The Yamaha DX21 was one of a new, three-strong range of 4-operator FM synths to appear in 1986. The layout author says, "The Yamaha DX21 was the first synth I ever laid my hands on, when I was a young boy (it wasn't my own one, unfortunately). Just recently I found a used unit in really mint condition in my neighborhood and I decided to buy it, mostly for nostalgia. Of course I didn't bother to program sounds on the synth itself, but instead made this layout for far quicker and easier editing."
The Yamaha DX21 was the first synth I ever laid my hands on, when I was a young boy (it wasn´t my own one, unfortunately). Just recently I found a used unit in really mint condition in my neighborhood and I decided to buy it, mostly for nostalgia. Of course I didn´t bother to program sounds on the synth itself, but instead made this layout for far quicker and easier editing.
Again the layout is set to One Big Page (OBP), so left and right banks will change together.
The first page controls settings for the 4 operators, plus in the middle section some general parameters important for FM. Furthermore to start editing from scratch there are 2 buttons at the bottom: first press "Edit Mode", which sets the DX to, well, edit mode. Then press "INIT", which sets all the layout´s controls to default and also sends the initialize request to the DX. This way you have identical settings in both the DX and the layout.
In the second page I tried to make graphic visualizations of the 8 algorithms. It´s not perfect, but I still find it very useful and understandable.
The third page holds some common parameters such as LFO, pitch envelope, performance settings and the voice name.
The only thing to be done on the DX is finally saving the sound in the DX memory (don´t forget to switch the memory protect to OFF).
EDIT v1.5: I added another (double) page for the play mode. Now you can select Split or Dual Mode besides the Single Mode and select a voice for each "side". For Split and Dual Mode the DX21 simply uses bank A and B. Means for a split you can select a voice from bank A for the left side and from bank B for the right side of the keyboard. In Dual Mode you can combine a voice from bank A with a voice from bank B. For example if you want to use 2 voices from bank A, you have to copy one of them to bank B first to be able to use them both in split or double configuration.
For Dual Mode a detune between the 2 voices can be engaged, but strangely this requires the synth to be set to Function Mode. Therefore I added a little "Edit" button here. For setting the split point in Split Mode this is not necessary.
