SWAY - a synth modeled after the Yamaha SY77

[gentleclockdivider]

Halion 7 is supposed to cover the SY99/77/FS1R area as well…

I've heard verry good things about halion , but can you modulate 0 Hz operator with an awm element ?
For the moment My favourites are Tranzistow (brilliant in every possible department ) , ops-7 and self brewed reaktor stuff ( when scaled accordingly can sound remarkebly close to the real deal )

No it's essentially the FM-X engine from Montage which is essentially the FM engine from FS1R without the formant stuff with a few extra tricks

It's fantastic in its own and fits well into my arsenal of other FM plugins. I still use Plogue's OPS7, and Synclavier V for other flavors of FM

I am greatly looking forward to adding SWAY to my arsenal and wish Korg would make standalone MOD-7 plugin from Korg Oasys/Kronos

Halion also has the skirt parameter ?

[IvyBirds]

Halion also has the skirt parameter ?

Yes it does. But not on the TX81Z , SY99, Sine, and Noise waveforms

It works for the All1, All2, Odd1, Odd2, Res1, Res2, Saw, Saw Rounded waveforms, Square and Square Rounded waveforms, just like inside of FS1R

[gentleclockdivider]

Halion also has the skirt parameter ?

Yes it does. But not on the TX81Z , SY99, Sine, and Noise waveforms

It works for the All1, All2, Odd1, Odd2, Res1, Res2, Saw, Saw Rounded waveforms, Square and Square Rounded waveforms, just like inside of FS1R

O.K.

[IvyBirds]

Sway may end up being the most advanced FM VST available. Halion 7 has some great FM capabilities but does not create patches in the same way as a hardware SY/TG with its RCM Modulation. Sway will definitely set itself apart from all other FM VST's.

SWAY will be able to do things that FM-X/HALion can't, but HALion can also do a ton of things that SWAY won't be able to do

I love the TG/SY77 & 99 engine, and know it very well, but I also know FM-X very well and know what it is capable of, and they are both insanely powerful and very deep

For my purposes I think FM-X is way more powerful than TG/SY99 but then again I never had much use for samples in FM and the spectral tools alongside all the waveforms and two extra operators gives you options that the SY99 never dreamed of

The idea of RCM sound great on the SY99 but in the real world for me I never found much use for it unless I was using very simple waveforms, as anything complex used a modulator turns into extremely non musical noise and garbage. So you can start with something complex and then filter it down to the point where it's super simple

With FM-X you start off with a bunch of waveforms, then you can shape them even further using the spectral skirt, doing that and then having two extra operators at your disposal to modulate a modulator using pure FM Synthesis you can make any kind of waveform you desire, not to mention if you want to use a filter you have many more types available and have significantly more options on how you use them inside of your algorithm, as well as the ability to have far more complex envelopes

As always YMMV. I enjoyed my TG77 and SY99 for many many years but I think what my Montage can do in both Hardware and Software and what HALion7 can do with it blows it away, as it allows me to explore different things that SY99 can't do

Having said that I still plan on getting SWAY the first day I can buy it. I mean why not have a Ferrari and a Lamborghini in your garage?

Especially as both SWAY and FM-X can do things the other can't. Which one you find more powerful just depends on what is more important to you and the Timbres you want to make

[oldmica]

I just wanted to drop in and say that these comments are really helpful and useful to how I'm approaching these things. Thanks and carry on

Edit: and I'm definitely in for at least one copy of SWAY

[Cepheus]

Till SWAY arrives, what other synths have this RCM feature? I think that Tracktions Bio Tek is one of them. I recently updated Bio Tek to version 3 and I'm glad with it. I bought version 2 for a very low price but never used because of the weird interface. Version 3 is a different story and I finally understood that it is actually a FM synth where each of the four oscillators can modulate an other one using one of the 11 FM algoritmes. The oscillator type can be just a sine but also a sample and something granular. That combined with a huge modulation matrix makes it very powerful. Did anyone make RCM-type sounds with Bio Tek?

[IvyBirds]

Till SWAY arrives, what other synths have this RCM feature?

Tracktion's F'em, has the ability to use samples as either a modulator or a carrier which is an improvement over the SY/TG77 and SY99. Where you could only use them as modulators.You can even import your own samples

The challenge with samples/RCM as a modulator like in the SY is that it's just so easy to make non musical noise unless you have very simple waveforms. It can be interesting to make your own samples to load into them however.

Using them as a carrier especially one not being modulated can be rather useful however especially as F'em has 8 operators and multiple layers. Having the extra operators as essentially a free sample player can be useful

Arturia's Synclavier V has an improved form of the Synclavier II FM/Additive engine from the early 1980s

The cool thing about that is that you can transform samples using resynthesis into a morphing additive synthesis operator and then FM that using another additive operator

[StartMenu]

Isn't the Yamaha Montage plugin software coming in 2025? I just bought the Halion 7 upgrade and unfortunately I couldn't load the SY77 .sysx with Rudy Adrian patches in FM-X. I don't like the design on Sway but I will consider getting it if my demo of Yamaha's new plugin is a non catch.

[IvyBirds]

Isn't the Yamaha Montage plugin software coming in 2025? I just bought the Halion 7 upgrade and unfortunately I couldn't load the SY77 .sysx with Rudy Adrian patches in FM-X. I don't like the design on Sway but I will consider getting it if my demo of Yamaha's new plugin is a non catch.

The Yamaha Montage software is already out for owners of the hardware I have jt

It won't load SY77 Sysex either and in fact doesn't have the extra built in waveforms from the SY77 and SY99

The Montage software is awesome for the AWM2 sampling engine and all the fantastic presets especially the piano, but for FM-X in plugin form HALion7 is loads better

[StartMenu]

Isn't the Yamaha Montage plugin software coming in 2025? I just bought the Halion 7 upgrade and unfortunately I couldn't load the SY77 .sysx with Rudy Adrian patches in FM-X. I don't like the design on Sway but I will consider getting it if my demo of Yamaha's new plugin is a non catch.

The Yamaha Montage software is already out for owners of the hardware I have jt

It won't load SY77 Sysex either and in fact doesn't have the extra built in waveforms from the SY77 and SY99

The Montage software is awesome for the AWM2 sampling engine and all the fantastic presets especially the piano, but for FM-X in plugin form HALion7 is loads better

I didn't mean loading the SY77 .sysx I found in Montage. I meant in FM-X. FM-X supposedly supports SY77 but I couldn't even get FM-X to load my DX7 .sysx files.

Is there a non owners Montage plugin coming soon or is the Montage software only for Montage owners?

[fmr]

I didn't mean loading the SY77 .sysx I found in Montage. I meant in FM-X. FM-X supposedly supports SY77 but I couldn't even get FM-X to load my DX7 .sysx files.

Where did you read that FM-X supports SY77? It simply isn't true.

https://www.synthtopia.com/content/2016 ... an-a-dx-7/

Tha articles made a comparison with the DX7. Never mentions the SY series.

[IvyBirds]

Isn't the Yamaha Montage plugin software coming in 2025? I just bought the Halion 7 upgrade and unfortunately I couldn't load the SY77 .sysx with Rudy Adrian patches in FM-X. I don't like the design on Sway but I will consider getting it if my demo of Yamaha's new plugin is a non catch.

The Yamaha Montage software is already out for owners of the hardware I have jt

It won't load SY77 Sysex either and in fact doesn't have the extra built in waveforms from the SY77 and SY99

The Montage software is awesome for the AWM2 sampling engine and all the fantastic presets especially the piano, but for FM-X in plugin form HALion7 is loads better

I didn't mean loading the SY77 .sysx I found in Montage. I meant in FM-X. FM-X supposedly supports SY77 but I couldn't even get FM-X to load my DX7 .sysx files.

Is there a non owners Montage plugin coming soon or is the Montage software only for Montage owners?

The Native FM-X engine has essentially the eight Voiced Operators found in the FS1R. These are vastly different from what's in the SY77/SY99. Starting with the TX81Z Yamaha started including some extra waveforms for the operators, when the SY77 came out they had all of those plus more

These extra waveforms are basically serving the same role as you would get from a stacked pair of sine wave operators on the DX7. Using them on the four operator TX81Z allowed you to achieve timbres that would take six or eight operators if you only had sine waves, and when expanded further with AFM on SY77 really expanded what could be done. Some of those timbres would take 12 operators if they were just sine waves

With FS1R they abandoned the use of these extra waveforms and reduced the number down to 7. That seems like a step backwards but it's not because the new operators on FS1R are much deeper. With them a single operator can now do things that would take 3 maybe 4 operators to pull off if they were just sine waves, and you get 8 of them

Since FM-X uses these that means it's simply not compatible with SY77 or SY99 Sysex. One of those 7 waveforms however is a simple sine wave which conveniently gives it the ability to play DX7 patches.

HALion7 can read DX7 sysex natively as could FS1R, for some unknown reason Yamaha decided not to allow Montage the ability to do that, however Yamaha has an online tool that will allow you to convert DX7 sysex to Montage FM-X format

With HALion7 they added those extra waveforms back into FM-X, but there are enough differences between the AFM engine and FM-X that it's not compatible, you can however use those extra waveforms to load in TX81Z Sysex and there are TX81Z factory presets inside of it.

[gentleclockdivider]

These extra waveforms are basically serving the same role as you would get from a stacked pair of sine wave operators on the DX7.

The extra waveforms found on the tx1z are indeed using the lookuptable that stores a quarter sine , by reading these in different directions we get the extra waveforms
But I disagree you can get the tx1z waveforms by just using stacked sines on the dx7
Try it ..

[IvyBirds]

These extra waveforms are basically serving the same role as you would get from a stacked pair of sine wave operators on the DX7.

The extra waveforms found on the tx1z are indeed using the lookuptable that stores a quarter sine , by reading these in different directions we get the extra waveforms
But I disagree you can get the tx1z waveforms by just using stacked sines on the dx7
Try it ..

Sure not a problem, if analyze what they are actually doing with harmonics is rather easy to recreate with a pair of operators


W1 Sine Wave
W2 Odd Partials 1,3,5,7 1:2 I=0.5 V=12
W3 Even Partials 1,2,4,6 1:1 I=0.5 V=12
W4 Partials 1,2,3 1:1 I=1.0 V=32
W5 Partials 1,2,3,5 1:1 I=1.5 V=65
W6 Partials 1,2,3,5 1:1 I=1.7 V=75
W7 Partials 1,3,4,5 1:1 I=3.7 V=85
W8 Partials 1,3,4,5 1:1 I=4.0 V=87

Edit: I should probably explain further and before I do give a warning that this will get into some rather deep FM Synthesis nerdery

When John Chowning came up with the idea of FM Synthesis the idea was any timbre could be analyzed and broken down into a series of harmonics. If you then modulated one sine wave with another you could reproduce those same harmonics

In a recent interview John Chowning said that he still prefers to use just a pair of operators or maybe a stack of 3. Of course many of the algos in Yamaha style FM Synths are just a collection of stacks of 2 and 3

Anyway if you sample any of the TX81Z waveforms and run them through an analyzer (and Audacity has a really good one that's free) you can see exactly what harmonics are in them and how loud they are relative to the others

The good news with this is that all of the waveforms in the TX81Z (and AFM) are actually really simple and were chosen by Yamaha's engineers because they were simple and easy for 1980s era digital synths to reproduce

Once you know the harmonic signature of each waveform, all you then need to do is take two sine wave operators, modulate one with the other and recreate that same sonic signature

Once you do that successfully our ears and brain will hear the same sound. It really doesn't matter if they are being played as a single cycle waveform off the lookup table or if they were synthesized from sinewaves using sine waves. They have the same harmonics

This BTW is exactly how resynthesis works in the Synclavier II. You would load a sample and set up how many points for the onboard computer to analyze. New England Digital called those points "frames". You did this because sounds in the real world change over time. So Synclavier would then use additive synthesis to recreate the harmonic signature of each point and then play all of them in order cross fading between them. The end result was a timbre extremely similar to the original

The waveforms in the TX81Z are simple and static however so you don't need to do that. A single pair of sinewave operators doing FM can easily accomplish the exact same thing with those

[StartMenu]

I didn't mean loading the SY77 .sysx I found in Montage. I meant in FM-X. FM-X supposedly supports SY77 but I couldn't even get FM-X to load my DX7 .sysx files.

Where did you read that FM-X supports SY77? It simply isn't true.

https://www.synthtopia.com/content/2016 ... an-a-dx-7/

Tha articles made a comparison with the DX7. Never mentions the SY series.

I asked Steinberg customer support if SY77 sysx was supported in addition to DX7 and they said yes but they may have gotten it wrong. I bought 2 DX7 sysx banks and I think not all of the DX7 sysx presets can load into FM-X. Only some of the sounds I bought loaded and I wasn't very impressed.