Monday, October 11, 2010

Yamaha RX15 VSTi Available: AREX 2011

I've been pretty vocal about my interest, some would say love, of the old 80s and 90s era Yamaha drum machines. I picked up a RX15 on eBay on a lark and have since collected several others, including the RX11, RX17, RX120, and DD5.

They're not as straight-forward to program as the Roland machines and provide static samples, as opposed to synthetic sounds that you can manipulate, so their usability is more limited than the quintessential TR-808 and TR-909s, but they also have a fairly unique sound. And, if you're as cheap as I am, the idea that you could get a couple of crates of them for every Roland machine you could afford is pretty appealing as well.

If you've been even modestly intrigued by the Yamaha machines, or have enjoying the many samples I've posted from them, you have an interesting option available to you. Several months ago, I got an email from a nice fellow named Alex, who wanted to build a RX15 VST using Synthedit. After exchanging a few questions and answers about the machines, his efforts are done and now available online for download.

So, if you want to play with a fairly accurate representation of the RX15, now is your chance. It can be found at:



I can't provide any tech support for Alex's new instrument. I only helped by providing samples and a little advice, but I know that he's worked pretty hard to try to emulate the machine's many idiosyncrasies. Unfortunately, the VSTi is Windows only, so I haven't been able to play with it myself, but thanks for your hard word Alex!

If you've missed the samples I've posted in the past (and were used to create Alex's instrument), you can find them here:

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