discoDSP has introduced Retromulator – a hardware synthesizer emulation plugin designed to bring legendary digital synths back to life through cycle-accurate low-level emulation of the original hardware chips.
Retromulator emulates the original integrated circuits at the hardware level. The virtual analog synths run on a cycle-accurate Motorola DSP 56300, while the Yamaha DX7 runs a full emulation of its Hitachi HD6303R sub-CPU and Yamaha YM21280/YM21290 EGS/OPS chip set. Each synth executes its authentic ROM firmware exactly as it did on the original hardware.
Version 1.0 is the initial release, supporting seven classic synthesizers, including the Yamaha DX7, Access Virus ABC/TI, Waldorf MicroQ, Waldorf XT, Nord Lead 2X, and Roland JP-8000. A valid ROM is required for each synth, in addition to Retromulator.
Retromulator runs on macOS, Windows, and Linux as AU, VST3, and Standalone. It’s built on Gearmulator, an open-source synthesizer emulation project by the dsp56300 team.
These are the supported synth engines:
- Access Virus ABC and TI emulation with sysex patch loading and ROM preset extraction to bank combo.
- Nord Lead 2X (N2X) emulation with per-program sysex navigation, edit buffer patch support, and output level correction by summing DSP A and DSP B voices at full scale.
- Roland JP-8000 (JE-8086) emulation with ROM preset extraction, patch browsing, multi-performance bank loading, and AU MIDI latency fix running at 44100 Hz.
- Waldorf MicroQ and XT emulation via dsp56300 cycle-accurate DSP engine with folder-per-bank ROM loading.
- Yamaha DX7 emulation via VDX7 — full hardware-level emulation of the Hitachi HD6303R sub-CPU, Yamaha YM21280 EGS (Envelope Generator), and YM21290 OPS (Operator) chip set with 16 KB firmware ROM and 32 KB factory voice data.
Note: Retromulator requires the original ROM firmware from your own hardware to operate each synthesizer. See the site for details.
Pricing and Availability:
Retromulator is available to use with no feature restrictions and no commercial use limitations, distributed under the GNU General Public License v3.
Purchasing a license supports ongoing development and entitles you to priority technical support.
Seems like a convenient packaging of the work done by Usual Suspects who reversed engineering these systems (https://dsp56300.wordpress.com/), plus a DX7 emulation.
It certainly looks that way but, GUI for each individual synth unlike US is none existent…
How are you suppose to tweak the sounds..?
Yeah, I finally got around to installing it, and it’s bloody *hopeless.*
Just loads presets from the ROM files which The Usual Suspects products already do, but at least those have a tweakable interface.
This Retromulator product is completely useless. And they ask for donations for this? It’s a scam, for sure.
That question has already been answered in the description text. This is the initial release indicating, at least to me, that version 1.0 will be preset patches only with no editable settings. At least that’s how I interpret it.
Ir also says that on their page: Retromulator is built on Gearmulator, an open-source synthesizer emulation project by the dsp56300 team. We are grateful for their extraordinary work in bringing these classic instruments back to life.
Utterly shameful product, that blatantly stole code from https://dsp56300.wordpress.com/
Rob, Anig, Harry – you appear to be confused about open source software.
Sharing and building on each other’s work is the whole point of open source. Both of these projects are open source.
So, the developers did not ‘blatantly steal’ anything, they ‘blatantly credited’ the project they built on.
I am not at all confused about the nature of open source. My point is that this project appears to repackage the Usual Suspects’ work *without adding to it*. I visited the Github page and was at a loss to see what utility it provided.
Where is the ‘building on’ part?
Gearmulator is GPL open source, which means that there are four freedoms that every user should have:
the freedom to use the software for any purpose,
the freedom to change the software to suit your needs,
the freedom to share the software with your friends and neighbors, and
the freedom to share the changes you make.
Knowing that Gearmulator is open source like this and that others are encouraged to use the source code FOR ANY PURPOSE, anyone suggesting that what discoDPS is doing is ‘shameful’ or ‘scammy’ is completely uninformed or trolling.
If you don’t like Retromulator for some reason, say so. But this type of forking is exactly why developers like The Usual Suspects share their work under the GPL. Make cool stuff, set if free and see what happens.
Freedom this and freedom that
Again, where is the ‘building on’ part?
These guys took someone elses hard work and made an inferior fork, it’s not that deep. Lame.
When people criticize open source projects, developers would tell you to fork it yourself and make something that you like better.
That’s the whole point of open source.
Retromulator seems like it’s designed to be a retro rompler, emulating the rack synths of the past (retro + rompler + emulator = Retromulator). But not just one, but a bunch of old rack-mount gear.
It’s bizarre how haters crawl out of the woodwork to complain about something that’s completely free and open source!
This comes off as pretty scammy, not offering any fetures on top of gearmulator but simlpy rebranding it in hopes of a quick buck.
It’s free isnt it? The licence is really a donation for ongoing development is it not?
It’s free, “donate if you want to support our work”.
They make it perfectly clear that they have “bundled” The Usual Suspect’s software (that is free to use and license and distribute under the open source license anyway), and give all credits to them.
I don’t see the problem here.
Crashing for me 🙁
On macOS 11.7, Intel
Their 1.2 version works!
Lifted the code from GitHub like a magpie .. only scum do that.
The Usual Suspects @ https://dsp56300.wordpress.com/ are the brains/coders behind this, not sure the world needed a ‘reskin’ but we have one! As long as it isn’t sold and everything remains open source, I don’t see an issue. Enough people ‘repackaged Mutable Instruments stiff (with many selling the end result!)
As with all of these emulators, the legality is at best questionable with respect to obtaining and using the original ROMS supplied for hardware instruments, especially if you don’t own the original hardware.
until now – no GUI(?) and eat 10x times processor than dsp56300 version (the DX7 doesn’t produce sound)
Does it only load presets?
Yes, and no real browser, just scroll through them in order.
This is rage posting
############
If you need these emulations use The Usual Suspects or Arturia instead. I regret ever buying a single product from DiscoDSP.
Admin: Personal attack deleted.
Keep comments on topic and constructive.
So Synthhead himself are caught by the protective algorithm….that’s hilarious!!!
There is no “protective algorithm”, it’s moderated by humans.
The comment from Anonymous contained a personal attack, which was deleted and replaced with the number sign (aka “hash” symbol) to reflect that.
synthhead then made a separate comment to say as much. Nothing hilarious about it.
Exactly.
Automatic moderation is great for keeping pr0n and spam out of the comments, but generally only catches personal attacks if people use things like racial slurs.
We used to nuke these comments from space, but we’re trying to be a little more surgical, when we can cut out the personal attack but leave the essence of the message.
Ah, got it. Thanks!
How surprising! Such a nice gentlemen move was obviously not carried out by Arturia, or UVI, or Synapse Audio, or U-He. Of course it had to be….. You win, DiscoDSP!
It’s free, it used an open source project.
Scour the web and there is lots like this, cutdown reworks for everything from server systems up.
If you don’t like it or how they have packaged it. Easiest way to deal with it is to not install it.
It serves to load the rom presets and cut down on screen real estate. Which it does.
I will say from an editorial point of view the article seems a little pointless, more making sure it seems like there is a daily update vs something to actually bring to the table.
At least this project don’t have nefarious “only personal use” statement like OB-Xd. discoDSP is now enjoying the advantages of the free software. At the time discoDSP is behaved very impolite and changed the license of OB-Xd (close it, from GPL to close copyright). The Good thing: now we have OB-Xf (by Surge Synth Team) which is totally free.
discoDSP has now donated $1000 to the TUS developers. Interesting development after the community backlash.
Apparently, TUS refused it and gave their reasons. TUS rock!
Its shit. Simple as that. Preset only. The usual suspects have it sorted, this is just grifting.
Not a great look for Disco DSP
It’s surprising to me how many haters have crawled out of the woodwork to dis this project.
Why hate on something free? And to suggest that they’re grifting – when they are giving it away free – is completely asinine.
It seems like a lot of people don’t understand the idea of open source software.
I wonder if DiscoDSP have any in-house-coded high-end GPL(/FLOSS) software. The problem with some outfits is how they try to associate themselves with good causes as a strategic form of PR/marketing. Maybe that was not DiscoDSP’s intent, but if understood correctly, Vertigo 5, for example, is relatively-expensive and has a restrictive license model. Maybe they could open source all their software and go the donation-model route.
I’ve been a fan of DiscoDSP for a while, their nord lead 2 was always on point back in the day and more recently they have an emulation of the OBX that’s in my rotation of softsynths I use. But I really don’t see the purpose of this at all…as others have mentioned this is just a repack of The Usual Suspects work…only in this case there is no GUI so it’s literally just for preset jockeys. The Usual Suspects have done a phenomenal job with all of the DSP56300 based this far along with excellent GUIs for each of them. I enjoy working with the osTIrus more than I enjoy working with my virus TI polar.
Regardless of peoples moral issue with this and the debate about open source projects in todays market (how many repacks are there of the mutable instruments plaits), all that aside I just do not see the point for this to exist what so ever…Getting The Usual Suspects plugins up and running isn’t difficult, I would imagine most people who want those synths are going to want to program them or at the absolute very least want to tweak sounds…there’s just no reason for this to exist.
Anyways if anyone donates to DiscoDSP for this plugin I would hope that the money would go straight to The Usual Suspects so they can keep up their excellent work.
‘Money’ can mess things up, as can the crony-capitalist plutarchy we’re currently trapped in. As I mentioned above, a PR/marketing strategy may be why some outfits associate themselves with good causes.
It appears that The Usual Suspects rejected DDSP’s $1000 offer, BTW. Good for/on them.
Maybe they could try $10 000. ;P
Wow. I had no idea Behringer were making soft synths now.