Let's think for a moment here. I bet you that if Arturia's version came out before the hardware, if somehow we were exposed to VST's and software before hardware we would have audiophiles saying that the software gives a particular sound that appeals to them. ````I'm a proud owner of Arturia V collection and Arturia MatrixBrute hardware, the ladder one because I like to feel the knobs.
Exactly hardware snobs are always trying to justify their overpriced purchases to people who can't afford expensive synths this is harmful behaviour to beginners because they're telling them without overpriced gear they can never make great sounding music which is false
Just listened again... carefully, with HQ headphones... and yes, they sound identical. Or, well... okay, there is a slight difference, but I cannot say that one of them is being "fuller" or "richer". Sometimes the Yamaha sounds more alive, sometimes the Arturia does. It is like the slight difference between two DX7's. Or using different cable sets. Nah, this is in all respect a 100% reproduction by Arturia. Excellent.
Nailed it. If someone isn't happy- 1) they're crazy 2) use a teeny bit of EQ (for the most part not necessary at all. I had a DX7 when they came out, happy to trade it in for SY77, and other subsequent Yamahas. Never missed it a bit. Now these brilliant VSTs, which I can control with my M08 which has a weighted 88 key keyboard. No going back. Arturia V is $200- a steal.
1. Ray Parker jr. - Ghostbusters 2. Starship - We Built This City 3. Toto - Africa (although played slightly incorrectly :P ) 4. Doobie Brothers - What a Fool Believes 5. Whitesnake - Here I Go Again 6. Whitney Houston - Greatest Love Of All 7. ? 8. Berlin - Take My Breath Away (with some improv) 9. Survivor - Eye Of The Tiger (though the sound is not in the actual song) 10. The Stranglers - Golden Brown (played slightly incorrectly as well :P ) 11. Sting - Love Is The Seventh Wave (at least it sounds like it) 12. ? 13. Richard Strauss - Also sprach Zarathustra, Einleitung, oder Sonnenaufgang 14. Band Aid - Do They Know It's Christmas?
That was really useful to hear how similar DX7 V sounds to the real thing. Having owned many DX7's (used) but now simply wanting something I don't have to lug around, now I know the software can replace the hardware. Thanks for the demo.
Just saw this and the first video on Synthtopia - well done Woody, more recognition of your value as a true and unbiased contributor to the music scene.
You can tell by the shape of the waveform already, their practically identical. Very good job by Arturia! The sound is so close I would not beeing able to tell the difference anymore.
Actually no. If you look at th-cam.com/video/iHycGwuWcn0/w-d-xo.html you can clearly see that there is a case of inverted polarity going on. So they are not "identical" as in photo copies. Still they can sound the same if the polarity is inverted if they are just "mirror images" of each others (as much plus as minus of each other). But then you can see from other patches that they aren't identical (when no inverted polarity). Still they sound very, very close almost identical.
Very very close. It's a subtle difference, but it goes to show that the old converters of the hardware are a part of the synths's character, despite being pretty crap by today's standards. But Arturia is 90% there, and anyone wanting the DX7 sound without the hardware would likely be just as happy. Good stuff as always Woody.
I think it is much, much more down to how the DX7 internally computes the algorithms. I don't think that they "open sourced" every part of the engine. Yes you can reverse-engineer it, but there still will be parts of it where you have to guess how much and in what way one part reacts to another (over a whole range of values). Add to that the rounding errors in the original DX7 which couldn't use large floating point numbers (like in a modern DAW and VI) for every calculation, which would result in a wave that would be different since there are loads of these calculations(often multiplications for example) going on. I think that it's very easy to always blame it on the converters when these comparisons are made.
I really think the differences is neglicable. Yes it would be better if they'd completely reverse enginered the original Yamaha chips and build a fpga version, but that just wouldn't be feasable if they are to make money of it. If you just need a single or a couple DX7 patches for a song and you don't have an original DX7 in your setup no matter what people say, you are not gonna be able to hear the difference in the mix if the person used a DX7/DX7II or a software product like DX7V or Dexed. Yes you can hear the differences in an a/b test. There is more body in the Original, the Dexed is thinner and sharper, where the Arturia is wamer compared to the real DX7. Yes You will know what you used, but a normal listener would neither be able to hear the difference, nor would he bother if you told him. Who cares if the result sounds good.
Hardware sounds a bit brighter and you can hear the unit's noise which imho contributes to the sound in a good way. Gotta admit the plugin is pretty damn close. Thanks for the video, exactly what I wanted to watch.
Die hard hardware lovers will always find something to pick at. Their brain will fool them into thinking it's all wrong. That the legendary DX7 will always be king and no VST will ever be good enough. They will use words like "full", "warm" or "rounded". To me, this is 99.99999% accurate. Which beats having to route audio/midi cables.
i also appreciate the convenience of the plugin, but remember it's not just the sound, you got the physical presence of the real thing, that keybed... etc.
In addition when you track in the studio or live line through a system you would never hear the difference Most of us have preamps of decent quality many interfaces of course have them built in
I have a dx7 and would never use the words warm or rounded to describe it. To me it's usually people that have no real experience with hardware that act like hardware snobs and say silly things like that in comment sections(this comment section has quite a few examples of stupidity on display) this is a great plugin and done well enough to fool anyone, especially within a song. I look forward to to purchasing it.
@@leepicciotto Exactly. I had an original DX7 when they first came out. This goes way beyond the now laughable 8 bit cpu. Does it sound exactly the same, 95 percent. Can it sound a million times better with all its extra features and vastly superior quality sound mode, 1000 percent it can.
Jamie Bales I have lots of real analog hardware and it all beats plugins. Some more so than others. I don’t have a DX7 so can’t comment on that but I want to get a TX7. I have a few analog synths and even the very best plugins don’t compete. There is another factor in this though. The A/D conversion when you record this stuff. I have a Mytek interface which is very high quality. The differences then become much more apparent. Recording studios don’t use the cheap converters than many people use on TH-cam and you also critically need high end playback speakers or headphones. Then it becomes night and day. If you are listening via low end quality gear then you won’t hear the difference.
Great effort from Arturia and of course props to do video again for people to get fair comparison. Next is Roland and it's cloud version of JV-1080, i hope :)
close but to me on many occasions the DX7 sounds preferable, fatter low end and more open high end, although there is also noise which kind of adds to the sound IMO...the Arturia is very close on other patches...great tests Woody!
Exceptional comparison, thank you for your efforts! Arturia's VST do sound like a DX7, minor differences and I'm pretty sure that no one can tell them in a mix. I find VST a little bit better mainly cause DX7 is so heavy to move around and such a pain to program it :)
I'll bet in a blind test no-one would not have got it even 30% correct! Confirmation bias is always 100% right. Very good emulation and the same as much of Arturia soft synth production these days... I still like the hardware though...
Blind tests are a bit problematic, as some people know what artifacts to listen for. But most would have no way of knowing. And withint a track, with effects and other sounds surrounding it, I don't think it would make any real difference.
My opinion: you bring the soul of the DX-7, real or emulated. Sounds like the eighties! I had a real one but I had to chnge the battery and I'm more into jazz.
There it is. Glad it was an easy fix. I'm not a VST guy generally but this VCollection is really tempting me. If they ever do the Voyetra Eight I'll literally be throwing money at Arturia.
+Edward Cotter You mean the Octave Plateau Voyetra 8 in all of its "stair step" "zipper noise" glory? Thats why I got rid of mine. The envelopes were digital and way less than 16 bit, you could actually hear the slow decay "stepping down" as the sound faded. The oscillators did have a wide bandwidth sound.
Richard Hill I don't know... Always sounded great to me. New Order managed to do some lovely, airy things with it. I hope you got good money for it though. They go for absolutely insane prices now when you see them(not often) which is why I'd love a VST version.
Virtually the same now, and gets to the point where you could have two different DX7s (or even different batches of the Yamaha chip) that sound slightly different anyway. A similar argument to the various C64 SID chip emulations - the sound of each chip could vary quite wildly, but then they did have more analog filtering stuff on the chip than the DX7. Sounds like the DX7 in the vid is a tad too high in pitch compared to the Arturia plugin, but that's kind of par for the course with old synths too. :p Still very impressed with Dexed as a freebie though. It's also extremely similar to the original DX7.
Nah, two different Yamaha DX7 would sound identical. They are all digital. And at the output stage they use the same DAC. I think you confuse this with what happens with analogue synths where there could be a great difference. There are no analogue filters in the DX7:s. In fact the whole synthesis chain is all digital. I would be extremely surprised if anybody could hear a difference between two DX7:s (the originals not the later upgraded versions). But on the other hand there are some differences in how the emulation sound here compared to the DX7. Yes most of the sounds on them sound virtually the same, but the "The greatest love of all" sounds clearly (Well, slightly) different on them. Definitely more than a DX7 vs another DX7.
Magnus Lööv Yep, I agree that two DX7s should sound almost the same, but I just meant that we are VERY close to the sound in VSTi plugins like Dexed now. And, I appreciate that the SID chip was probably a bad example in this case. lol I know that the DX7 / YM2151 is basically a fully digital chip, and uses an on-die ROM table for a quarter of the root sine wave etc.
I spent quite a lot of time in recent months reverse-engineering things like the LA32 chip (MT-32 / D-50), and the SID chip, so yeah, the SID was a bad example, because the output filters can actually sound quite a lot different between batches. hehe There is an "average" of the SID sound though (for both the 6581 and 8580), but that exposes one of the main issues with "cloning" it on modern hardware like FPGAs - everyone remembers their own SID chip sounding slightly different to the "average" one, because it probably did. For the LA32 btw, rather than staring at the die shot or logic analyser captures for weeks, I was trying to think of a much faster way to be able to watch the register writes in realtime... I finally tried something I've been meaning to test for years, by hooking up the CPU bus of an LA32 board (in this case from a Roland D-10) to the FPGA board. I could then have the FPGA display an exact "mirror" of the LA32 registers via VGA, which made it SOOOO much easier to figure out what was going on (as I played notes on the MIDI keyboard, and twiddled the parameters etc.) imgur.com/pBFNEzw imgur.com/33wKe1L
(for anyone still reading. lol)... It turns out that the LA32 registers are in groups of two bytes, so pretty much everything is handled as 16-bit values internally. For each of the 32 voices, the CPU simply writes the values for the filter cutoff / resonance, the pitch of the voice, whether it's a PCM or "synth" voice, the PCM sample index (if used), and some other bits for the chosen algorithm etc. Interestingly (as partly mentioned in the MUNT emulator project), the LA32 also assists the main CPU by generating an interrupt every time the "ramp" values for the TVA reach the "target" values. (using the top set of 32 two-byte values, shown in red. One "word" per voice, with the first byte being the starting ramp value, and the second byte being the target)... imgur.com/r1Ienjx (So, 8-bit values for the ADSR / TVA envelope.) As soon as the ramp value reaches the target value, the LA32 triggers an interrupt, then the CPU then just updates the next values in those regs, so it can do the full ADSR cycle. As far as I can tell, it doesn't do the same thing for the filter regs, so the timing for all of the TVF stuff is just handled directly by the CPU itself. I'm hoping to eventually implement a 100% clone of the LA32 on FPGA, so more people can enjoy things like the D-50 sound on real hardware, without having to fork out the expense of the original synths. ;) (preservation is also a big part of this, as I'm hoping more and more of the digital synth designs can be reverse-engineered and captured for all time.)
1:35 You can hear a big difference in these two sounds, the hardware DX7 has some fuzziness/noise in the top while the Arturia is much cleaner. That fuzziness is what I love about the DX7 Mk1, when you stack it (TX816) it turns into a beautiful vintage digital cloud. Wish there was an emulation out there that could nail this. Edit: There is a plugin that can emulate this! >> Plogue OPS7
Your assuming the fuzziness is by design. Maybe, maybe not. Analog components age so the fuzziness could be from the degradation of the components themselves.
@@steveeckert8396 I don't think it's degradation, it's due to the bit depth and companding algorithms used in the converters. Plogue has a more accurate emulation of the DX7 that recreates this fuzz perfectly, at least compared to my memory of the hardware unit.
Revisiting this, after hearing how different the DX7 mk2 sounds to the mk1, the Arturia is an incredible emulation. Even the waveforms are almost identical. There is a touch of difference at times, but it's not losing any of the good stuff, it maintains the beauty of the sound. I know this is old news, but we've hit the good times in the software world as far as instruments are concerned. Just compressors need to catch up now as they are missing compression harmonics, 'solidarity', stereo imagng, and i think thats also what causes a lack of depth. Funny enough one of the best comparisons so far is the Arturia emulation of the DBX 160. But it's still not 'there' yet.
As a follow-up from a comment I made on your first DX7 V video, as it turns out, if you have ever 'bought' anything from Arturia in the past (including when they have giveaways), your account will be eligible for the special introductory pricing of $249 for the full 'V Collection 6'! My mistake was assuming that logging in would 'stick' after clicking the link in the email - once I logged in from *that* window the correct price showed - and I bought it. Truly some amazing stuff there!
And if you just bought the whole V Collection 5 collection a month ago, you can now upgrade to version 6 for $199 more. I thought that was too high. But I could not say no.
Totally get that "could not say no" feeling! But I also think that the upgrade price is too high - common complaint I have seen on blogs, social media, etc. I think for the 'Collection 5' that $99 would have been so much more equitable, with $199 for earlier releases, etc.
Better to make a mistake and correct it than to forget about it! They sound pretty close, i'd imaging even 2 DX7's from that era will never be 100% the same, especially after 35 years. It would be interesting to see who much easier it is to come up with a DX7 patch on the Arturia VST, and then port it to the real thing. Best of both worlds - modern GUI editing, and real hardware.
Very very close imho. Looking at the waveforms there is hardly any difference between Arturia and the real thing. A very fine comparison Woody. As always a joy to see you in action. Thank you again...
Opsix User here. As I learned today the Arturia has other waveforms than sine. This elevates it over the original. It’s essentially a 6 operator tx81z , nearly an Opsix :-) Lately bass is possible with the Arturia ;-)
Great comparison! Here's the thing tho, which was pointed out in the Arturia forums: You're using a DX-7 as the MIDI controller for the Arturia version, and the DX-7 only outputs the limited velocity range. The software wasn't designed for that. It was designed for a modern full-range MIDI controller. That's why the setting is there, so a modern controller that outputs full velocity range can be "limited" to the range of the original hardware. ;) :D
The main reason I am getting the Arturia plugin is I dont have room for more synths in my studio. The Behringer deepmind 12 took the last spot. And the DX7 is huge as heck.
Interesting comparison, Woody. My ears would be hard-pressed to tell the difference once they're set up properly. Wishing you and your family Happy Holidays.
WOW this is a huge improvement over the last video! I think the Arturia model is probably more accurate than the Dexed model now. Amazon how close it is to the real DX7.
Superb work this time Woody, though you did no wrong before: the DX7 V velocity settings are confusing and counterintuitive. Extra clarity seems evident on the DX7 V bounces compared to the real DX7, especially the bells at the end, probably because the real DX 7 recording has been subject to two stages of AD-DA conversion by that stage. To all intents and purposes they are pretty much identical.
Sure the DX7 mode should be called DX7 Emulation. And they could have added a Controlled by DX7 mode, that is in reality the same as the full mode, but just so that users having a DX7 or midi files from one, would select the right mode.
My main bone of contention is when presented with MIDI notes which max-out at 100 velocity, in 'DX7' mode the VST does not play its full range of velocities. So, contrary to what one of its co-developers said in the comments of the previous video, it would not sound like a real DX7 if played directly from a real DX7, whose velocity maxes-out at 100. Instead you have to select 'full' mode. Then, it would. The two modes appear to operate exactly opposite to what you would expect. I think it's a bug and Arturia just don't like to say so.
The "DX7" velocity mode, is "DX7 Velocity Emulation Mode". Since the DX7 doesn't use the full velocity range, the "DX7 Velocity Emulation Mode" re-scales the velocity data it recieves so it corresponds to the value the DX7 engine in the DX7 hardware would receive for its own keyboard. In this case the midi data comes from a DX7. So what happens when DX7 Velocity Emulation is performed on the output of a DX7 that doesn't have full velocity? Well the values will be lowered. That is the case since if it recieves 100, the software will think that is 100 out of 127, not 100 out of 100 and re-scale it to a lower value that is a certain percantage less than full value of hundred on the DX7. The DX7 sends the value 100. It doesn't send a message that means Max Velocity (that is not how midi works). And since the maximum actual value of midi is 127, there is no way for the software to know, that 100 was the maximum output of the device that was used to create that midi data. There is no such communication going on. The Full mode allows to send values to the DX7 V engine that goes beyond what the DX7 with its own keyboard. This could be used for experimentations. But would not be the option you would want if the goal is to emulate a DX7 as closely as possible. They could have called it "Full Velocity Experimentation Mode" or something like that. But it happens that since it doesn't re--scale the midi data, it is also the mode that should be used if the midi data comes directly or recroded from a DX7. They could have added "Controlled by DX7 Velocity Mode" that works the exact same way, so that people that use it with DX7 midi data, will know what to select. I would say it behaves as it should. Very few people will control a DX7 emulation software with the DX7 as a controller, since they then already have the DX7 at hand. And due to the velocity limitaion, it would not be the best controller for other synths. The issue is that the naming isnt perfeclty clear, at least not without reading the manual... I haven't read the manual so I don't know how they describe these modes in it.
Oh man thanks for the info about the Velocity setting - I was trying out the Arturia plugin and was so confused because it sounded nothing like a DX7 yet Arturia are usually so good, I thought there must be something wrong. Changing it to full velocity made it sound perfect. I wonder how many sales they've done themselves out of by having that as the default setting, especially when it's competing with such a good freebie.
It's called an eq,use it instead of complaining about a damn DX7 emulation. It's digital bro,you can use it just like the real thing. What a stupid comment.
You nailed it perfectly! Sounds grreat! Excellent video. Yeah, Okay, it was a little long, but it was definitely worth every minute! Always like your videos. I don't know about you, but I absolutely love the DX-7's pads! I think I may invest in Arturia's DX-7 V after all (thank you for the inspiration).
I've listened to the video without watching, without going into nuances like the transient response and the general "movement" of the sound, I think the patch with the most difference between the 2 tracks is that at 1:35 and 1:45
Very cool comparison. I'm going to have to test it at one point. I have DX7, DX7 II FD and TX802. When I have time I'd have to run all of them against DX7 V and Dexed. I only compared V and Dexed closely and they sound quite different. Overall, it's great to have the software you can launch any time on your laptop, wherever you are. That said, there is something really "magical" about playing the original instruments. Also the keyboard feel on the DX7 I and II is still my favorite, the keys are pretty loud unfortunately, but I still like the feel and playability of that keyboard more than any other I ever tried.
Watched the previous video as well. Honestly, I don't see why should I pay 100$ for Arturia when Dexed VST sound practically the same. Thanks for the comparison Woody.
I have both and the Dexed is not perfect, it sounds not really good in some situations, and it is a "raw" emulation. On the other side the Arturia is a full instrument, playable, with embedded effets, and with a VERY good interface to modify sounds. Dexed is better than the original hardware with its little screen, but Arturia DX7 is really better on this part that is essential. Being able to make or modify sounds easily with a DX7 is a challenge. Arturia DX7 won this challenge with no doubt. An emulation is not only sound, it is also usability and pleasure. Dexed is raw, Dexed is not as near from real thing than Arturia DX7, Dexed has a poor interface compare to Arturia DX7. So, of course you can be happy with Dexed, I used it often. Effects can be added in the RAW, EQ's can be done too, etc. In most situation Dexed is ok. But Arturia DX7 is one large step beyond on each important point, UI, UX, sound. So it worth to be bought. All alone it is the price of most VST on the market, a bit expensive. Within the Collection divided by the number of good instruments you can find in this package, its price is ridiculously low.
I have heard musicians making old dirty/broken instruments sounding like monsters or being able to make you cry just because they have the feeling. So I'm always staying very humble with technology, I know the man make 99.9% and the instrument just 0.01% .... So to make music, the idea and the feeling worth far more than the most expensive instrument. So Dexed, Arturia DX7... we are just kids talking about their toys... The most important is to do music that creates emotions.
Very close on most sounds. But on some sounds there is a slight difference. "The greatest love of all" sound for example is more "clinical sounding" on the Arturia. It's rounder and warmer on the DX7. Especially on the lower end. "Do they know it's Christmas?" on the other hand have more treble in the DX7 (they bite more) and sound a bit more muffled on the Arturia. The waves shows that too for that sound. "We built this city" also have slightly more bite on the DX7.Just slightly! "Africa (Toto)" on the other hand sounds pretty much identical. Overall maybe the closest emulations of them all!
Well done, Woody, great that you found this out. However, I would definately call this a bug. Even though the SysEx format of a DX7 looks quite basic to me, they might have to check every SysEx for validity anyway (e.g. by checking the manufacturer ID, the format number and the byte count), so they can be sure that it is a DX7 bank. And then, I would expect the velocity scaling to be adjusted automatically to the right value. After we know now about the accurancy of the DX7 emulation, I would also be interested in some Arturia presets that take advantage of the additional features they added to the DX7 V. Because in my opinion, despite of added waveforms, the 4OP-TX81Z line and the 6OP-FM-based presets of the SY77/SY99 still sound like typical FM synthesizers - nothing really exceptional to hear here yet. Maybe this is because the sounds were still trendy in the late 80ies/early 90ies - or maybe because only a few people up to know were and are able to get more out of FM synthesis due to it´s complexity...
The biggest difference seems to be in the noise. The hardware seems brighter, but I’m thinking it might be the extra noise. I bet a bit of saturation from Decapitator would make those differences go away.
Amazing software and unbelievably close specially for $150. The software has an improved interface, less weight and it seems easier to program. In a mix no one will be able to tell the difference.
I think if you sent the Arturia file out through an external preamp, and added a little eq perhaps, you could get them even closer. The hardware sounds slightly thicker in the low end.
Nice follow up! I've been testing DX7 V against Dexed since it came out, and I feel it sounds more like a DX7 than Dexed and I also feel that it's much more playable. However, I can't get over the fact that DX7 V takes *much* longer to load than Dexed. For me, Dexed always loads up instantly with virtually no CPU hit, whereas the DX7 V can take anywhere from 1-5 seconds (!!) and will use ~2% CPU when in use. Sadly, I've experienced this issue with every Arturia plugin I've used, and it's always turned me off from using them.
yes it takes a few seconds for me too. difference between commercial software with heavy frameworks, DRM etc and a lightweight dll. I don't even know how large the dx7v installation is, whilst dexed is just 2mb. dexed wins in that respect.
In some patches dx7 has more harmonics in low mid, in some has more sandy high-end frequencies and it very nicely for hear, but arturia got very close. maybe in the near future by dint of Artificial Intelligence, it will be possible to bring digital algorithms to the ideal
Oh now it sounds very close. If it was possible to play both samples controlled by same midi score (identical velocities etc) it would be much closer maybe
They are close enough but the hardware does sound better. I like to insert a tape plugin to get some of the smoothness and warmth back into the plugin.
I wonder what would happen if you overlayed the DX7 on top of inverted Arturia. In theory, if 100% accurate, they should cancel each other out. It would be interesting to check that and to analyze the left-overs, being the difference between the two :)
Yup :) Certainly it's good enough and I would never notice the difference by listening to isolated Arturia, DX7 or Dexed without side by side comparison.
That wouldn't really work in practise. Even if you was to record the real DX7 twice and invert the phase of one, it wouldn't completely cancel the first. Sound is analog, not digital 0s and 1s, and analog waveforms just do not work like that precisely.
Just to clarify - I know that analog signal is not 100% reproducible every single time, that's why I clearly indicated that this was in theory. The null test (an actual name of the test) certainly reveals every single minute difference - and it's the best way to mathematically describe how much of a difference between two samples there actually is. It's a common technique used in audio processing. And it is so for a reason.
Well those minute differences might be perfectly audiable in a null test, however in the context of the full sound, they might not. There are waveforms that look different but sound the same. But for comparisson, well, one should cut the sound to pieces so that the same part of the sound can be heard as close to each other as possible...
This is incredibly close. The VST sounds a little flat in some areas, and there's some harmonic excitement missing, but overall extremely close. Definitely worth buying imo.
Subject the DX7 V to two stages of AD-DA conversion, which is what it's taking for you to hear the audio recording of the real DX7, and the unavoidable distortions you would add in the process would probably nail it.
Awesome Woody - thanks for re doing this. I'm not sure I fully understand what the issue (and fix therefore) is . . . but I'll rewatch your other vid. Out of interest, do you have these patches saved somewhere, somehow?
Well done for the new version. Great video. Is there any chance of doing a comparison between the Arturia's Prophet V and U-He's Repro 5.I have all the Arturia synths and was wonder whether to have a look at U-He's version. Arturia get a bad press quite often online which I'm not sure they deserve.
Thanks useful to know but I want ed to tell you that dx7 mode gives you the tones the artists had on their records for example "whats love got to do with it" by Tina turnner. The setting is not on full volocity for stuff like that and i will say Aurtoria Nails it!
Dexed is factored out here complelely, although the demo is better this time round, I just cant see my self buying the Arturia DX7 or V Collection, Sticking with my DX and Dexed. But it is close this time Woody :)
I actually heard the difference in the lows. I was hoping i wouldn’t. I wonder if the examples could be null tested tested, just for fun? I dont really care I’m just curious
The velocity option is wired...with my maudio keystation mk3,i have to route my midi input through midi ox to filter out velocity above 100,and then to loopbe1 as my midi input to my daw,only by this i can get the identical sound! the default dx7 mode sounds muffled and dull, the full mode otherwise sounds too harsh,both of them sounds uneven in harmonics...I tried messing around with the operators' velocity sens, no luck...dont understand why Arturia makes the velocity option too cunfusing,otherwise it wound be a fantasitic Plugin !!!
Waveforms are indeed very similar however not identical. Unfortunately there is also a noticeable difference in the sound. I would hazard a guess that is old school converters in the original unit the are almost impossible to copy. Still good job Arturia.
I would say that the actual issue here is that he is using the rather unexpected scnario of having the output midi data of a DX7, compared to what most people will have (the output of a keyboard with full velocity).
Did you also make sure to turn on the vintage DAC switch? that switch adds in all the low level noise and slight harmonic distortion from the original DX7 and with that switch on it the only difference is essentially placebo.
Hello and thank you for this demo. I purchased the upgrade thanks to your effort!!! There are a couple of original ROM presets missing from my library. Which did you use for the Whitney Electric Piano and Whitesnake riffs?
Ah, found them. They're Arturia recommended patches, so they are prioritized at the top of the library and don't appear alphabetically with the rest. Thank you!
Arturia usually make pretty mediocre emulations, but this DX7 emulation is actually extremely close. It's the best DX7 emulation yet to be released - even better than Dexed! Most patches sound practically identical, and the rest are so close that they would be impossible for most people to tell apart in a blind test! Great job Arturia - for once! And thanks Woody for the vid!
Don't really know about Oberheim vs real one, but I own the V collection 5, and I have test JUP 8V (Jupiter 8) and Mini V (minimoog) emulation are very far from reality... I would say JUP-8V factory preset are so far away from original that it's really not serious, for Oberheim Synth I personally use OP-X PRO II (from sonic projet), very good with many preset and even JUPITER 8 factory preset are nice and near form real one. Hope it will help you... Personally I found that Arturia GUI are very nice, but Sound far from real Synth (and thats really the black point), this DX7 is better ! but DEXED for free is also very good.
No. It is not better than Dexed. Listen to the 12-bit emulation: Dexed totally nails it. Same with the bite and timbre of the DX7. Arturia doesn't. That's not to say the Arturia is bad. It's a good emulation, and its UI beats Dexed, hands down.
Tazmanian Ninja: I totally disagree with your opinion. But hey, if Dexed sounds better to your ears, then by all means keep using it. To each their own.
I disagree as well...and whatever subtle differences there might be could be a nice combination of psychosomatic with some confirmation bias on top. Either way, when you consider the extended capabilities of DX7 V, it's a no brainer IMO...25 waveforms, feedback on every operator, feedback on filter....and a GUI thats a joy to program. Why even bother with Dexed? The DX7 V can do genuine DX7...and if you want....put it on juice
And, just think, I almost spent $100 on the Korg Opsix when I already have this and FM8. Welp, unless it's just feeding my sickness or because I'm too lazy to duplicate the patches I'll definitely be importing my TG77's purely fm patches to this. Wow. Thanks
Ok, that's officially close enough for any use now
Let's think for a moment here. I bet you that if Arturia's version came out before the hardware, if somehow we were exposed to VST's and software before hardware we would have audiophiles saying that the software gives a particular sound that appeals to them. ````I'm a proud owner of Arturia V collection and Arturia MatrixBrute hardware, the ladder one because I like to feel the knobs.
Exactly hardware snobs are always trying to justify their overpriced purchases to people who can't afford expensive synths this is harmful behaviour to beginners because they're telling them without overpriced gear they can never make great sounding music which is false
Just listened again... carefully, with HQ headphones... and yes, they sound identical. Or, well... okay, there is a slight difference, but I cannot say that one of them is being "fuller" or "richer". Sometimes the Yamaha sounds more alive, sometimes the Arturia does. It is like the slight difference between two DX7's. Or using different cable sets. Nah, this is in all respect a 100% reproduction by Arturia. Excellent.
Nailed it. If someone isn't happy- 1) they're crazy 2) use a teeny bit of EQ (for the most part not necessary at all. I had a DX7 when they came out, happy to trade it in for SY77, and other subsequent Yamahas. Never missed it a bit. Now these brilliant VSTs, which I can control with my M08 which has a weighted 88 key keyboard. No going back. Arturia V is $200- a steal.
1. Ray Parker jr. - Ghostbusters
2. Starship - We Built This City
3. Toto - Africa (although played slightly incorrectly :P )
4. Doobie Brothers - What a Fool Believes
5. Whitesnake - Here I Go Again
6. Whitney Houston - Greatest Love Of All
7. ?
8. Berlin - Take My Breath Away (with some improv)
9. Survivor - Eye Of The Tiger (though the sound is not in the actual song)
10. The Stranglers - Golden Brown (played slightly incorrectly as well :P )
11. Sting - Love Is The Seventh Wave (at least it sounds like it)
12. ?
13. Richard Strauss - Also sprach Zarathustra, Einleitung, oder Sonnenaufgang
14. Band Aid - Do They Know It's Christmas?
7 is Howard Jones - Pearl In The Shell th-cam.com/video/sTRuoXEbvjE/w-d-xo.html
Would be cool to see the preset with each song too.
Jaime Gonzalez I second that. He gave the first 2 and the 4th away in the first video but I’m curious to know the rest.
I am with Jamie Gonzalez. I’d love to know which preset each was.
That was really useful to hear how similar DX7 V sounds to the real thing. Having owned many DX7's (used) but now simply wanting something I don't have to lug around, now I know the software can replace the hardware. Thanks for the demo.
Just saw this and the first video on Synthtopia - well done Woody, more recognition of your value as a true and unbiased contributor to the music scene.
thanks grant, was not aware of that. somehow nerve-racking when other sites pick up on my stuff. cheers.
You can tell by the shape of the waveform already, their practically identical. Very good job by Arturia! The sound is so close I would not beeing able to tell the difference anymore.
truth
The shape of the waveform in this case just tell you the amplitude. Anyway, there's no significant differences
Actually no. If you look at th-cam.com/video/iHycGwuWcn0/w-d-xo.html you can clearly see that there is a case of inverted polarity going on. So they are not "identical" as in photo copies. Still they can sound the same if the polarity is inverted if they are just "mirror images" of each others (as much plus as minus of each other).
But then you can see from other patches that they aren't identical (when no inverted polarity). Still they sound very, very close almost identical.
I could tell the difference on some (real thing sounded just a touch nicer) but on others not.
Nice! sounds very good. Big difference compared with the last video.
Thanks for redoing this Woody. The difference now is negligible.
Very very close. It's a subtle difference, but it goes to show that the old converters of the hardware are a part of the synths's character, despite being pretty crap by today's standards. But Arturia is 90% there, and anyone wanting the DX7 sound without the hardware would likely be just as happy. Good stuff as always Woody.
Dexed is even better
Mbc Agreed.
I think it is much, much more down to how the DX7 internally computes the algorithms. I don't think that they "open sourced" every part of the engine. Yes you can reverse-engineer it, but there still will be parts of it where you have to guess how much and in what way one part reacts to another (over a whole range of values).
Add to that the rounding errors in the original DX7 which couldn't use large floating point numbers (like in a modern DAW and VI) for every calculation, which would result in a wave that would be different since there are loads of these calculations(often multiplications for example) going on. I think that it's very easy to always blame it on the converters when these comparisons are made.
I really think the differences is neglicable. Yes it would be better if they'd completely reverse enginered the original Yamaha chips and build a fpga version, but that just wouldn't be feasable if they are to make money of it.
If you just need a single or a couple DX7 patches for a song and you don't have an original DX7 in your setup no matter what people say, you are not gonna be able to hear the difference in the mix if the person used a DX7/DX7II or a software product like DX7V or Dexed. Yes you can hear the differences in an a/b test. There is more body in the Original, the Dexed is thinner and sharper, where the Arturia is wamer compared to the real DX7. Yes You will know what you used, but a normal listener would neither be able to hear the difference, nor would he bother if you told him.
Who cares if the result sounds good.
i agree.
wow you really saved my ass with the FULL velocity setting! now my imported patches sound 98% accurate to what they should! thanks 1,000,000
Hardware sounds a bit brighter and you can hear the unit's noise which imho contributes to the sound in a good way. Gotta admit the plugin is pretty damn close. Thanks for the video, exactly what I wanted to watch.
Great follow up. Thanks for your efforts to do this. They sound almost identical now.
Die hard hardware lovers will always find something to pick at. Their brain will fool them into thinking it's all wrong. That the legendary DX7 will always be king and no VST will ever be good enough. They will use words like "full", "warm" or "rounded".
To me, this is 99.99999% accurate. Which beats having to route audio/midi cables.
i also appreciate the convenience of the plugin, but remember it's not just the sound, you got the physical presence of the real thing, that keybed... etc.
In addition when you track in the studio or live line through a system you would never hear the difference Most of us have preamps of decent quality many interfaces of course have them built in
I have a dx7 and would never use the words warm or rounded to describe it. To me it's usually people that have no real experience with hardware that act like hardware snobs and say silly things like that in comment sections(this comment section has quite a few examples of stupidity on display) this is a great plugin and done well enough to fool anyone, especially within a song. I look forward to to purchasing it.
@@leepicciotto Exactly. I had an original DX7 when they first came out. This goes way beyond the now laughable 8 bit cpu. Does it sound exactly the same, 95 percent. Can it sound a million times better with all its extra features and vastly superior quality sound mode, 1000 percent it can.
Jamie Bales I have lots of real analog hardware and it all beats plugins. Some more so than others. I don’t have a DX7 so can’t comment on that but I want to get a TX7. I have a few analog synths and even the very best plugins don’t compete. There is another factor in this though. The A/D conversion when you record this stuff. I have a Mytek interface which is very high quality. The differences then become much more apparent. Recording studios don’t use the cheap converters than many people use on TH-cam and you also critically need high end playback speakers or headphones. Then it becomes night and day. If you are listening via low end quality gear then you won’t hear the difference.
Great effort from Arturia and of course props to do video again for people to get fair comparison. Next is Roland and it's cloud version of JV-1080, i hope :)
close but to me on many occasions the DX7 sounds preferable, fatter low end and more open high end, although there is also noise which kind of adds to the sound IMO...the Arturia is very close on other patches...great tests Woody!
Exceptional comparison, thank you for your efforts! Arturia's VST do sound like a DX7, minor differences and I'm pretty sure that no one can tell them in a mix. I find VST a little bit better mainly cause DX7 is so heavy to move around and such a pain to program it :)
you could get a TX7, much less weight; and having a computer, you can easily program DX7/TX7 using DEXED as programmer software.
Worthwhile journey. They sound extremely close.
I'll bet in a blind test no-one would not have got it even 30% correct! Confirmation bias is always 100% right. Very good emulation and the same as much of Arturia soft synth production these days... I still like the hardware though...
Blind tests are a bit problematic, as some people know what artifacts to listen for.
But most would have no way of knowing.
And withint a track, with effects and other sounds surrounding it, I don't think it would make any real difference.
My opinion: you bring the soul of the DX-7, real or emulated. Sounds like the eighties!
I had a real one but I had to chnge the battery and I'm more into jazz.
There it is. Glad it was an easy fix. I'm not a VST guy generally but this VCollection is really tempting me. If they ever do the Voyetra Eight I'll literally be throwing money at Arturia.
+Edward Cotter
You mean the Octave Plateau Voyetra 8 in all of its "stair step" "zipper noise" glory? Thats why I got rid of mine. The envelopes were digital and way less than 16 bit, you could actually hear the slow decay "stepping down" as the sound faded. The oscillators did have a wide bandwidth sound.
Richard Hill I don't know... Always sounded great to me. New Order managed to do some lovely, airy things with it. I hope you got good money for it though. They go for absolutely insane prices now when you see them(not often) which is why I'd love a VST version.
Thanks for this video, Woody...its the sole reason I purchased the DX7 V
Arturia did a really good job here. Thank you for this really good comparisson!
Virtually the same now, and gets to the point where you could have two different DX7s (or even different batches of the Yamaha chip) that sound slightly different anyway.
A similar argument to the various C64 SID chip emulations - the sound of each chip could vary quite wildly, but then they did have more analog filtering stuff on the chip than the DX7.
Sounds like the DX7 in the vid is a tad too high in pitch compared to the Arturia plugin, but that's kind of par for the course with old synths too. :p
Still very impressed with Dexed as a freebie though. It's also extremely similar to the original DX7.
Nah, two different Yamaha DX7 would sound identical. They are all digital. And at the output stage they use the same DAC. I think you confuse this with what happens with analogue synths where there could be a great difference. There are no analogue filters in the DX7:s. In fact the whole synthesis chain is all digital. I would be extremely surprised if anybody could hear a difference between two DX7:s (the originals not the later upgraded versions).
But on the other hand there are some differences in how the emulation sound here compared to the DX7. Yes most of the sounds on them sound virtually the same, but the "The greatest love of all" sounds clearly (Well, slightly) different on them. Definitely more than a DX7 vs another DX7.
Magnus Lööv
Yep, I agree that two DX7s should sound almost the same, but I just meant that we are VERY close to the sound in VSTi plugins like Dexed now.
And, I appreciate that the SID chip was probably a bad example in this case. lol
I know that the DX7 / YM2151 is basically a fully digital chip, and uses an on-die ROM table for a quarter of the root sine wave etc.
I spent quite a lot of time in recent months reverse-engineering things like the LA32 chip (MT-32 / D-50), and the SID chip, so yeah, the SID was a bad example, because the output filters can actually sound quite a lot different between batches. hehe
There is an "average" of the SID sound though (for both the 6581 and 8580), but that exposes one of the main issues with "cloning" it on modern hardware like FPGAs - everyone remembers their own SID chip sounding slightly different to the "average" one, because it probably did.
For the LA32 btw, rather than staring at the die shot or logic analyser captures for weeks, I was trying to think of a much faster way to be able to watch the register writes in realtime...
I finally tried something I've been meaning to test for years, by hooking up the CPU bus of an LA32 board (in this case from a Roland D-10) to the FPGA board.
I could then have the FPGA display an exact "mirror" of the LA32 registers via VGA, which made it SOOOO much easier to figure out what was going on (as I played notes on the MIDI keyboard, and twiddled the parameters etc.)
imgur.com/pBFNEzw
imgur.com/33wKe1L
(for anyone still reading. lol)...
It turns out that the LA32 registers are in groups of two bytes, so pretty much everything is handled as 16-bit values internally.
For each of the 32 voices, the CPU simply writes the values for the filter cutoff / resonance, the pitch of the voice, whether it's a PCM or "synth" voice, the PCM sample index (if used), and some other bits for the chosen algorithm etc.
Interestingly (as partly mentioned in the MUNT emulator project), the LA32 also assists the main CPU by generating an interrupt every time the "ramp" values for the TVA reach the "target" values.
(using the top set of 32 two-byte values, shown in red. One "word" per voice, with the first byte being the starting ramp value, and the second byte being the target)...
imgur.com/r1Ienjx
(So, 8-bit values for the ADSR / TVA envelope.)
As soon as the ramp value reaches the target value, the LA32 triggers an interrupt, then the CPU then just updates the next values in those regs, so it can do the full ADSR cycle.
As far as I can tell, it doesn't do the same thing for the filter regs, so the timing for all of the TVF stuff is just handled directly by the CPU itself.
I'm hoping to eventually implement a 100% clone of the LA32 on FPGA, so more people can enjoy things like the D-50 sound on real hardware, without having to fork out the expense of the original synths. ;)
(preservation is also a big part of this, as I'm hoping more and more of the digital synth designs can be reverse-engineered and captured for all time.)
Good ears! I definitely also noticed that the HW DX7 is a little sharp too. This is probably adjustable with a "tune" knob on the original yeah?
1:35 You can hear a big difference in these two sounds, the hardware DX7 has some fuzziness/noise in the top while the Arturia is much cleaner. That fuzziness is what I love about the DX7 Mk1, when you stack it (TX816) it turns into a beautiful vintage digital cloud. Wish there was an emulation out there that could nail this.
Edit: There is a plugin that can emulate this! >> Plogue OPS7
OPS7 by Plogue.
@@saricubra2867 Oh cool, hadn't heard of that. Checking it out now.
@@lifescansdarkly They also have the best SEGA Megadrive/Genesis sound chip emulations on the market.
Your assuming the fuzziness is by design. Maybe, maybe not. Analog components age so the fuzziness could be from the degradation of the components themselves.
@@steveeckert8396 I don't think it's degradation, it's due to the bit depth and companding algorithms used in the converters. Plogue has a more accurate emulation of the DX7 that recreates this fuzz perfectly, at least compared to my memory of the hardware unit.
I purchased Arturia DX7 for $75 on sale and imported the SYSEX files and it sounds amazing, very identical to the original.
Where do you find the sysex?
Brilliant. Great catch with the FULL. SO... close! Thanks for the share!
Revisiting this, after hearing how different the DX7 mk2 sounds to the mk1, the Arturia is an incredible emulation. Even the waveforms are almost identical. There is a touch of difference at times, but it's not losing any of the good stuff, it maintains the beauty of the sound.
I know this is old news, but we've hit the good times in the software world as far as instruments are concerned. Just compressors need to catch up now as they are missing compression harmonics, 'solidarity', stereo imagng, and i think thats also what causes a lack of depth. Funny enough one of the best comparisons so far is the Arturia emulation of the DBX 160. But it's still not 'there' yet.
Surprisingly close. Thank you for re-recording this, Woody. This feels like an important video.
As a follow-up from a comment I made on your first DX7 V video, as it turns out, if you have ever 'bought' anything from Arturia in the past (including when they have giveaways), your account will be eligible for the special introductory pricing of $249 for the full 'V Collection 6'! My mistake was assuming that logging in would 'stick' after clicking the link in the email - once I logged in from *that* window the correct price showed - and I bought it. Truly some amazing stuff there!
And if you just bought the whole V Collection 5 collection a month ago, you can now upgrade to version 6 for $199 more. I thought that was too high. But I could not say no.
Totally get that "could not say no" feeling! But I also think that the upgrade price is too high - common complaint I have seen on blogs, social media, etc. I think for the 'Collection 5' that $99 would have been so much more equitable, with $199 for earlier releases, etc.
Better to make a mistake and correct it than to forget about it! They sound pretty close, i'd imaging even 2 DX7's from that era will never be 100% the same, especially after 35 years. It would be interesting to see who much easier it is to come up with a DX7 patch on the Arturia VST, and then port it to the real thing. Best of both worlds - modern GUI editing, and real hardware.
Thanks for the new comparison, now it sounds identical (at least my ears don't spot any difference). You made me buy it :)
Very very close imho. Looking at the waveforms there is hardly any difference between Arturia and the real thing. A very fine comparison Woody. As always a joy to see you in action. Thank you again...
Excellent! Thanks again. By the way, I also enjoy hearing the DX7... it’s not just you!
Opsix User here. As I learned today the Arturia has other waveforms than sine. This elevates it over the original. It’s essentially a 6 operator tx81z , nearly an Opsix :-) Lately bass is possible with the Arturia ;-)
The Arturia actually sounds a bit better. Seems more alive. I actually thought the Arturia was the actual DX7 for the first half of the video lol
You're a living legend Woody I appreciate you!
I think you got it right with this one. Good job remaking it.
Quite interesting looking at the wave forms for each :)
i thought so too, it's quite surprising how the plugin matches the shape of the original, even when there is some very low frequency DC offset.
Great comparison!
Here's the thing tho, which was pointed out in the Arturia forums: You're using a DX-7 as the MIDI controller for the Arturia version, and the DX-7 only outputs the limited velocity range. The software wasn't designed for that. It was designed for a modern full-range MIDI controller. That's why the setting is there, so a modern controller that outputs full velocity range can be "limited" to the range of the original hardware. ;) :D
That makes sense.
The main reason I am getting the Arturia plugin is I dont have room for more synths in my studio. The Behringer deepmind 12 took the last spot. And the DX7 is huge as heck.
Super similar, great comparison! Thanks for sharing
Interesting comparison, Woody. My ears would be hard-pressed to tell the difference once they're set up properly. Wishing you and your family Happy Holidays.
agreed. thanks robin, same to you.
Very close! It is clear that the converters of the iron device bring their own unique color. But. This is a compromise that pleases many!
WOW this is a huge improvement over the last video! I think the Arturia model is probably more accurate than the Dexed model now. Amazon how close it is to the real DX7.
Superb work this time Woody, though you did no wrong before: the DX7 V velocity settings are confusing and counterintuitive. Extra clarity seems evident on the DX7 V bounces compared to the real DX7, especially the bells at the end, probably because the real DX 7 recording has been subject to two stages of AD-DA conversion by that stage. To all intents and purposes they are pretty much identical.
Sure the DX7 mode should be called DX7 Emulation.
And they could have added a Controlled by DX7 mode, that is in reality the same as the full mode, but just so that users having a DX7 or midi files from one, would select the right mode.
My main bone of contention is when presented with MIDI notes which max-out at 100 velocity, in 'DX7' mode the VST does not play its full range of velocities. So, contrary to what one of its co-developers said in the comments of the previous video, it would not sound like a real DX7 if played directly from a real DX7, whose velocity maxes-out at 100. Instead you have to select 'full' mode. Then, it would. The two modes appear to operate exactly opposite to what you would expect. I think it's a bug and Arturia just don't like to say so.
The "DX7" velocity mode, is "DX7 Velocity Emulation Mode".
Since the DX7 doesn't use the full velocity range, the "DX7 Velocity Emulation Mode" re-scales the velocity data it recieves so it corresponds to the value the DX7 engine in the DX7 hardware would receive for its own keyboard.
In this case the midi data comes from a DX7.
So what happens when DX7 Velocity Emulation is performed on the output of a DX7 that doesn't have full velocity?
Well the values will be lowered. That is the case since if it recieves 100, the software will think that is 100 out of 127, not 100 out of 100 and re-scale it to a lower value that is a certain percantage less than full value of hundred on the DX7.
The DX7 sends the value 100. It doesn't send a message that means Max Velocity (that is not how midi works). And since the maximum actual value of midi is 127, there is no way for the software to know, that 100 was the maximum output of the device that was used to create that midi data. There is no such communication going on.
The Full mode allows to send values to the DX7 V engine that goes beyond what the DX7 with its own keyboard.
This could be used for experimentations.
But would not be the option you would want if the goal is to emulate a DX7 as closely as possible.
They could have called it "Full Velocity Experimentation Mode" or something like that.
But it happens that since it doesn't re--scale the midi data, it is also the mode that should be used if the midi data comes directly or recroded from a DX7. They could have added "Controlled by DX7 Velocity Mode" that works the exact same way, so that people that use it with DX7 midi data, will know what to select.
I would say it behaves as it should. Very few people will control a DX7 emulation software with the DX7 as a controller, since they then already have the DX7 at hand. And due to the velocity limitaion, it would not be the best controller for other synths.
The issue is that the naming isnt perfeclty clear, at least not without reading the manual... I haven't read the manual so I don't know how they describe these modes in it.
Huge improvement in sound quality to the first test, looking forward to the Dexed comparison, guess this might get not easy for the latter
Oh man thanks for the info about the Velocity setting - I was trying out the Arturia plugin and was so confused because it sounded nothing like a DX7 yet Arturia are usually so good, I thought there must be something wrong. Changing it to full velocity made it sound perfect. I wonder how many sales they've done themselves out of by having that as the default setting, especially when it's competing with such a good freebie.
+1
It's called an eq,use it instead of complaining about a damn DX7 emulation. It's digital bro,you can use it just like the real thing. What a stupid comment.
I wish there was a global setting of full: great vid. Thx
You nailed it perfectly! Sounds grreat! Excellent video. Yeah, Okay, it was a little long, but it was definitely worth every minute! Always like your videos. I don't know about you, but I absolutely love the DX-7's pads! I think I may invest in Arturia's DX-7 V after all (thank you for the inspiration).
I've listened to the video without watching, without going into nuances like the transient response and the general "movement" of the sound, I think the patch with the most difference between the 2 tracks is that at 1:35 and 1:45
Outstanding job. Thank you for this. Perfect comparison video.
Sounds great. Definitely going to buy DX7 V.
great that you did it again! Thanks!
Thanks for this!! I was having my doubts about it but damn. This is crazy
Pretty close plus all those lovely modulation options. What's not to like
Ok, now they the same! I actually had a dx7 back in the day but never sent midi to it, so never knew about the 100 velocity limit
Very cool comparison. I'm going to have to test it at one point. I have DX7, DX7 II FD and TX802. When I have time I'd have to run all of them against DX7 V and Dexed. I only compared V and Dexed closely and they sound quite different. Overall, it's great to have the software you can launch any time on your laptop, wherever you are. That said, there is something really "magical" about playing the original instruments. Also the keyboard feel on the DX7 I and II is still my favorite, the keys are pretty loud unfortunately, but I still like the feel and playability of that keyboard more than any other I ever tried.
Hail the greatest keyboard riff of all time; "What A Fool Believes". Nice video!
Watched the previous video as well. Honestly, I don't see why should I pay 100$ for Arturia when Dexed VST sound practically the same. Thanks for the comparison Woody.
I have both and the Dexed is not perfect, it sounds not really good in some situations, and it is a "raw" emulation. On the other side the Arturia is a full instrument, playable, with embedded effets, and with a VERY good interface to modify sounds. Dexed is better than the original hardware with its little screen, but Arturia DX7 is really better on this part that is essential. Being able to make or modify sounds easily with a DX7 is a challenge. Arturia DX7 won this challenge with no doubt.
An emulation is not only sound, it is also usability and pleasure.
Dexed is raw, Dexed is not as near from real thing than Arturia DX7, Dexed has a poor interface compare to Arturia DX7.
So, of course you can be happy with Dexed, I used it often. Effects can be added in the RAW, EQ's can be done too, etc. In most situation Dexed is ok.
But Arturia DX7 is one large step beyond on each important point, UI, UX, sound.
So it worth to be bought.
All alone it is the price of most VST on the market, a bit expensive.
Within the Collection divided by the number of good instruments you can find in this package, its price is ridiculously low.
Thank you for sharing your experience from other perspective. I guess each product has its downsides. I'll keep it in mind.
I have heard musicians making old dirty/broken instruments sounding like monsters or being able to make you cry just because they have the feeling. So I'm always staying very humble with technology, I know the man make 99.9% and the instrument just 0.01% ....
So to make music, the idea and the feeling worth far more than the most expensive instrument.
So Dexed, Arturia DX7... we are just kids talking about their toys...
The most important is to do music that creates emotions.
Very close on most sounds. But on some sounds there is a slight difference. "The greatest love of all" sound for example is more "clinical sounding" on the Arturia. It's rounder and warmer on the DX7. Especially on the lower end. "Do they know it's Christmas?" on the other hand have more treble in the DX7 (they bite more) and sound a bit more muffled on the Arturia. The waves shows that too for that sound. "We built this city" also have slightly more bite on the DX7.Just slightly! "Africa (Toto)" on the other hand sounds pretty much identical. Overall maybe the closest emulations of them all!
Well done, Woody, great that you found this out.
However, I would definately call this a bug. Even though the SysEx format of a DX7 looks quite basic to me, they might have to check every SysEx for validity anyway (e.g. by checking the manufacturer ID, the format number and the byte count), so they can be sure that it is a DX7 bank. And then, I would expect the velocity scaling to be adjusted automatically to the right value.
After we know now about the accurancy of the DX7 emulation, I would also be interested in some Arturia presets that take advantage of the additional features they added to the DX7 V. Because in my opinion, despite of added waveforms, the 4OP-TX81Z line and the 6OP-FM-based presets of the SY77/SY99 still sound like typical FM synthesizers - nothing really exceptional to hear here yet. Maybe this is because the sounds were still trendy in the late 80ies/early 90ies - or maybe because only a few people up to know were and are able to get more out of FM synthesis due to it´s complexity...
Jörg, I encourage you to download the free demo and test it out, you can experiment with the new features and play around with sysex etc.
Great job, thanks I love my DX7 but this software is amazing.
The biggest difference seems to be in the noise. The hardware seems brighter, but I’m thinking it might be the extra noise. I bet a bit of saturation from Decapitator would make those differences go away.
Thanks for this Woody.
hi thank goodnes youve redone the video the previous arturia soundtrack was totally lacking in attack this is much better thanks johnbgood
Amazing software and unbelievably close specially for $150. The software has an improved interface, less weight and it seems easier to program. In a mix no one will be able to tell the difference.
I think if you sent the Arturia file out through an external preamp, and added a little eq perhaps, you could get them even closer. The hardware sounds slightly thicker in the low end.
Nice follow up! I've been testing DX7 V against Dexed since it came out, and I feel it sounds more like a DX7 than Dexed and I also feel that it's much more playable.
However, I can't get over the fact that DX7 V takes *much* longer to load than Dexed. For me, Dexed always loads up instantly with virtually no CPU hit, whereas the DX7 V can take anywhere from 1-5 seconds (!!) and will use ~2% CPU when in use. Sadly, I've experienced this issue with every Arturia plugin I've used, and it's always turned me off from using them.
yes it takes a few seconds for me too. difference between commercial software with heavy frameworks, DRM etc and a lightweight dll. I don't even know how large the dx7v installation is, whilst dexed is just 2mb. dexed wins in that respect.
In some patches dx7 has more harmonics in low mid, in some has more sandy high-end frequencies and it very nicely for hear, but arturia got very close. maybe in the near future by dint of Artificial Intelligence, it will be possible to bring digital algorithms to the ideal
The dx7 v is a great recreation !
Oh now it sounds very close. If it was possible to play both samples controlled by same midi score (identical velocities etc) it would be much closer maybe
They are close enough but the hardware does sound better. I like to insert a tape plugin to get some of the smoothness and warmth back into the plugin.
I wonder what would happen if you overlayed the DX7 on top of inverted Arturia. In theory, if 100% accurate, they should cancel each other out. It would be interesting to check that and to analyze the left-overs, being the difference between the two :)
And that's the point - to measure the difference. Listening one sample after another really isn't cutting it.
Yup :) Certainly it's good enough and I would never notice the difference by listening to isolated Arturia, DX7 or Dexed without side by side comparison.
That wouldn't really work in practise. Even if you was to record the real DX7 twice and invert the phase of one, it wouldn't completely cancel the first. Sound is analog, not digital 0s and 1s, and analog waveforms just do not work like that precisely.
Just to clarify - I know that analog signal is not 100% reproducible every single time, that's why I clearly indicated that this was in theory. The null test (an actual name of the test) certainly reveals every single minute difference - and it's the best way to mathematically describe how much of a difference between two samples there actually is. It's a common technique used in audio processing. And it is so for a reason.
Well those minute differences might be perfectly audiable in a null test, however in the context of the full sound, they might not.
There are waveforms that look different but sound the same.
But for comparisson, well, one should cut the sound to pieces so that the same part of the sound can be heard as close to each other as possible...
Nice, thanks for posting!
This is incredibly close. The VST sounds a little flat in some areas, and there's some harmonic excitement missing, but overall extremely close. Definitely worth buying imo.
Subject the DX7 V to two stages of AD-DA conversion, which is what it's taking for you to hear the audio recording of the real DX7, and the unavoidable distortions you would add in the process would probably nail it.
a lot better comparison than before...i use arturia live and in the studio....not one soul has ever complained that it didnt sound "real"
Awesome Woody - thanks for re doing this. I'm not sure I fully understand what the issue (and fix therefore) is . . . but I'll rewatch your other vid. Out of interest, do you have these patches saved somewhere, somehow?
hi, thanks, you can download factory presets from bobby blues.
Highly appreciate ur work
To me, the sound of VST still missing something, I think I'm gonna buy a real DX
do that! might be a good investment too.
Well done for the new version. Great video. Is there any chance of doing a comparison between the Arturia's Prophet V and U-He's Repro 5.I have all the Arturia synths and was wonder whether to have a look at U-He's version. Arturia get a bad press quite often online which I'm not sure they deserve.
damon, both of those plugs are available as free trial versions, so you could easily do your own comparison :)
Am I the only one who notice, the Original DX7 has more low end? Or I'm getting crazy?? But both sounds great. :D
Thanks useful to know but I want ed to tell you that dx7 mode gives you the tones the artists had on their records for example "whats love got to do with it" by Tina turnner. The setting is not on full volocity for stuff like that and i will say Aurtoria Nails it!
Arturia is the best sounding vst I have ever heard
Dexed is factored out here complelely, although the demo is better this time round, I just cant see my self buying the Arturia DX7 or V Collection, Sticking with my DX and Dexed. But it is close this time Woody :)
I actually heard the difference in the lows. I was hoping i wouldn’t. I wonder if the examples could be null tested tested, just for fun? I dont really care I’m just curious
This thing sounds extremely real. Just like the real thing
The velocity option is wired...with my maudio keystation mk3,i have to route my midi input through midi ox to filter out velocity above 100,and then
to loopbe1 as my midi input to my daw,only by this i can get the identical sound! the default dx7 mode sounds muffled and dull, the full mode otherwise sounds too harsh,both of them sounds uneven in harmonics...I tried messing around with the operators' velocity sens, no luck...dont understand why Arturia makes the velocity option too cunfusing,otherwise it wound be a fantasitic Plugin !!!
Waveforms are indeed very similar however not identical. Unfortunately there is also a noticeable difference in the sound.
I would hazard a guess that is old school converters in the original unit the are almost impossible to copy.
Still good job Arturia.
Besides a little bit of line noise from the original dx7, I couldn’t tell much of a difference between the two.
Sound very similar to me as well ... thanks for clearing that up :). Software defaults once again cause issues!
I would say that the actual issue here is that he is using the rather unexpected scnario of having the output midi data of a DX7, compared to what most people will have (the output of a keyboard with full velocity).
yes, i think you nailed it there Jon, I believe the real issue her is that this setting is saved per patch, and not globally.
Thanks to both for clarifying!
Spot on!
Did you also make sure to turn on the vintage DAC switch? that switch adds in all the low level noise and slight harmonic distortion from the original DX7 and with that switch on it the only difference is essentially placebo.
that setting was on vintage yes, i think i did a demo showing the difference, somewhere, sometime. the only difference i could hear is added hiss.
Arturia is DX7 II, Plogue OPS7 is mark 1.
Hello and thank you for this demo. I purchased the upgrade thanks to your effort!!! There are a couple of original ROM presets missing from my library. Which did you use for the Whitney Electric Piano and Whitesnake riffs?
all presets in this demo from the rom1 factory bank
Ah, found them. They're Arturia recommended patches, so they are prioritized at the top of the library and don't appear alphabetically with the rest. Thank you!
Sound identical to me: only seems like a bit difference in velocity (a little less in Arturia VST)
Hi Woody, could you make the MIDI available for download? So one could compare with other FM synths like FM8.
you'd both need the midi and the audio right? it's a 45 minute long track before editing... but I can make it available if you still want.
Hi Woody, Midi only is ok, I can compare with the audio from the video.
Arturia usually make pretty mediocre emulations, but this DX7 emulation is actually extremely close. It's the best DX7 emulation yet to be released - even better than Dexed! Most patches sound practically identical, and the rest are so close that they would be impossible for most people to tell apart in a blind test! Great job Arturia - for once! And thanks Woody for the vid!
What would your thoughts be on their Oberheim Matrix plugin? I'm looking at getting V collection just for that, and the Prophet plugin.
Don't really know about Oberheim vs real one, but I own the V collection 5, and I have test JUP 8V (Jupiter 8) and Mini V (minimoog) emulation are very far from reality... I would say JUP-8V factory preset are so far away from original that it's really not serious, for Oberheim Synth I personally use OP-X PRO II (from sonic projet), very good with many preset and even JUPITER 8 factory preset are nice and near form real one. Hope it will help you... Personally I found that Arturia GUI are very nice, but Sound far from real Synth (and thats really the black point), this DX7 is better ! but DEXED for free is also very good.
No. It is not better than Dexed.
Listen to the 12-bit emulation: Dexed totally nails it. Same with the bite and timbre of the DX7. Arturia doesn't.
That's not to say the Arturia is bad. It's a good emulation, and its UI beats Dexed, hands down.
Tazmanian Ninja: I totally disagree with your opinion. But hey, if Dexed sounds better to your ears, then by all means keep using it. To each their own.
I disagree as well...and whatever subtle differences there might be could be a nice combination of psychosomatic with some confirmation bias on top.
Either way, when you consider the extended capabilities of DX7 V, it's a no brainer IMO...25 waveforms, feedback on every operator, feedback on filter....and a GUI thats a joy to program. Why even bother with Dexed?
The DX7 V can do genuine DX7...and if you want....put it on juice
And, just think, I almost spent $100 on the Korg Opsix when I already have this and FM8. Welp, unless it's just feeding my sickness or because I'm too lazy to duplicate the patches I'll definitely be importing my TG77's purely fm patches to this. Wow. Thanks
These Velocity settings are not available anymore if you download the software now. Full or DX7. No idea if they fixed that now.