awesome-linuxaudio VS yamaha_dx7_rom_disassembly

> Is there a highly-regarded software (or hardware + software) emulator for the DX7?

Dexed is probably what you're looking for, although there are others here: https://github.com/nodiscc/awesome-linuxaudio#synthesizers--...

These are not all free, but it's worth checking out. https://github.com/nodiscc/awesome-linuxaudio

regarding Ableton, I know some people are doing it but my advice is don't go for proton/wine if you can go native. there's tons of pro soft for linux: https://github.com/nodiscc/awesome-linuxaudio

This awesome-linuxaudio page has a number of quality programs that you can try.

I think the landscape is fairly good now actually. There's tons of good FOSS audio software, and for commercial DAWs we have Bitwig, REAPER, Renoise and Tracktion Waveform. And while there stil aren't that many commercial plugin developers out there that natively support Linux, you can get really far nowadays with the offerings from Bitwig, U-He, TAL, AudioDamage, Loomer, Pianoteq, Audio Assault and many more vendors. You can find are some non-exhaustive lists of vendors supporting Linux here, here and here. Since I too don't want to make compromises if I don't have to, I made yabridge last year which lets you use 32-bit and 64-bit Windows VST2 and VST3 as if they were native 64-bit Linux VST2 and VST3 plugins. I'm really happy with how that turned out, and the reception has been nothing but positive. Wine's getting really good, and the only things that can consistently make things difficult are invasive DRM schemes like iLoK and Waves' DRM. But yeah, even without yabridge there are plenty of good native DAWs and plugins for Linux right now.

I wrote the article mentioned by Ken: https://ajxs.me/blog/Yamaha_DX7_Technical_Analysis.html

I've unwittingly become a bit of a Yamaha FM Synth historian!

Here are some other contributions to reverse-engineering the DX7:

A fully documented disassembly of the DX7 ROM: https://github.com/ajxs/yamaha_dx7_rom_disassembly

A new firmware ROM that makes the DX9 function like a DX7:

I browsed through the repository as discovered by colejohnson66 downthread https://github.com/ajxs/yamaha_dx7_rom_disassembly. This is an example of superb, meticulous, lovingly documented work. The kind of thing you don't see every day, congratulations. The attention to detail is really just chef's kiss, starting with a really good repository name (a small thing, but still), continuing through clear and apparently comprehensive documentation of what you did and why, then on to beautifully formatted and commented assembly language (much better than the original source code I'd wager) with coherent and consistent paragraph commenting a particular delight, and finally (and very importantly) dedication to making sure others can reproduce your results and generate a matching binary too. There are likely to be other things of beauty in there I have forgotten to highlight, it's just that good. Oh the FAQ of course, what a great FAQ. Really I am being very wordy for someone that's lost for words.

BTW, I love retro computing too, this is my best attempt so far in the field https://github.com/billforsternz/retro-sargon. I aspire to similar standards to your good self, but I'm not there yet.

Very cool! This is really great work! It's awesome that there's been so many synthesiser related topics on Hacker News lately. I did a similar project myself to disassemble, and fully annotate the firmware for the Yamaha DX7: https://github.com/ajxs/yamaha_dx7_rom_disassembly

The biggest hint I could give anyone looking to disassemble a synthesiser operating system is to direct your attention towards the code processing individual MIDI messages. The code is invariably is huge mess, however you'll be able to very quickly identify the operating system's core functions, since the corresponding SysEx parameter numbers clearly identify what functionality you're looking at.

Anthony just released his annotated DX-7 ROM listing:

https://github.com/ajxs/yamaha_dx7_rom_disassembly