gtaylor@astroatc.UUCP (10/07/85)
I happened to be down at the local emporium on Saturday and ran across a set of "new" ROMS for the DX7. Cynic that I am, I assumed that they were little more than cartridge versions of the stuff in the megarack, shuffled around and reorganized. For this, I had to stick to my ears pretty much (so this may not be gospel). I got a xeroxed copy of the performance notes for both the TX7 and the 816 (we're talking *pages* here), and have tried putting some of the presets in as I've needed them on my machine (one a night until my sight finally goes reading the little LED. Gotta get one of those librarian programs...). I understand that that nice Japanese gentlemen who wrote the Ansco book is responsible for a large amount of what's on these things. He may not translate well, but some of the presets *do*. The little buggers go for somewhere around $50 a crack, and are divided into 4 groups-roughly resembling the initial four things that come with the kybd. Strings/Sustained stuff Orchestral stuff Effects Percussion The general result of stepping through them is that they are a pretty useful set (though the $$ might be debateable, right? anyone wanna try a group buy?). The orchestral stuff is pretty paradigmatic...there are a couple of varieties of each useful thing-which usually are a bit more widely differentiated from each other than, say, the 4 electric pianos that show up on the basic rom set. Most of whats in the sets parallels what's in the 816, but they've been really well "tweaked" and fixed up. Oh yeah...there's one set that features nothing but "analog" sounds. Get your DX to sound like a fat analog synth. Seems like a funny idea to me, but several of my fellow owners who play in public (as opposed to us studio/ethno-ambient rats) descry the "thin, weedy" live sound of the DX. THey'll probably like that one. A couple of electric guitars, and some *nice* choirs on the sustained set. THey appear to have struck some compromises between the choir on the 816 (which uses all 8 boxes to handle a *part* of the choir) and the TX/DX versions. Probably a lot of *very* careful attention to the rate scaling features, I'd think. That seems to be what lots of people Never Get The Hang Of. The effects ROM gives us the semi-usual explosions, insects and the lot. On the face of it, this seems more a novelty than a real useful one. The percussion set stays quite close to the 816 set, but again sounds a good deal more tweaked and tuned than the megarack. I am not the best person to ask about the acoustic piano patches, but there are a few on the "sustain" set. The orchestral set has a number of *very* nicely tuned instruments...varying degrees of overblow, a cor anglais, and (finally) a really useable sax patch that honks along nicely. YOu could actually get it to work without putting that breath thing in your mouth (I have this recurring nightmare about having to play my digital gamelan stuff on MTV on one of those silly remote guitar/like keyboards with one of those little breath controllers plugged into it.....yeccch.) I just can't give the things a blanket endorsement, but a little careful buying and shopping might turn up something *very* useful to you. Now if they just put out a rom full of Indian strings and Asian Metallophones....................... Gregory Taylor