SWAY - a synth modeled after the Yamaha SY77

[Uncle E]

A travesty that I can only give that one thumbs up!!!

[Caesarg86]

Love all these incredible ideas! This SWAY forum has become a way of life for me. It has given me some inspiration and has me especially wanting to get some of my old gear up and running (especially my SY-99 and TG-77). For anyone who might be interested in other software that are not just Kontakt driven...I found Gospel Musician's SY-99 sample based VST. In no way will you get the impression that it could replicate what a full-blown SY-99 does (no FM processing) but it's got some good sounds. SWAY will definitely do so much more than any sample library or sample based VST. Bringing to life an SY-77/99 would take an exceptional amount of patience and talent and I believe we have that in Sheaf. Anyway, back to my original point...thank you all for sharing great ideas and for restoring my faith in these bulky old machines.

[JK1974]

The thing is: I love my SY99, bit I unfortunately just use it as a master keyboard for VSTis (I am not in a live band) because it takes ages to load the sounds (because the USB floppy replacement does not speed it up), and the handling of the then recorded WAVs isn't that flexible.
And then, there is the polyphony limitation, just the maximum of four output channels etc.
This all is a pity because the SY77/SY99 has great sounds and maybe even unexplored potentential thinking of RCM...

[Uncle E]

Did you know it can load SY77 patches? No wait time on those.

[cslevine]

. . .it takes ages to load the sounds (because the USB floppy replacement does not speed it up) . . .

Hope you did saved your samples in other new data 'supports' , next with all other the most precious in computing : datas. Not only hard drives, or usb key, flash, or "cloud", but real physical CD / DVD / Bluray wich have much more longevity that any others. The best are... MDiscs : Bluray 'supports' with mineral technology and real physical "holes", not only browned stains, real holes, so that it could last near 1000 years. Yes, more that much papers.
4 € ( or $ 4 ) for one 25 Go MDisc ( 23 real )
13 € for one "100 Go" MDisc ( 93 real )
85 € ( or $ ) for a MDisc writer

[JK1974]

Did you know it can load SY77 patches? No wait time on those.

I prefer(red) the SY99 soundbanks, and they often had samples included which leads to longer loading time. I also used samples myself - the 512 MByte were still enough for an optimized drum set, converted short old Emu or Fairlight samples etc.

Hope you did saved your samples in other new data 'supports' , next with all other the most precious in computing : datas. Not only hard drives, or usb key, flash, or "cloud", but real physical CD / DVD / Bluray wich have much more longevity that any others.

Most of the non-commercial SY77 and SY99 files I have are public on the net, and this is already quite a lot of stuff. I even uploaded parts of my hand-sorted SY99 collection to the Facebook group "SY99, SY77 and TG77 Owners". Find more details on https://yamahamusicians.com/forum/viewt ... 473#p83473.

I stopped collecting SY99 files (commercial ones are most often not public anyway) and did not yet continue with SY77 files because there are really tons of syx and j0x/t0x files, sometimes duplicates, sometimes unique, sometimes damaged, and since a batch conversion from one to the other format was/is not possible, especially not with the help of an SY99, I stopped sorting them out.

Furthermore, I learned that it helps a lot if sounds are sorted in sound categories - which is the case in quite a lot of VSTis with tons of sounds. This would really be a benefit, thinking of SY77 soundbanks named with titles like "batman", "garson" or "slowlove". Maybe there is some (local) AI model available that could help categorizing sounds automatically after having them automatically recorded with something like SampleRobot (or something basic like a Python code that automatically plays several notes of every sound) - just some crazy idea...

[cslevine]

Maybe there is some (local) AI model available that could help categorizing sounds automatically after having them automatically recorded

i think this would be fantastic. Today, A.I. are too much limited not because of themselves but of other side technical issues ( data amount, commercial, licenses, ... ) but local treatment is the future for these batch needs.
Maybe, when A.I. directly linked to wave output, no need to sample. Directly listen them by MIDI playing will be OK. But... we must wait for A.I. to have real captation of a "copy" of human feeling hearing sounds and musics, as us , with all sensations of inconscient relationships, inconscient conotations ( historical, et. c... ), the real experience of seeing + hearing each real instrument, violon, guitar, piano, as a child going is all concerts, and which was happy, cried, was amaised, linked a remember with personnal facts in an evening, ...
and, THEN, the A.I. will know why "this" sounds like somewhat a "harp", like somwhat near sky, or why this is funny...

[sheaf]

Being able to load samples would transform SWAY into an SY99 emulator (apart from the additional ROM samples and improved FX section). I have a working one here, so I would also be ready for delivering any missing info or helping with beta testing as soon as we get to this point. However, getting a virtual SY77 would already be fantastic.

Loading custom samples is definitely going to happen, but that'll be for a version 1.1. For my own sanity I really need to get version 1.0 out as soon as possible. I've been working on this for years now so it's time to finally let this thing loose.

Truth be told I'm also slightly nervous about finally sending out a beta. Right now all excitement around this project is purely based on screenshots, a couple of demos, and maybe the abstract idea of being able to play with a SY77 emulator? Reality is not going to match the imagination of the perfect SY77 emulation though, so we'll have to see how that pans out.

Right now I'm a bit stuck on the recreation of 2 samples: #88 Airy and #89 Styroll. No idea what they're even supposed to be. What's a styroll? I just can't seem to make anything that's even in the same ballpark for these two.

[JK1974]

Once again me with an AI idea: There is StableAudio out there, and this seems to allow audio input in addition to text input. Maybe something like "generate a simular sound like this one" could work? Did you check sounds using those samples?
I need to check the samples at the SY99 when I am at home...

[oldmica]

That would be awesome for patch creation.

[IvyBirds]

Right now I'm a bit stuck on the recreation of 2 samples: #88 Airy and #89 Styroll. No idea what they're even supposed to be. What's a styroll? I just can't seem to make anything that's even in the same ballpark for these two.

If you have the samples in isolation you can load them into the Spectral Engine of HALion7 or the free Steinberg version "X-Stream"

That will resynthesize it and you could then sample your new synth patch that uses syntheses

[Uncle E]

Furthermore, I learned that it helps a lot if sounds are sorted in sound categories - which is the case in quite a lot of VSTis with tons of sounds. This would really be a benefit, thinking of SY77 soundbanks named with titles like "batman", "garson" or "slowlove". Maybe there is some (local) AI model available that could help categorizing sounds automatically after having them automatically recorded with something like SampleRobot (or something basic like a Python code that automatically plays several notes of every sound) - just some crazy idea...

Synth Mania used to have an excellent database of SY77/TG77 banks. He changed his site and now I'm not finding them. Anyway, I've found that the bank names themselves (not the patch names) give a good indication of what's inside.

[Caesarg86]

Use the Wayback Machine to find Synth Mania pages...hopefully, the banks can be found there.

[Uncle E]

Thanks! That worked and it helped me figure out that I had it wrong, the database is actually on Bobby Blues' site:

https://bobbyblues.recup.ch/yamaha_sy77 ... banks.html

[JK1974]

https://bobbyblues.recup.ch/yamaha_sy77 ... banks.html

I was aware of this page - but must have overseen that there is a patchlist also. Could be worth downloading all of them to be able to make comparisons. With my example names, I referred to the downloads on Herberts Janssens SY-list site (https://herbert-janssen.de/sy.html) that seems to exist for >25 years...
Apparently, the downloadable banks are in syx format which might not be the right choice for an overall sound archive in case several t0x files for the SY77 contain (demo) song data etc. Some years ago, I tried analyzing the file format of the SY77/SY99 as it still is not documented anywhere, and I recognized that it seem to be syx data put in an surrounding container - but I did not continue.
Maybe I could give it a try being assisted by vibe coding because I am not a real programmer (but master of C spaghetti code instead)...

Right now I'm a bit stuck on the recreation of 2 samples: #88 Airy and #89 Styroll. No idea what they're even supposed to be. What's a styroll? I just can't seem to make anything that's even in the same ballpark for these two.

I checked it on my SY99, and both samples sound to me like samples recorded at a low sampling frequency, maybe having the right pitch at C2 and not C3. "Styroll" sounds to me like a styrofoam ball (shaked) in a plastic tube, while "airy" sounds to me like a model aircraft mixed with bottle blowing...

BTW: Will there be an option to extract the samples from the original WAVE ROM file of an SY77? I have seen some files intended to be used for the Waveblade extension at least from the SY77 (and SY55), but not (yet) from the SY99.