On Wed, Mar 24, 2021 at 9:20 AM AndyHornBlower via <man.of.mystery=[email protected]> wrote:
I'd suggest downloading Dexed, which emulates a DX7 quite closely, and is free.? That comes with a large set of patches you can open in that or the DX7.
I've tried Dexed on Windows.? I'm not sure what else it can run on.
That shows each patch as a set of knobs and switches, broken down into six identical operators, an LFO, and an algorithm selector, which is lets you choose different ways of routing the operators, from a list of 32 options, plus each one specifies which operator can have feedback (there's only ever one with feedback).
All the knobs and switches work, so you can edit the patches with it, save them again to the computer, or upload them to the DX7.
You'd need a MIDI keyboard/controller, but if you have a MIDI interface for your computer, you can use the DX7 for that - just sent notes to the computer from MIDI Out, rather than listening to the DX7's audio output.
You can find Dexed here: the download link is on the right, under "releases".
Probably a good way to get started is by searching YouTube for DX7 or FM programming videos.? They tend not to go into much depth, but they can be enough to give you some idea.
You can use just about any sysex utility to send patches to the DX7.? Good ones for Windows are MIDI-OX () and Bome's SendSX ().? I think SendSX is more user friendly and easier to get started with.
