Yamaha DX7 Family

Single Patch Editor

This patch editor ought to work properly with the DX7-compatible family (DX7, TX816/TX216, TX7, Korg Volca FM, Dexed, much of the DX200, and likely synths such as the DX7 II). It is likely to also work on the DX9 (see below). The FS1R will also likely load patches from it. However it has only been tested on the Yamaha TX216, TX7, and Dexed. Please let me know of any discrepancies you discover.

About the Korg Volca FM

The Volca FM's patch load facility is almost compatible with the DX7: but for unfathomable reasons Korg repurposed the checksum byte in the DX7 single (not bank) patch sysex to instead refer to which operators are "turned on", a terrible idea. This means that single-patch uploads to the Volca, which have proper checksums, will "turn off" some of the Volca's operators, making sounds muddy and quiet. To prevent this, check the "Korg Volca FM" box and Edisyn will send what the Volca wants in the checksum byte. Be sure to keep that box unchecked for any other DX7 compatible synthesizer or they won't upload properly. Note also that /u/pajen's alternative Volca Firmware 1.09 has an option to turn off this misfeature, so you wouldn't check the box with that. See here for a discussion of it (in the 1.08 documentation).

About the DX9

The DX9 is patch-compatible with the DX7 but it is missing a few features. Most importantly, the DX9 only has four operators and thus eight algorithms. The eight DX9 algorithms are indicated as you scroll through the 32 DX7 algorithms. In the DX9 version of the algorithms, operators 1 through 4 correspond to operators 3 through 6 on the DX7; and the DX7's operators 1 and 2 are ignored. Additionally, while the DX7 has 32 patches in its RAM banks, the DX9 only has 20.

About the DX200

The DX200 is roughly compatible with the DX7, but has certain additional patch parameters lacking in the DX7 (the so-called ACED/AMEM parameters), and Edisyn does not emit or parse these parameters. These include: per-operator amplitude modulation sensitivity; pitch envelope generator range, scaling depth, and velocity switch; LFO key trigger; poly/mono/unison switch; pitch bend range and step; random pitch fluctuation; portamento mode, step, and time; and unison detune depth.

Bank Sysex

This patch editor knows about bank sysex messages (which group together multiple patches) as well as single-patch sysex messages. If Edisyn loads or receives a bank sysex message, you will be given the option to edit a patch from it, to save the whole bank sysex, or to upload the whole bank sysex.

Communicating with Edisyn

The precise instructions here vary depending on the DX7 family synth you own. But in general: Set your synthesizer to receive and transmit on the same channel (perhaps Channel 1), and turn off memory protection. Turn on reception of sysex (on the DX7, "SYS INFO AVAIL"), and program change (PC) messages. Turn on transmission of sysex messages if your model has this option.

Gotchas



About the Librarian

You cannot write individual patches to the Yamaha DX7; you can only send patches to its current memory, then manually save them to a patch slot. However you can write entire banks to the DX7. That is what the Librarian will permit.

On some variations of the DX7 you can request bank dumps (on the original DX7 you cannot, but you can download patch-by-patch). This option is available in the Librarian menu.

Edisyn can quick-request a bank from many versions of the DX7 (but not the original! You have to download patch-by-patch) via Request Bank from Synth. This is a lot faster than the patch-by-patch request method in Download Bank from Synth. So try it out.
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Thanks

Thanks to Martin Tarenskeen (m.tarenskeen@kpnmail.nl) for envelope revisions.

By    Sean Luke
Date    April 2018