Sound design on MINIDEXED DIY synthesizer

I created a "evolving pad" sound using MINIDEXED's one encoder interface only so you don't have to. :-) MINIDEXED is a bare metal TX816 (8 full #DX7 #synthesizer emulators at once) emulation #RaspberryPI. Table of contents:

00:00 intro
00:22 hello
00:43 basics
01:49 algorithm and operator 1 setup
02:32 operator 2
03:57 operator 3
04:37 operator 4
05:03 operator 5
05:43 operator 6
06:29 lfo setup
07:15 modulation depth
07:42 important things to consider
08:01 full demo
11:11 bye-bye

Resources for this project:

Here's what I have in my setup at the moment. Want to have that, too? Please use the followings links and support me:

MPC One, Novation PEAK, Reface DX, Strymon Nightsky, Strymon Volante, Strymon Iridium, Zoom MS 70 CDR, Korg NanoKontrol 2, Korg NanoKey, Akai EWI USB, Zoom R24, Zoom H5, Yamaha MT7:

Some bands / artists I've been following for a long time are (among others) Massive Attack, Pink Floyd, Pet Shop Boys, Archive, A-Ha, Yes, Porcupine Tree, John Mellencamp, Jean-Michel Jarre, Metallica, Peter Gabriel and Perturbator. So my music will kind of sound like those (without ever reaching the greatness of those artists, of course). :-)

[tolipydob]

Hi Floyd. Thank you for your great content. It's easy listening to my ears! :-)
Some of your jams on the early micro/minidexed video's are etched in my happy memories forever.
I watch this video and I see you with a custom encoder/button in your hand to help you enjoy the process of tweaking the sound. Imagine a pistol(ish) grip with a thumb wheel encoder and either a thumb button or index finger button. whoosh less of a 'grind' to tweak the sound! :-)
A modified trackball middle wheel/button is also similar to what I imagine you using.

My brain got started down an imaginary(yet possible) human interface after viewing the "M5Stack" encoder wheels that are available off the shelf. Almost, , , what I imagine is already on sale! 🙂

[sCealt]

i admire your patience :)) programming a TX816 with a single knob is quite audacious! programming my TX81Z from the front panel already drives me nuts, so kudos!

[reversetechnologist]

Well done as always Floyd! Keep up the great work!

[unclemick-synths]

Sadly I'm too busy to build this so I have to enjoy yours vicariously!

I do like the matter-of-fact way you describe creating FM patches - too many people stress themselves about programming FM when it's actually not that hard.

[danielmarti]

And our friends are all aboard
Many more of them live next door
And the band begins to play 😄
Great video. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

[iixorb]

Ah, I’m glad I found this ! I heard about it a few weeks ago and then wasn’t able to find it again. As an owner of 7 x DX7 mk1s and 2 x DX7IIFD’s, I’m really interested in this project. Time permitting, I want to give it a go.

[matrixx]

very cool video. I just built one of these, the external DAC is a must. I wish there was a Pi Hat that had the display and a few knobs on it.

[valley_robot]

Very cool sound design tutorial, I’m fine with FM synthesis, but I’m sure this helped lots of people

[LeviathaninWaves]

Excellent FM pad.
Have you messed around with Sunvox recently? The developer recently added a new FMX module that has 5 operators, tons of waveforms, and a ridiculous amount of modulation options. Really good if you like the modular approach and trackers.

[imuzikworkstation]

This fantastic..i want to build one to attached my yamaha kx5..your thought n recommendations needed..thanx

[toitoitoy]

I'd like it to support small touch screen display so we have mini Kodamo FM

[MacyLytle]

I understand the history of navigating with very limited input but is it possible to expand user experience with more controls? One hacky way could be a separate controller that simply records and stores your inputs and can then play them back in one click. Would a tool like that be useful? Are there many series of inputs that you find yourself using consistently? Or are there too many short basic short series’ of inputs that very only slightly and are more similar than not? Furthermore If that is the case, a macro playback wouldn’t make sense… would a little box with 12 buttons each set to different macros help or speed up workflow or make it more fun? There are other ways but this is a way that would simply send input signals and the minidexed would just read them the same as if you were just using the ‘manual’ encoder method. It wouldn’t need to integrate further than that.

[StephenBrown]

Do you think adding a second button to the user interface would make it better? It looks a little fiddly having to rely on double clicks on the encoder so I'm planning on building a version of this with a separate back button.

[bornach]

Would be interesting exercise to compare the time it takes to do the same sound design using just a Korg Volca FM with no uploading of settings from Dexed PC applications

[johncabrer]

I'm having no joy with the encoder. Maybe I pulled my copy of the image from github at a bad time? In any case, I'm really diggin' these videos on RPi music. I'm stacking a minidexed, mt32-pi, and RPi midi host along with a RetrocadeSynth to serve as my midi research lab. Inspired!

[wobblyman]

are there any nice kits for MINIDEXED ?

[greenbillugaming]

please make some kind of hardware for sunvox if possible. and compare it with m8

[NickHowesAstro]

When this is sysex compatible with DEXED, it'll be a game changer... editing through a letterbox has never appealed to me (and I owned a Korg Wavestation and SR in the 90s!)

[BoringStranger]

Sound design on the device itself seems rather pointless. Or am I missing something? Isn’t this WAY easier to do on the computer and send the patch to the device?

[valley_robot]

Makes you realise how overpriced synths are eh, I use dexed, it’s free and it works fine on my GPD pocket 2 with a little M audio pro mini keyboard, I’ve stopped buying synths, I don’t think I’ll ever buy another hardware synth, software is fine, this is after over a year of working solely with an MPC one, being able to sample any sound and use it as a polyphonic keyboard sound was a game changer for me