Motorola DSP563xx Emulator (BETA) (Access Virus, Nord Lead, Waldorf MW...)

[SLiC]

If the original manufacturers of the discontinued hardware made official controllers for TUS software it could be the ultimate win-win!

[Seluvis]

If the original manufacturers of the discontinued hardware made official controllers for TUS software it could be the ultimate win-win!

Yeah that would be an interesting prospect. There was a time I really wanted a TI but the gap between the TI and currently available flagship vst's has narrowed. For example the Tone2 Icarus3 release in some ways surpasses the TI. That is not to say the TI doesn't have a few tricks up its sleeve.

[digitalboytn]

@everyone

**Statement from "The Usual Suspects"**

Following the community discussions around Retromulator, discoDSP made a donation of $1000 to the project. While we appreciate the gesture, we have decided to refund the donation.

We want to remain independent from situations where financial contributions could be perceived as influencing the direction of the project. Accepting a donation in this context could give the impression that some type of unique agreement or coordination with discoDSP has been made, which is not true, and not our intention.

"The Usual Suspects" remain independent, and our mission is unchanged.

Therefore, we believe that refunding the donation is the most transparent and fair approach.

We want to thank the community for the strong support, feedback, and contributions that help keep this project moving forward.

— The Usual Suspects

Now that's a class act...

George can use the refunded blood money to learn to do some coding and come up with his own ideas instead of swooping in and trying to profit off other people's hard work

[ampetrosillo]

I see IvyBirds has been suspended. I suppose he's going to drown in his own bile alone for some time.

TUS are a bit silly. Take the money and run! $1000 gets you, erm... well, not much any more. Maybe another old synth to analyse.

An1x! An1x! An1x! An1x! An1x! An1x! An1x! An1x! An1x! (you get my point).

[ampetrosillo]

If the original manufacturers of the discontinued hardware made official controllers for TUS software it could be the ultimate win-win!

Yeah that would be an interesting prospect. There was a time I really wanted a TI but the gap between the TI and currently available flagship vst's has narrowed. For example the Tone2 Icarus3 release in some ways surpasses the TI. That is not to say the TI doesn't have a few tricks up its sleeve.

The fact that the TI can trade blows with contemporary VSTs, I'd say, is quite a testament to its quality.

[tumface]

If the original manufacturers of the discontinued hardware made official controllers for TUS software it could be the ultimate win-win!

Yeah that would be an interesting prospect. There was a time I really wanted a TI but the gap between the TI and currently available flagship vst's has narrowed. For example the Tone2 Icarus3 release in some ways surpasses the TI. That is not to say the TI doesn't have a few tricks up its sleeve.

Today's VSTs walk all over the Virus TI. The gap hasn't narrowed, it was blown way past well over a decade ago. It's still cool to use a Virus TI as a historical experience, or if you really want exactly the combination of features it has, or for its presets, but it has no magical DSP or whatever that today's plugins can't match. Actually, there are a bunch of things in the Virus TI that sound a lot worse. Try sweeping a lowpass filter over a relatively clean waveform like a triangle or sine. It'll produce a bunch of ringing artifacts. (Screenshot uses settings to bring it out a lot.)

Screen Shot 2026-03-14 at 03.53.28.png

Of course, maybe you want those artifacts. But they aren't generally considered desirable, and aren't magic.

The Virus does have some really good fudging with how some of its parameters work and stuff, which often tend to lead to good sounds being programmed. (For example, on the TI, if you tune the two oscillators to different semitones, the synth will fudge the tuning slightly to give a more pure intoned interval between them.)

Just to be clear, I love the Virus TI and purchased the first model right when it came out. But it's long "obsolete" at a technical level. (Instruments are never truly obsolete.) I stopped using it in actual productions over a decade ago.

[ampetrosillo]

If the original manufacturers of the discontinued hardware made official controllers for TUS software it could be the ultimate win-win!

Yeah that would be an interesting prospect. There was a time I really wanted a TI but the gap between the TI and currently available flagship vst's has narrowed. For example the Tone2 Icarus3 release in some ways surpasses the TI. That is not to say the TI doesn't have a few tricks up its sleeve.

Today's VSTs walk all over the Virus TI. The gap hasn't narrowed, it was blown way past well over a decade ago. It's still cool to use a Virus TI as a historical experience, or if you really want exactly the combination of features it has, or for its presets, but it has no magical DSP or whatever that today's plugins can't match. Actually, there are a bunch of things in the Virus TI that sound a lot worse. Try sweeping a lowpass filter over a relatively clean waveform like a triangle or sine. It'll produce a bunch of ringing artifacts. (Screenshot uses settings to bring it out a lot.)

Screen Shot 2026-03-14 at 03.53.28.png

Of course, maybe you want those artifacts. But they aren't generally considered desirable, and aren't magic.

The Virus does have some really good fudging with how some of its parameters work and stuff, which often tend to lead to good sounds being programmed. (For example, on the TI, if you tune the two oscillators to different semitones, the synth will fudge the tuning slightly to give a more pure intoned interval between them.)

Just to be clear, I love the Virus TI and purchased the first model right when it came out. But it's long "obsolete" at a technical level. (Instruments are never truly obsolete.) I stopped using it in actual productions over a decade ago.

Well, it's not all about "sound quality" or even features.
My old Polivoks was a "crap" synth (crap keyboard, crap pots, flimsy switches, drifting VCOs, lots of noise), yet I loved it to bits. And I have never heard anything getting close to its raw, ominous tone.

[ampetrosillo]

By the way, this was mine. (I'm a terrible synth player, these days. I used to be better, but I haven't played synths for over a decade).

[tumface]

Well, it's not all about "sound quality" or even features.
My old Polivoks was a "crap" synth (crap keyboard, crap pots, flimsy switches, drifting VCOs, lots of noise), yet I loved it to bits. And I have never heard anything getting close to its raw, ominous tone.

I know. That's why I said maybe you want the artifacts. But the post I was responding to was stating that there was, in general, still a gap between the Virus TIs and VSTs. When stated generally like this, the only interpretation is that there is a "quality" capability gap or feature gap between the Virus TI and VSTs. Neither of which are true. And if you want the kind of digital artifacts in the Virus TI like i showed above, it's not hard to add them on purpose. They aren't magic.

The characteristic flaws in a Polivoks, which are also not magic, are going to be a lot harder to replicate in software. (BTW, you might want to check out GForce's OB-1 emulation if you haven't before, which is a synth that is sort of similar to the Polivoks.)

[george]

@everyone

**Statement from "The Usual Suspects"**

Following the community discussions around Retromulator, discoDSP made a donation of $1000 to the project. While we appreciate the gesture, we have decided to refund the donation.

We want to remain independent from situations where financial contributions could be perceived as influencing the direction of the project. Accepting a donation in this context could give the impression that some type of unique agreement or coordination with discoDSP has been made, which is not true, and not our intention.

"The Usual Suspects" remain independent, and our mission is unchanged.

Therefore, we believe that refunding the donation is the most transparent and fair approach.

We want to thank the community for the strong support, feedback, and contributions that help keep this project moving forward.

— The Usual Suspects

Now that's a class act...

George can use the refunded blood money to learn to do some coding and come up with his own ideas instead of swooping in and trying to profit off other people's hard work

Interesting how "class act" and "blood money" are used in the same breath. Let's recap the facts:

1. The donation was made as a genuine thank you, with no strings attached. It was refunded. We respect that decision.

2. "Learn to do some coding" — Retromulator 1.2, released today, includes an OpenWurli Wurlitzer 200A physical model ported from ~3,000 lines of Rust to C++, a cycle-accurate Nuked OPL3 FM engine, a VDX7 Yamaha DX7 hardware-level emulation, and an enhanced SFZero 3.0 sample engine. All ported or improved by discoDSP. None of these are gearmulator code.

3. Retromulator has always been free. The GPLv3 license explicitly permits anyone to use, modify, distribute, and sell derivative works — no permission required.

4. Full source code: github.com/reales/retromulator

Make of that what you will.

[george]

Speaking of building on other people's work — let's look at what gearmulator itself is built on:

• mc68k — Motorola 68K CPU emulator, forked from Musashi by Karl Stenerud (MIT license)
• JUCE — Audio plugin framework (GPLv3)
• RmlUi — UI rendering library (MIT license)
• FreeType — Font rendering engine (FreeType License / GPLv2)
• CLAP extensions — Plugin format extensions by free-audio
• cpp-terminal — Terminal library for C++

Nobody accused TUS of "stealing" Karl Stenerud's Motorola CPU emulator or when they built their entire project on top of MIT and GPLv3 code written by other people. Nobody started a mob thread about it.

That's how open source works. You build on other people's work, you credit them, you publish your source. Which is exactly what we did.

The double standard here is remarkable.

[Seluvis]

If the original manufacturers of the discontinued hardware made official controllers for TUS software it could be the ultimate win-win!

Yeah that would be an interesting prospect. There was a time I really wanted a TI but the gap between the TI and currently available flagship vst's has narrowed. For example the Tone2 Icarus3 release in some ways surpasses the TI. That is not to say the TI doesn't have a few tricks up its sleeve.

Today's VSTs walk all over the Virus TI. The gap hasn't narrowed, it was blown way past well over a decade ago. It's still cool to use a Virus TI as a historical experience, or if you really want exactly the combination of features it has, or for its presets, but it has no magical DSP or whatever that today's plugins can't match. Actually, there are a bunch of things in the Virus TI that sound a lot worse. Try sweeping a lowpass filter over a relatively clean waveform like a triangle or sine. It'll produce a bunch of ringing artifacts. (Screenshot uses settings to bring it out a lot.)

Screen Shot 2026-03-14 at 03.53.28.png

Of course, maybe you want those artifacts. But they aren't generally considered desirable, and aren't magic.

The Virus does have some really good fudging with how some of its parameters work and stuff, which often tend to lead to good sounds being programmed. (For example, on the TI, if you tune the two oscillators to different semitones, the synth will fudge the tuning slightly to give a more pure intoned interval between them.)

Just to be clear, I love the Virus TI and purchased the first model right when it came out. But it's long "obsolete" at a technical level. (Instruments are never truly obsolete.) I stopped using it in actual productions over a decade ago.

Sometimes a bad Synth can turn into a magical Synth and go beyond the limitations it was initially conceived to be. Something you, I and others like about the Virus TI no doubt.

[tumface]

Speaking of building on other people's work — let's look at what gearmulator itself is built on:

• mc68k — Motorola 68K CPU emulator, forked from Musashi by Karl Stenerud (MIT license)
• JUCE — Audio plugin framework (GPLv3)
• RmlUi — UI rendering library (MIT license)
• FreeType — Font rendering engine (FreeType License / GPLv2)
• CLAP extensions — Plugin format extensions by free-audio
• cpp-terminal — Terminal library for C++

Nobody accused TUS of "stealing" Karl Stenerud's Motorola CPU emulator or when they built their entire project on top of MIT and GPLv3 code written by other people. Nobody started a mob thread about it.

That's how open source works. You build on other people's work, you credit them, you publish your source. Which is exactly what we did.

The double standard here is remarkable.

These are all libraries only. The only way to use them is to include them into another project. The TUS Gearmulator is finished end-user software. That's why people don't react well that it was used to create another, different, functionally equivalent end-user product with a different name. Even if the license allows it. This is the reaction I'd expect, having seen this happen many times in the past.

[BBFG#]

I probably missed it on this thread, but what exactly are the improvements by DiscoDSP that make it different from TUS?

[VitaminD]

Speaking of building on other people's work — let's look at what gearmulator itself is built on:

• mc68k — Motorola 68K CPU emulator, forked from Musashi by Karl Stenerud (MIT license)
• JUCE — Audio plugin framework (GPLv3)
• RmlUi — UI rendering library (MIT license)
• FreeType — Font rendering engine (FreeType License / GPLv2)
• CLAP extensions — Plugin format extensions by free-audio
• cpp-terminal — Terminal library for C++

Nobody accused TUS of "stealing" Karl Stenerud's Motorola CPU emulator or when they built their entire project on top of MIT and GPLv3 code written by other people. Nobody started a mob thread about it.

That's how open source works. You build on other people's work, you credit them, you publish your source. Which is exactly what we did.

The double standard here is remarkable.

They didn't download a complete, end-user ready application and slap their name on it, then list it with a fee, on their commercial website with all their other commercial products either.

TUS took bits and bobs and made something vastly different with them. A whole new thing from those GPL'd libraries and the emu engine. Your initial release effectively looked like you went COPY then PASTE off the TUS application and claimed it as if you did the work.

Even if you are legally allowed to do this, the way you went about it didn't seem fair to many on how you handled it with TUS. Only after much blowback (on here and other social media sites) have you added more things (which mostly seem like other GPL'd code), offered the monetary 'apology', and generally tried to patch things up.

But you did come off as a parasite. And that's why people were (are?) upset with you.