Monthly Archives: February 2024

Yamaha Reface DX in the house

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UPS surprised me and delivered Yamaha Reface DX one day early. Hurray!

As I’ve mentioned before, I owned and played a Yamaha DX21 back in the late 80s and early 90s. (The 4-op, FM DX21 was released in 1985.) The DX21 was the first synth that I took to church. I remember playing string, brass and organ patches.

After I unboxed the Reface DX, my head was spinning. Did Rock Moranis’s mad-scientist dad hit my old DX21 with a shrinking ray? The styling and feel is so DX21 that it was a definite case of déjà vu.

The Reface DX has the same solid feel and build as my well-worn Reface YC. I bought Reface YC in 2017 and I’ve played the snot out of it. I take care of my tools and the Reface YC has held up pretty well. I expect the same from Reface DX.

One difference tho’, the Reface YC keys have become clacky (for lack of a better term). Playing the new Reface DX reminds me of how smooth the YC felt at first. The DX velocity response is nice. The DX is still three octaves, so my major complaint about mini-keyboards remains valid. The Reface HQ mini-keys have a more substantial feel than the Yamaha PSS-A50.

After turning this bugger on and playing — Wow, this is a real instrument, a real synthesizer. The DX stores patches unlike its Reface brethren. I went through the presets and found roughly 20 keepers. I’m not into aggressive so patches like “Wobble Bass” got the ax. I made a chart and took note of target memory locations.

Sound-wise, it’s a very nice 4-op implementation. Eight note polyphony is enough to be dangerous. In comparison, Modal Skukpt SE is four voice polyphonic and I always get frustrated when the fifth note causes note theft. I’m putting the Reface DX through a Yamaha Stagepas100 and it sounds great. The built-in speakers are the same old “courtesy speakers” and aren’t meant for serious use.

The effects section is strong. Reface DX implements two post effects in series. The workflow is simple and direct: Hit the EFFECT button and use the data entry strips/switches to make your choices. There is a lot you can do through effects alone without getting into FM programming.

You all might say, “Late to the party, PJ.” However, I made a conscious decision in 2017 to buy one Reface and the YC filled most of my needs. With YC, it’s organ or nothing and that has always felt limiting. Reface DX is a true synth and covers a lot of sonic territory. Maybe I would have been happier with Reface DX from the start? It just doesn’t matter…

Yamaha Soundmondo

Being late has one advantage, Yamaha’s Soundmondo patch-sharing site is full to the brim with Reface DX programs. I decided to start with Manny Fernandez’s patches — go pro. I honestly don’t have time to wade through a lot of, well, crap.

Speaking of which, there are so many DX programs that Yamaha’s tagging scheme is not sufficient to efficiently filter out irrelevant dreck. People can tick off as many tags as they like — inappropriately so. Worse, Soundmondo game-ified contributions, encouraging people to use more tags than necessary in order to win more ears and likes. These factors make efficient search impossible. Yamaha should limit the number of tags per sound to three, max.

Beyond those negatives, Soundmondo works like a charm with Reface DX. I never used Soundmondo with the YC since pulling drawbars is so natural and immediate. With Soundmondo, I quickly found useable string and brass patches. The workflow is smooth and it’s easy to store a new voice on the DX as long as you know which memory locations to sacrifice. No problem.

My only remaining quibble with Soundmondo is, again, due to scale. Soundmondo uses the scrolling reveal approach to search results and does not return to the last selected result. That means you have to re-scroll through search results all the way from the beginning! Since people over-tagged their entries, that makes for a lot of dreck to scan through over and over again. Tedious.

Quick summary

So, Reface DX is now on sale for $250 USD (MAP). I stayed good to my word and waited for close-out pricing before buying a second Reface. If you can find a Reface DX for $250, buy it. You won’t regret the decision.

What’s next? I’m going to try loading converted DX21 patches from the Reface DX Legacy Project. Soundmondo is a little short on FM woodwinds and I’m going to give the old DX21 sounds another shot at glory.

Copyright © 2024 Paul J. Drongowski

More DX/FM learning resources

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While waiting and waiting for the Superbowl, I went on a treasure hunt through my archives. I found and scanned a few old Yamaha DX learning resources for people who want to learn FM programming.

Yamaha DX21 Play Book

The Yamaha DX21 Play Book is a more user friendly manual for the DX21. It’s closer to what we call a “user manual” than a stuffy reference manual.

The DX21 Play Book has a bright orange cover and takes the reader through the steps of using a DX21. It concludes with a very basic introduction to DX21 programming, including the FM voice data for Glockenspiel (seriously?) and brass.

The DX21 Play Book came with a cassette tape. Side A is audio covering basic operation and performance memory. Side B contains performance and voice data to load onto the DX21. Welcome to 1980’s technology — digital data encoded as audio. Modems, anyone?

FM preset charts

I hand-copied (!) patches for eight DX21 factory presets. Primitive, but I can still read the results today unlike my variable speed floppy disks for Mac SE. 🙂

Yamaha Aftertouch Magazine

Before YamahaSynth.com and forums, there was Yamaha Aftertouch Magazine. Aftertouch was edited by the talented Tom Darter of Keyboard Magazine fame. Yamaha dropped real money on Aftertouch. I loved that mini-magazine and read it religiously.

There is a great collection of Aftertouch magazines at Yates Family. In the January 1989 issue, you will find a brief bio and comments by a young guy named Phil Clendeninn. (Thanks, Phil!)

Here is the January 1986 issue of Aftertouch. Speaking of youth, our kid was six months old in January 1986. Time flies!

How to program the DX7

Back in the day, Keyboard Magazine published in-depth reviews and how-to articles. That’s why many of us mourn the loss of Keyboard Magazine.

Here is a scan of “How to Program the DX7” by Bo Tomlyn as told to Jim Aikin. Bo Tomlyn was a consultant and clinician for Yamaha. If you read this article and the series by Manny Fernandez, you’ll be ready to go.

Yamaha FM Essential app

Finally, the Yamaha FM Essential app is a quick and free way to check out 4-op FM programming. You need to connect your iPad to a Mark 2 MX series synthesizer to unlock all of its presets (including the DX100).

I unlocked the app — once. Unfortunately, if you archive the app to iCloud, it loses the unlock data. So, the FM Essential app is now locked again.

Hey, Yamaha! Maybe it’s time to fully unlock the FM Essential app for everybody? I can’t find an MX at a local store to do another unlock. Maybe unlock the app when its connected to any Yamaha synth?

Copyright © 2024 Paul J. Drongowski

Reface DX: No static at all

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If you’ve browsed Yamaha Reface at on-line retailers, you’ll know that Reface DX and Reface CS are currently on sale. The DX and CS are the two Katzenhammer kids which share the same internal design, using a Yamaha-proprietary SSP-2 processor as the central compute engine.

The Reface DX price is startling: $250 USD (MAP). Wow! That’s the price of a mid-range guitar pedal. Makes me wonder if the DX and CS are being closed out or if Mark 2 models are in the works. The venerable SSP-2 is supplanted by the SSP-3 and perhaps the inventory of SSP-2 is depleted.

The Reface CP and Reface YC MAP prices remain the same. I suspect that sales of these models remain solid as there always seems to be a need for good EP and organ sounds.

That DX price is a clearance price. When Reface was released, I vowed to buy at blow-out pricing. Yep, I put a Reface DX on order.

A few Reface DX programming links

First off, I’m amazed at the number of contributed DX patches at Yamaha’s Soundmondo sharing site. There are literally thousands of Reface DX patches. The Soundmondo tagging idea is good, but too many punters over-tagged their submissions. I’m looking for “orchestral” sounds and there are many tagged patches that are not remotely “orchestral”. A search system is only as good as the quality of its tagging.

If that’s not enough patches for you, try the Reface DX Legacy Project. Martin Tarenskeen maintains this vast library of Reface DX patches converted from old FM machines. I can’t vouch for the quality of the conversions (yet), but I’ll be heading there for old 4-op DX21 patches. I had a DX21 back in the day, and know the factory sound set quite well. I still have the original cassette tape with DX21 patches on it!

I also plan to do a little FM programming. This series of articles by Manny Fernandez is excellent:

Learn from the best in the field — that would be Manny. His articles have links to his example patches in the Soundmondo library.

You’ll need a Reface DX algorithms and envelope cheat-sheet (PDF), too.

Reface DX is old enough to be a grown up by now. So, there’s plenty of on-line support if you choose to jump into the Reface DX pool.

Yamaha SEQTRAK FM

I was curious to see how SEQTRAK FM stacks up against Reface DX. My conclusion — it’s the same FM engine:

  • 4-op, 12 algorithms, polyphony 8
  • Same algorithms and parameters
  • SEQTRAK includes many Reface DX patches

Looking beyond FM, SEQTRAK does AWM2, sampling and sequencing, and offers more effects. I’m more of a player than a button-pusher, so Reface DX is better for my personal needs.

Reflecting on the SEQTRAK FM and AWM2, I would expect to find a Yamaha proprietary SWX09 at its heart. The SWX09 core executes the Renesas SH architecture, same as SSP. Plus, SWX09 has an integrated AWM2 tone generation engine.

Copyright © 2024 Paul J. Drongowski