I love the 80’s era sounds that you can get from the Yamaha DX7, and the more recent (and more affordable) Volca FM synthesizer.
What I don’t love? Programming patches for them. It can be a huge slog (and more difficult to learn than your more intuitive subtractive synthesis.
No problem! After all, why have a human do a computer’s job?
The site This DX7 Cart Does Not Exist will happily generate a file containing a set of new patches using that new-fangled machine learning technology.
According to the site, “The model generates 99.9% unique voices and so it is highly unlikely that any two cartridges created on this site will be the same.”
But why stop there? I have a script that will pull a new random cartridge file and then load it to our Volca!
List of Materials
- A machine running Linux
- A Volca FM
- A USB-to-MIDI cable (I used this, confirmed to work)
Instructions
- Plug the USB A male end of the USB-to-MIDI cable into your computer.
- Plug the MIDI out connector of the USB-to-MIDI cable into your Volca FM.
- Turn on your Volca FM.
- In a command line prompt, run this command:
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/aastaneh/randomvolca/main/randomvolca | bash - …
- Profit!
Soon I’ll share a track based only on sounds from this process!