Hacker News Reader

Comment by onemoresoop | Hacker News Reader

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.

View on HN

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

Reply on news.ycombinator.com