Has anybody sorted through DX7 presets for the decent ones, for Dexed?

[NikkiA]

The real issue with Dexed is that people forget that a DX7 has no onboard FX, and you really need to treat the sounds it produces. Even the default 1984 'flute' preset sounds great once you've added some chorus, tape saturation and reverb.

[BenfordLaw]

I saved them all out as individual Logic presets (which was a task!) so I can access them, search and organise them as necessary.

One of these days, Logic will (hopefully) add a favourites/ratings feature to their browser which will come in handy. I don't feel the need to delete anything for now, but certainly as I come across stuff I like I can easily copy the individual presets into a favourites folder.

We all have different tastes though, so I'm not sure how useful a community effort to "rate" them would be...

I think it would be easy to rate them because so many sound like FM crap. You must know the type of sound I am talking about. The sounds you NEVER hear in music because it isn't pleasant to the ear. It has that 'nasal FM' twang about it, it's in so many of the available presets, which is what drives me mad going through them all.

But apparently it's awful of me to ask if anybody else has actually done something, because apparently I should code every VST I use from scratch, write my own operating system too, build my own chip fab plant to create microprocessors and so on and so forth...

[BenfordLaw]

I have a selection of DX7 voices on my Github page : https://github.com/jphaenlin/DX7-patches

Thank you - at last, a normal, sane, helpful answer! I will download those and have a look, that's very kind of you.

And of course, you've only made four posts in your entire time here, unlike those who spend hours every day on here, 'policing' others' thoughts...

[Teksonik]

I wonder what that number is for the 6 Op DX? I imagine it would be in the few thousands. Keeping in mind that unique does not try to factor in the subjective nature of "good" and "bad" patches.

It's, at minimum, 127^28, which is 8 * 10^58.

Factoring in the Envelope settings, Scaling etc? Taking into consideration "patches that are identical to the human ear" ?

No matter, the math is over my head. I'll just say "a bunch".

[beely]

So not just Tine 1 and Tine 2 then but Tine 1267 as well ?

I got *all* the Tines..!

Of course any synth except perhaps sample based synths have a theoretical max number of unique patches they can create based on the complexity of their architecture.

Yep, but these things depend on what you classify as unique - all synths beyond the super simple ones can have an essentially infinite number of parameter changes that will not change the sound in any significant way, so at some point you have to decide what is enough of a change to determine "uniqueness".

It's probably more an area for AI/machine learning to derive any meaningful results. I've always found FM (at least DX-style FM) to have a limited amount of sweet spots (as evidenced by the many thousands of patches available - you recognise similarities in patch design and FM tonal characteristics quite quickly).

[Teksonik]

The real issue with Dexed is that people forget that a DX7 has no onboard FX, and you really need to treat the sounds it produces. Even the default 1984 'flute' preset sounds great once you've added some chorus, tape saturation and reverb.

I used to run my DX through a Yamaha SPX-90 multi-effects unit which I still own although I've long since sold my DX and TX7.

But you're right FM sounds have always greatly benefited from external processing.

[Teksonik]

Yep, but these things depend on what you classify as unique - all synths beyond the super simple ones can have an essentially infinite number of parameter changes that will not change the sound in any significant way, so at some point you have to decide what is enough of a change to determine "uniqueness".

Well as an over simplification I would consider Tine 1 and Bass 1 two unique sounds. Tine 1 and Tine 2 maybe not so much unless they were discernibly different. Not just slight differences in tuning for example.

So yea maybe unique may not be accurately defined but "identical to the human ear" probably is until someone chimes that "not everyone's hearing is the same".

[Teksonik]

Here's the .syx bank of 32 patches that was in my TX-7 when I sold it many years ago. Not a "best of" simply some of the third party patches and some of my own that I liked at the time.

I've always liked *PPG* Vol.1 for example. It came from a bank I've never been able to find anywhere on the internet that was called "German Dude" and all the patches had * in the names. Sadly it was lost when I sold my Atari ST.

If anyone ever finds that bank jump on it as it contains some great examples of early DX patches.

Aacustom.zip

[beely]

I've always liked *PPG* Vol.1 for example. It came from a bank I've never been able to find anywhere on the internet that was called "German Dude" and all the patches had * in the names. Sadly it was lost when I sold my Atari ST.

If anyone ever finds that bank jump on it as it contains some great examples of early DX patches.

Pretty sure that bank is in the BW Dexed cart, and yes, there are some good patches in there..!

Rather than finding the bank, here's a quick search on "ppg" for example:

Screenshot 2021-11-17 at 17.40.09.png

[mholloway]

I've always liked *PPG* Vol.1 for example. It came from a bank I've never been able to find anywhere on the internet that was called "German Dude" and all the patches had * in the names. Sadly it was lost when I sold my Atari ST.

If anyone ever finds that bank jump on it as it contains some great examples of early DX patches.

Pretty sure that bank is in the BW Dexed cart, and yes, there are some good patches in there..!

Rather than finding the bank, here's a quick search on "ppg" for example:


Screenshot 2021-11-17 at 17.40.09.png

The Dexed Cart has dozens of folders, with many nested folders inside those -- any idea where the PPG bank is among those?

[beely]

The Dexed Cart has dozens of folders, with many nested folders inside those -- any idea where the PPG bank is among those?

The patches are in multiple banks in multiple places - being able to search by patch name is one of the perks of not needing to worry about, or have to find, which bank folder stuff is in.

For example, you could look in PA-Decoder -> MONST-ROM A2, but there are probably thirty or forty banks those patches or variations appear in, and I didn't really want to back track and list out each one from the individual patches (not that it's difficult, the patches are in folders in the same layout as the cart, it's just tedious.) But that one I mentioned is a good example.

[vurt]

at the risk of abuse re post counts...

could you give some idea of sounds you like that used the dx?
songs from the wiki for example?

because out of 20000 sounds, yeah, i can see there might be a fair few that are useless to you or someone else but someone else might have use for.
and probably some total shite too.

[nominil]

For PPG, maybe check steinber.syx?

[Teksonik]

Pretty sure that bank is in the BW Dexed cart, and yes, there are some good patches in there.

It had more than PPG patches in it. In fact I'm not 100% sure that PPG patch came from the bank I just remember they all had an * in the name sometimes both at the beginning and the end. I'll look for the bank in the Dexed collection but I've never seen it named as such in any of the online searches I've done over the years.

It's been 30+ years so I don't remember all the patches in the bank but I might recognize them by sight. Might jog the old memory.

I just remember the bank was called "German Dude" and I liked it a lot. This would have been somewhere around 1987-ish.

[beely]

It had more than PPG patches in it. In fact I'm not 100% sure that PPG patch came from the bank I just remember they all had an * in the name sometimes both at the beginning and the end. I'll look for the bank in the Dexed collection but I've never seen it named as such in any of the online searches I've done over the years.

Sure. Often people made their own compilation banks of their favourite sounds, and shared them, randomly named, or shared existing banks under a new name, which is one reason there are so many duplicate patches around. Banks are *far* more likely just to be compilations of favourite sounds made by others, than extensively programmed custom patches, because basically no-one programmed their own patches on the DX7. Even commercial banks did this!

So even if that particular exact bank wasn't online when Black Whinny compiled the cart, likely the sounds in it came from other banks which are there. The way Dexed handles banks makes it pretty painful to look for anything other than bank names (in your filesystem) - one of the reasons I saved the individual patches out, as it makes it far easier to go looking for specific patches (see some of my recent blog posts for more on that process.)

And "german dude" could be anyone, likely the original bank came from something named "Florian Schneider"and some US dude renamed it "german dude" to make it easier to find or something. I mean there are folders/banks in there called eg "Pete Franz", as well as some Spanish, French, Japanese and other nationality dudes, going by the names (not so many dudettes alas).

It's been 30+ years so I don't remember all the patches in the bank but I might recognize them by sight. Might jog the old memory.

I mean I can dump a filelist, but do you *really* want to scan through 118,000 patch files..?