverb plugins as sounding metallic or bad in some way, you will be in for a rude awakening when you hear the SY77 reverb, should the dev be able to emulate it in all of its super ugly glory.

Also keep in mind that I have a good tolerance of mediocre sounding reverbs, and the SY77 reverb is one of the worst you will hear in your life. I hope that you will enjoy it when it arrives in this SY77 plugin!

[EvilDragon]

Again based on the above two demos I don't think it's the worst reverb ever, far from it.

[himalaya]

Again based on the above two demos I don't think it's the worst reverb ever, far from it.

I base my views on using the actual synth, not YouTube videos.
Try this, and tell me this is a good sounding reverb, one that really suits such an amazing synth like the SY77. The pristine FM sonorities, the extra sizzle possible with RCM synthesis all destroyed through that awful, awful reverb effect.
And it's not about your Valhalla this or Valhalla that. It's about a patch that is complete and sounds amazing the second you load it in the synth. The reverb and delays should play a big role in the SY77 partly due to that amazing Symphonic effect. You want a well balanced preset, where all 4 effect blocks work together.

(I will keep this file on my Soundcloud temporarily so if you come to this thread and the file is gone, apologies).

I'm waiting for people to get all poetic how amazing this sounds, or failing that, how not so good but still desirable for some mysterious reason:

https://soundcloud.com/electric-himalay ... al_sharing

[EvilDragon]

You know, I want to use the thing but I don't want to maintain another 30 years old hardware dinosaur. So I want it ITB, warts and all, as close as possible. Multiple instances and routing through whatever other effects I want on a case by case basis. That's all.

And yes, I totally would use that reverb exactly as is, for period correct game soundtrack sorta stuff and so on.