[BILL HOLLAND DEMONSTRATING THE USE OF THE MDA DX-10]

BILL HOLLAND: Welcome back to Gearwire.Com. This is the MDA DX-10, a new plugin from MDA. This has actually been out for awhile but I found this while looking at the new Image Line edition of the DX-10 VST, which is a little more complicated than this. However, this is a completely free plugin, so it’s very useful for those of you out there who want that very early, early DX FM synthesis sound. Here I have a scratch pad loaded but there are plenty of presets loaded up. I can load up a bass.

[BILL HOLLAND DEMONSTRATING THE USE OF THE MDA DX-10]

You’ll see it has that typical FM sound, not quite as deep and full formed as an analog sound but on the other end of that, these are also very, very clean sounds.

[BILL HOLLAND DEMONSTRATING THE USE OF THE MDA DX-10]

So, they can cut through really well over an analog bass or an analog drum kick or any sort of drum kit you might have lined up because they have that very, very clean cut right through a mix type of sound. I can show you some harpsichord we have here.

[BILL HOLLAND DEMONSTRATING THE USE OF THE MDA DX-10]

Now, one thing to look at is that we have on it our attack, decay, and release here. There’s also not a normal sustain but there is under the mod envelope a mod sustain and mod release along with mod decay, your mod level here, mod velocity, vibrato, octave control fine tuning, waveform, mod through, LFO rate, and fine and coarse tuning, not the most sophisticated control in the world but it really gets the job done when you’re just trying to use some of the sounds that are available in here.

[BILL HOLLAND DEMONSTRATING THE USE OF THE MDA DX-10]

Attack.

[BILL HOLLAND DEMONSTRATING THE USE OF THE MDA DX-10]

Decay of course creates a decay, and a release.

[BILL HOLLAND DEMONSTRATING THE USE OF THE MDA DX-10]

And of course, all these can be automated. Coarse tuning allows me to retune the oscillators.

[BILL HOLLAND DEMONSTRATING THE USE OF THE MDA DX-10]

And again, it is a very coarse tuning, so if we want to fine-tune those pieces, here.

[BILL HOLLAND DEMONSTRATING THE USE OF THE MDA DX-10]

My mod envelope.

[BILL HOLLAND DEMONSTRATING THE USE OF THE MDA DX-10]

Velocity. Here we have vibrato.

[BILL HOLLAND DEMONSTRATING THE USE OF THE MDA DX-10]

Octave control.

[BILL HOLLAND DEMONSTRATING THE USE OF THE MDA DX-10]

We have fine tune control.

[BILL HOLLAND DEMONSTRATING THE USE OF THE MDA DX-10]

Then there’s the waveform control which chooses up the waveform.

[BILL HOLLAND DEMONSTRATING THE USE OF THE MDA DX-10]

Mod through...

[BILL HOLLAND DEMONSTRATING THE USE OF THE MDA DX-10]

...which is sort of a dry/wet essentially for the mod envelopes and then LFO rate.

[BILL HOLLAND DEMONSTRATING THE USE OF THE MDA DX-10]

Looking at this really quickly, you’ll notice we can also have drum patches out here.

[BILL HOLLAND DEMONSTRATING THE USE OF THE MDA DX-10]

Here’s a log drum...,

[BILL HOLLAND DEMONSTRATING THE USE OF THE MDA DX-10]

...synthetic tom...,

[BILL HOLLAND DEMONSTRATING THE USE OF THE MDA DX-10]

...reed instruments...,

[BILL HOLLAND DEMONSTRATING THE USE OF THE MDA DX-10]

...a steel drum...,

[BILL HOLLAND DEMONSTRATING THE USE OF THE MDA DX-10]

...and a harp...

[BILL HOLLAND DEMONSTRATING THE USE OF THE MDA DX-10]

...along with a variety of piano patches, organs, tinkle, and sitar.

[BILL HOLLAND DEMONSTRATING THE USE OF THE MDA DX-10]

Of course, these don’t really sound like the real thing. They’re meant to emulate the original DX10 synthesizer which was really from Yamaha, and there are also several other emulators of this, but for now this is the DX-10 synthesizer from MDA, and I’m Bill Holland on Gearwire.Com.