Yamaha TX81Z Homepage | Hacker News Reader

Yamaha TX81Z Homepage

mgregory22.me

74 pointsbrudgers65 comments

I absolutely love this synth.

I made an entire EP using mostly just this synth (Think Aphex twin/ 90s warp braindance)

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/5to7MacsSiftv8vPFW05aL Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/cassilda_and_carcosa/sets/marantz_cp_...

Its such a great little 4op synth. It is a pain to program via the frontpanel but the Stereoop controller or the electra.one make it very easy to get into.

It's really great. I also did a TX81Z song 12 years ago.

https://soundcloud.com/electrosock/beer-for-breakfast

Bought the TX81Z really cheap back in the day via eBay. I loved the OS of the machine, the most wonderful thing about it is that with only 5 buttons and a 2 line LED display you could tweak any detail about the sound, including changing the FM algorithm

How does it compare to the Reface DX? It's also 4-op and I think you can change the waveforms because I have a patch that's clearly a sawtooth. I only just got into synthesizers and the Reface DX is so much fun to play with on the couch.

The Reface DX can perfectly reproduce all sounds from vintage 4-op synths (TX81Z, DX9, DX21, DX11) but isn't directly compatible. However there's a solution to convert sounds for the old machines to the new one :

https://refacedx.martintarenskeen.nl/

Oh this is amazing. I bought my Reface DX second hand and the previous owner had put in a whole bunch of very cool patches. I often let my 16 month old daughter jam on it, and a couple weeks ago she managed to factory reset the thing so now I'm back to the diverse but rather bland factory presets so I really should put some effort into setting it up with a cool set of patches again.

You can get patches from https://soundmondo.yamahasynth.com/

I have two of them in my MIDI stack :-). I also had a DX-11 which was the 4-op keyboard and did patch design on that and then transferred the patches via Sysex to the TX-4(s). It continues to be a great synth.

Listened to all your releases, really enjoyed them! Curious to see whether/what you'll do with Bitwig, Poly Grid is insane but I personally I still prefer hardware.

thanks! some of the older stuff is.... old, not very good :) but thanks for dropping by and listening.

Loved it. Man, that bass on The King in Yellow... Only FM can deliver that!

thanks!

Damn dude/tte, those are some great tracks. Awesome work!

thanks :)

Love the mid 90s Warp sound. Which reverb did you use?

depends on the track.

ontologies -> Empress Reverb

king in yellow -> Empress Reverb & Strymon Volante

roland funk -> Strymon Volante, Alesis Quadraverb, Empress Reverb

toddling maths -> EHX Cathedral (so many lovely digital artifacts)

Sounds great! Can I ask what you sequenced with? Curious if you're using a tracker, hardware, or a more traditional DAW?

Sequentix Cirklon, I don't use a daw. everything is sequencer to synths/drums to fx to mixer to tape.

everything on that EP is sequenced using the Sequentix Cirklon, "Roland funk" was sequenced with a Elektron Octatrack because the cirklon broke and needed to be repaired.

Edit: I do use a daw when I need to bounce the tape to a single track. that single track is how i get stuff from tape to streaming services.

excellent work, I wish this was on bandcamp.

I have two TX81Zs, but I've never been able to coax anything this pretty out of them.

great stuff :) definitely fit the early braindance vibe to a T 10/10 would listen again :P

thanks!

The author of this page made his own patch editor for the TX81Z, which I use in my studio: https://github.com/mgregory22/tx81z-programmer It's honestly one of the simplest, and best patch editors I've used for any synth. I recommend it.

A little while ago I was working on doing a full teardown and writeup about the TX81Z. Unfortunately I just couldn't come up with enough interesting information that wasn't already better written by others in places like Matt Gregory's page. The only new and interesting thing my research came up with was how the cassette interface worked: https://ajxs.me/blog/How_the_Yamaha_FM_Synth_Cassette_Interf...

I'd really love to know more about the history behind the development of Yamaha's other FM synths, like the TX81Z. If anyone knows of any good books or resources (ideally in English, but let me know even if there's Japanese ones), I'd love to know about them.

This whole series was relatively interesting to me:

[-] https://www.righto.com/search/label/dx7

[-] https://www.righto.com/2021/11/reverse-engineering-yamaha-dx...

One year, I asked for a synthesizer for Christmas and my parents made one of these appear under the tree. The manual was a good into to FM synths for me, and I didn't understand at the time how hard it was to program. I thought that's just how things were.

It was a great little box, and I had a good time using it with my Amiga to clone my favorite songs. I which I still had my cover of "Blue Monday" somewhere.

My favorite thing about Yamaha is that it’s unclear from the product name whether this is a motorcycle or an instrument.

Too difficult, some are actually both!

Try searching for Yamaha FX-1, it is both a home organ and a jet ski.

Yamaha engineer here. The product naming system always irritates me. When I ask around why this is the case, the answer is consistently "We have a wide range of products".

Quick, someone make an online quiz that tells you Yamaha product names and you have to guess whether it’s a motorcycle or an instrument!

Start easy (e.g DX7 as first question) and make it progressively more difficult.

Throw in one question where the only options are instrument or motorcycle, but the real answer is industrial robot. Then apologize for the trick question and promise not to do that again. Three questions later, do it again. But then after that only do the real questions.

When showing the correct answer for each product, show a picture of what it looks like.

When calculating score, exclude the two trick questions. Ask 10 real questions total and 2 trick questions. The maximum score is 10/10. Calculate score on backend, not on front end. Only reveal the correct answer for each question after user has submitted response to the question. If a user submits the correct answer for one of the trick questions (not possible with UI, but can be done by the user if they send the correct answer in the POST request), they get a bonus point. With bonus points the max score possible is 12/10.

There is no indication in the data sent to user agent that industrial robot is a possible answer. The following are the valid responses that the backend will deserialize when checking each question: motorbike, musical-instrument, industrial-robot. Only the options “motorbike” and “musical-instrument” show up in the choices available to user agent. In the response when user answers the trick questions, it will show in the data the serialized value “industrial-robot” along with human readable name “Industrial Robot”.

Example question from server:

  {
    "q-num": 1,
    "q-kind": "choose-one",
    "product": "Yamaha DX7",
    "a-alts": [{"v":"motorbike", "display-v":"Motorbike"},{"v":"musical-instrument", "display-v":"Musical instrument"}],
    "points-so-far": 0,
    "max-points-possible": 10
  }

Example response by client:

  {
    "q-num": 1,
    "a": ["musical-instrument"]
  }

Example reply from server:

  {
    "q-num": 1,
    "grade": "correct",
    "a-correct": [{"v":"musical-instrument", "display-v": "Musical Instrument", "img": [{"720w": "https://i.example.com/dx7-720w.jpg", "w": 720}], "points-worth":1, "points-awarded": 1}],
    "points-so-far": 1,
    "max-points-possible": 10,
    "next-q": 2
  }

Reminds me of one of my all time favourite onion articles: https://www.theonion.com/yamaha-ceo-pleased-with-current-pro...

I had, in chronological order, a Yamaha flute ( yes, flute ), amplifier and motorcycle.

Let's guess what is Yamaha RTX5000

"Dad I want DX-7"

"Sorry son, they only had MT07, but I think you'll like it!"

If you want to hear it I found this video:

https://youtu.be/YzH1xjU74D8

That’s a great channel btw, humorous takes on audio gear.

love me some "Bad Gear" :)

I imagine the TX81Z ticked all the boxes at first glance.

Just wanted to shout out the PreenFM2 here, I'm not affiliated in any other way than being a big fan and owner of the FM2 and FM3, fantastic little DIY synth made by a passionate French dude.

https://ixox.fr/preenfm2/ // https://github.com/Ixox and you can either DIY the PCB and acquire all components, build a kit, or buy a pre-made from https://vandaal-electronics.com/ . There's even a eurorack version of the FM2. FM2 & 3 do MPE as well. Here's a review of the FM2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yG9uahcizs and this is the best video I could find showing the FM3 interface https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vu-W7J511to . I had no trouble importing from Van Daal to California but they also pop up on Reverb from time to time. Great price for such an FM powerhouse too.

I have a preenFM3, great little synth. Interestingly enough, Yamaha instruments are still called "FM" synths when they use Phase Modulation synthesis. for true FM synthesis, things like operator feedback are impossible.

(that's right, they aren't true FM synths!)

FM, PM and PD are all subtypes of waveshaping synthesis.

The preenFM2 & PreenFM3 are actually FM synths. And it does sound a bit different from the Yamaha stuff from the 80s and 90s!

The TX's Lately Bass is one of the most iconic synth presets. It's the core of Eurodance/Eurobeat, though sometimes you also hear Solid Bass or the Korg M1's Organ2.

The M1 is the source of the most common House piano sounds, and a lot of other common instrument sounds in 90s music.

fun little trick is to record the latelybass part twice and just slightly detune the second instance...makes basslines soo meaty.

Thanks for the tip. I'll have to experiment with that sometime.

Sold mine a few years ago, not sure why, but I do have this other 4-op FM in the same family: https://www.vintagesynth.com/yamaha/tq5.php

Nice 1980s design, can't tell if alarm clock or synth :-)

both!

I always loved FM. It's in kind of a comeback, but I haven't yet seen a compact FM synth from the big guys with high polyphony and multitimbrality.

The Korg Opsix is a great modern take on FM synthesis, if you're looking to buy something new that can do what the TX81Z can do. There's a digital version as well, but my gut says there are probably better digital FM synths - I haven't tried it tho.

To your two points, it's got 24-32 voices (https://www.korg.com/us/products/synthesizers/opsix/specific...), and while it's not natively multitimbral, you can hack it using key-tracking to create pseudo multitimbral sounds (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8skEWKbfBs)

If you're interested in less keyboard-y, more sequencer-y FM synthesis - the Elektron Digitone has 8 voices, and I think it can do 4-part multitimbral splits (the digitone keys can definitely, assume the standalone can). I'm not a huge fan of the Elektron style of doing things, but many people are.

I love the Digitone as well. it's 4 part multimbral and the 8 voice are shared across all 4 parts.

people tend to think of the Digitone as a FM synth, (and they wouldn't be wrong) its architecture is very much like a subtractive synth but in a normal east coast subtractive synth the architecture kinda looks like this:

    VCO -> VFC -> VCA

Digitone:

    4 operators FM engine -> VFC -> VCA (then ADSRs for the filter and the amp).

the other think thats kinda interesting about the FM section of the Digitone, is it uses a form of additive synthesis to create the harmonic series for the HARM parameter. Additive synthesis is one of the oldest forms of electronic sound generation. this allows you, like the TX81z to have operators that aren't sine waves.

So in a lot of respects the Digitone is more versatile that your standard 6op sinewave FM synth.

8 voices is so little... Older FM synths could do a lot more, even if they didn't have the VCFs/VCAs. Older sound modules tended to be full-song workhorses, while the Digitone has more of a tracker philosophy. That's ok, but they could at least have done 16 voices so we can have nice chord pads with bass, melody and drums.

The Yamaha MODX has 64-voice FM polyphony, but of course not a compact module (but it could be, probably, but there is no market for it).

I do nice chords pads with bass, melody and drums on the Digitone... just use those sound locks :-)

Yeah, it’s 8 sounds at a time, so the different channels voice steal. It turns out not to be a big drawback.

And both Opsix and Wavestate are built around raspberry pi module. Kinda wild.

I'd love if company that's, well, versed in building good music hardware would just release hackable version of their synth

Whoa! I had no idea! Very cool.

The closest thing from a mainstream synth company I can think of is the Korg Minilogue xd (and a few other things that use the same engine) where they released an sdk for the digital oscillator.

This is crazy to see this on Hacker News because I have a TX81Z sitting next to me on my rack. I've been using it for a few weeks now and love it for, obviously for Lately Bass, but also other tones I use in arps.

In case anyone is interested in some additional patches, here's one I found useful: https://www.offthematrix.net/product-page/tx81z-dx11-patches

I used to have one of these! It sure did make some interesting sounds, but the interface required an unreasonable degree of patience.

What you really want for these babies is YSEDITOR for the Atari ST, which can be run under emulation, etc. Makes them quite pleasant to edit patches for.

Yamaha Reface DX is a pretty good alternative. These go for 250 and have a keyboard and the UI is better (not perfect but better than a few buttons for programming the TX81Z).

For a 3-400 a Yamaha sy-77 is also a decent alternative with 6 FM-ops and AWM2.

The SY77 is such a beast. The complexity of the engine and the fact that it runs on mostly bespoke all digital 80's tech still amazes me. Those Yamaha engineers were an exceptionally motivated bunch.

Still sounds great to this day!

I have a TG77, which is the rack-mounted version. I'm consistently amazed by the sheer amount of features the synth supports. It even has some basic DSP effects! The SY-series definitely still hold up to this day.

It is a beast indeed. Unfortunately the sequencer part has a few bugs

There is also the Reface DX Legacy project which tries to convert FM synth presets - including the TX81Z presets - to work with the Reface DX: https://refacedx.martintarenskeen.nl/

Does the Reface DX support the alternate waveforms that the TX81Z does? I was under the impression that it only supports sine waves. Which would make it more like an updated DX100 I guess.

you are correct. it doesn't have the extra waveforms and you are limited to sine waves

You don't have the full set of waveforms, no, but IIRC the operator feedback option can be used to get square and sawtooth waveforms as well

The great thing about FM is that it is quite a digital technology ..

Dexed:

https://zynthian.org/engines/_engine-list/engine-dexed

.. can be run on Zynthian (http://zynthian.com/)

And, there is the Monome, which supports various amazing FM thingies too:

https://llllllll.co/t/triggers-sorens-standalone-fm-synth/50...

https://llllllll.co/t/xd1-is-an-fm-synth/59150

Seriously the TX81Z is at the root of a lot of inspiring synth engines that have appeared since... and in the case of the Monome/Zynthian examples, proves yet again that no matter how complicated the synth engine behind it, as long as you've got a semi-decent user interface, people will cope and make tunes.

Which is why the TX81Z is such an oddity! :)

(Disclaimer: FS1R owner)

I've wanted for many years a FS1R, (second hand market is wild.)

I think part of the charm of the TX81z is those lo-fi crunchy DACs. its hard to replicate that reliably in software.

Seconded about the FS1R. The idea of finding one on the second-hand market here in Australia is pure fantasy. They look amazing. I'm hoping that one day one of the future Yamaha workstations adopts the FS1R's formant synthesis features.

if you love that lo fi crunchy DAC sound (I do too), check out a VST plugin called TALSampler. It emulates a variety of classic crappy-DAC samplers and can be used to process any signal to add that grunge, with controllable jitter/downsampling/noise.

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