DX7 Algorithms in XFM2

If you are reading this, chances are that you love synthesizers with a passion.

Also, I’d bet you have a comprehensive perspective on the various synthesis types and the historic milestones achieved by a few legendary products. We all have our perspective on which ones were the most disruptive and influential for the subsequent generations.

For me, the DX7 is the disruptive product. Digital synthesis wasn’t really a thing before it, and suddenly become mainstream. It wasn’t just one of the best-selling synthesizers of all times, it was one of the most-used as well.

Anyways, for many users, one of the superb things about the DX7 was the immense availability of patches. I recall spending hours in BBSs and CompuServe hunting for DX7 patches when I was a young boy.

After several years, I changed my mind about that. Till now, I’m not a big fan of patches. I believe that the ‘you need to have a PhD to program a DX7’ saying was only a consequence of nobody really investing time and effort in learning how to create patches. In fact, I did not want XFM or XFM2 to be clones of the old-timers. It wouldn’t be cool, to me.

The #1 user request for XFM and XFM2 is still a “DX7 patch converter, so one could use the zillion patches out there”. It’s not a superbly complex task, but I don’t think I’ll ever do one, sorry. I really invite you to spend some time diving into how to program XFM2, and you’ll have a zillion patches, all made by you, representing you, and -being- you.

Still, I can help with a few bits here and there. Here’s a table with the values for all XFM2 operator modulations for all 32 DX7 algorithms.

This Excel spreadsheet includes the calculation table.