Digital Suburban has announced the release of Dexed, a fantastic freeware Yamaha DX7 inspired FM synthesizer in VSTi plugin format for Windows, Mac and Linux based DAWs.
Don’t be fooled by the cheap looking GUI design. In my opinion, this is the best Yamaha DX7 emulation in the freeware world. I’ve been looking for an instrument like this for such a long while, and finally, here it is!
See also: Free FM Synthesizer VSTi Plugins!Why do I like Dexed so much? There are several decent free FM synthesizers out there already (take a look at the article linked above), but this one is the most stable, easy to use, and feature packed of the bunch. Dexed comes with a huge sound bank containing 1024 classic DX7 presets, bringing tons and tons of classic FM sounds at your fingertips.
I’m not much of an FM synth programmer to begin with, so having access to so many presets is a huge plus in my case. Adding to that, the interface is very easy to understand (as far as FM synthesizers go) and I’m sure that this great little plugin will help me get better at programming synthesizers based on frequency modulation. In terms of accessibility and ease of use, I would also recommend the very good FMMF by de la Mancha.
The included patches are organized into 32 sound banks with 32 presets in each bank. You’ll find loads of classic FM sounds in these, from legendary electric pianos to brass, sound effects, and other stuff. If you’re looking for that legendary Lately Bass preset, load up a patch called BassAirMan from sound bank #5.
The plugin also works as a program editor for the hardware Yamaha DX7 synthesizer. It was actually developed primarily to serve as a software companion for the DX7, but it turned out to be such a great emulation of the original instrument.
Anyways, I’m honestly blown away by this freeware instrument. It could be due to the fact that I’ve been looking for an easy to use FM synthesizer for such a long time, but who knows. If you’re looking for a free FM instrument for your software collection, definitely grab this one and give it a go. I’m pretty sure that you wan’t be disappointed.
Video Demo
Check out the Dexed demo video:
Download
Dexed is available for free download via Github (935 kB download size, ZIP archive, 32-bit & 64-bit VSTi plugin format for Windows, Mac, Linux).
42 Comments
Maybe
onI don’t get it, where’s the Windows VST file!?
Bedroom Producers Blog
onScroll down the page to the section labeled “Binary Downloads” and choose vst win32 or vst win64.
nay-seven
onThanks a lot for this one Tomislav !
Bedroom Producers Blog
onCheers nay-seven! :)
Jazzigula
onReally great news this Sunday evening!
Bedroom Producers Blog
onYeah man! :D
akiz
onI cant load it / find it in renoise 3 or tracktion 5 on macosx 10.6.8 and 64bit system.
Bedroom Producers Blog
onPerhaps you could report the bug to the developer here: http://asb2m10.blogspot.com/2013/12/dexed-dx7-software-plugin-emulator.html
Todd
onThis just went to the top of my synth list. Just awesome. And all the presets…!
Bedroom Producers Blog
onAwesome indeed and yeah I also love the fact that it comes with so many presets!
Todd
onI know it’s not finished, but do we know if there is 64bit OSX planned? The one I downloaded seems to be 32bit.
acidchunk
onSounds great so far! I’ve already made some fun stuff with it while just playing around with presets. Definitely my favorite free FM synth; makes me want to actually learn what I’m doing with FM! My biggest complaint is that the knobs aren’t labeled until you click on one (and unfortunately you have to change the value); from a workflow standpoint it really slows things down for me. But that’s a pretty minor complaint for such a great synth.
The only real functional issue I’ve run into so far is that the latest version he’s got there (0.5.0a I think) doesn’t play too well with FL Studio (way too much distortion/noise with every preset), unless I’m doing something terribly wrong. The previous version works pretty swell, though.
Ninja Mode
onI also tried it in the latest FL Studio, crazy amounts of stuttering and distortion! It works fine in Reaper though, shame how it fails in FL.. also im not a fan of how the knobs rotate. I would have loved this a lot if it weren’t for those factors!
Jon
onI’m getting the distortion in Renoise too, so at least now I know I’m not going insane and other people are having this issue.
Jon
onActually I get the same distortion in Reaper.
Bedroom Producers Blog
onThe developer has reported on KVR Audio that he has identified the bug and that the fix should be released soon (probably within a week).
acidchunk
onAwesome news! Thanks for the update! I’ll keep this on my radar then.
Dean
onOh man, this is great! An absolute gem. The sound quality really surprised me, and I love the presets!
LAGinz
onWow!! Because there are so many pretty good free synths out there I’ve become really picky about adding anymore to my hard drive. The only ones I’m adding have to be 64 bit compatible, and “best in breed”. This one passed with flying colors. Thanks Tomislav-a real find!!
sense
onCan i also use it to edit my DX-200?
Bedroom Producers Blog
onI’m not sure, but my guess is that this isn’t possible because it’s a different synthesizer.
some65
onSorry for the rude language but OMFG !!!!
This is the best sounding DX7 inspired FM synthesizer I ever heard.
I own FM8 (F/K/A FM7) since day one and want miss it due it massive feature set (e.g. BSEG up to minutes) and it’s a monster FM-Synth but it doesn’t sound like a Yamaha thing … On the other hand …
Dexed by Digital Suburban is astonishing close to the real Hardware Synth. It’s damn light on the CPU. 9 instances within Ableton Live only use round about 12% on my 2 years old i5. A really digital (in good way) clear and punchy sound. I really recommend it.
I did a lil’ loop to show Dexed’s sound. This was used
Ableton Live, 9x Dexed with EQ Eight, 2x Ableton Delay and Ableton Reverb.
Master: VoS / TDR Slick EQ (just some HP filtering) and VoS FerricTDS (slight compression and limiting no saturation)
zippyshare.com/v/12992055/file.html
I’m impressed how many good freeware vst out there at the moment.
And Thank you for your site … bpb … rules
Bedroom Producers Blog
onYes, I really like the clean sound of this synth.
Nice loop there, too! Do you have a SoundCloud link?
ntrval
oni got a “file does not exist” page. put it up on soundcloud?
some65
onThx. Happy that you like the loop. I’m preparing to be more outstanding and so I did a SoundCloud link. At the moment it’s only the Dexed loop but a lot more will follow. I think today another Dexed example will come. Just for the fun …
And again … top site!
some65
onDamn … here’s the link … sorry
https://soundcloud.com/high-underground/dexed
@toddhisattva
onI did this using Dexed as the only instrument. A little Reaper EQ and some tasty reverb were also involved, but nothing that changed the character of the sound – what you hear is pretty much what Dexed sounds like:
https://soundcloud.com/todd-hartmann/indexed
For best results download it and listen in 5.1 surround. Enjoy! (I had no idea an FM synth could do a rock organ.)
Bedroom Producers Blog
onVery nice! Thanks for the link, it’s very cool to hear what can be done with just a single FM synthesizer.
Phil
onA new demo video showing DEXED v0.8 (the one with the new GUI) being used to produce several classic DX7 sounds, but also pads, and even a DEXED only demosong is to be seen here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSs1-020nNY
boy martel
onIm sorry for being such a novice… but can someone kindly explain how i install this lovely sounding synth on my mac?
To the Sun
onis it possible to change the bank via MIDI messages with this VST?
McFly
onGuys, I have a problem :(
The synthesizer is definitely fine, but unfortunately there’s a bug when I open a cartridge and then presets. These presets do not open! :( It takes a “Say it again” preset by default every time… I downloaded and installed the file properly, but still have no idea why it doesn’t work. Hope someone could help me with this
Stephan
onHi,
first of all, thanks for this great sounding synth! I have a noob question. How can I browse the 1024 presets? My dropdown list only contains 32, and I honestly dont know how to select a different bank of the factory presets..
Thanks :)
Tomislav Zlatic
onHi Stephan, you those 32 presets are just the first bank. You’ll need to change the bank in order to access the other presets.
Baby Cakes
onHi!! Love your site and thanks for all the work you do!! How do you change the banks?? Been producing for some time but I dont see an option…..load just gives me an option to import dx syssex
Baby Cakes
onNever mind!! I found it…for anyone confused, click on “cart” and the banks will show up :)
ken
onNow here’s a weird thing. I downloaded the original “sysex” file of voicesand then I go to load a file from that folder say “keys.syx”. The name “METALBAND” comes up in the interface so like it recognises the name of the file. If you then drop down there are various other file names, but if I try to select from the dropdown list I always get “ARP2600” for some reason. All Cart seems to do is bring up 32 banks and if you select a bank you get the first file in that bank but if I try to select another it goes to ARP 2600 again.
Neil Paddock
onIt took me a while to find the right link to download the actual VST from – Here’s the link to the website where you can download the Dexed VST for Mac & PC.
http://asb2m10.github.io/dexed/
Click on one of the folder icons (Mac or PC) underneath the website banner that says:
dexed
FM multi plaform/multi format plugin, version 0.9.0
I deleted the 64 bit version as Reaper reported an error in it.
Boris R
onThank you Neil, I also had no idea where to download Dexed from, exactly.
Now finally going to try it!
Manu Soundscapes
onHello! I like Dexed, but there’s sooo many banks and presets of it, that i’m pretty lost. Can you say what’s your’s favorite Dexed preset sounds? Just for fun.
By the way, great job!
Atme
onThe best DX7 emulation by far.