DX Garden Manual

What DX Garden does

DX Garden is a home for a very large collection of Yamaha DX7 sounds. It lets you browse them, hear them, name and sort them, and gather your favourites into 32-voice cartridges for a DX7-compatible synth such as DreamDexed. (DX Garden is an independent project, not affiliated with Yamaha.)

The collection started as tens of thousands of cartridge files gathered from the web. Most sounds appeared in many files under different names, so the library keeps each unique sound once and remembers every name and cartridge it was found in. What remains is about 35,000 different sounds.

With DX Garden you can:

• search and filter the library by name, category, source, rating and more;
• play any sound on a real synth over MIDI, or right in the browser with a built-in DX7 engine;
• give sounds better names, sort them into categories and rate them;
• build cartridges of 32 sounds and save them as standard .syx files or send them to a synth, or save single sounds as files;
• find sounds that are like one you already like;
• add sounds from .syx files, or pull them in from a synth over MIDI;
• generate new random sounds: anything at all, in the style of a category or between two, or drums and percussion from proper FM drum recipes;
• edit every setting of any sound, hearing each change as you make it: seven quick knobs for the usual tweaks, or every operator on graphs that show exactly how the DX7 will play it.

Several people can use the same library. Each person signs in, and their ratings, cartridges and hidden sounds are their own. One person, the admin, looks after the shared names and categories that everyone starts from. Visitors who don't sign in can still browse and listen, but can't change anything.

Getting started

What you need

• Chrome or Edge on a computer. These browsers support Web MIDI, which DX Garden uses to talk to synths. Other browsers can browse and edit, but can't send sounds to a synth.
• The secure (https) address of DX Garden. Browsers only allow MIDI and in-browser audio on secure pages (or when DX Garden runs on your own computer at localhost). On the plain http:// address you can still browse and edit, but sound won't work.
• Optionally, a MIDI interface connected to a DX7-compatible synth, and a MIDI keyboard to play sounds with. Neither is required: the browser preview plays sounds through your computer's speakers.

Signing in

Open DX Garden's address. If you aren't signed in, you'll see the sign-in page: enter the username and password the admin gave you and press Sign in. You stay signed in on that browser until you sign out. You can change your username and password at any time (see Your account).

No account? Choose Browse without signing in on the sign-in page. Without signing in you can browse, search, play sounds in the browser or on your synth, save sounds and cartridges as .syx files, and fill a cartridge to send or save as a file. You can't rate, rename, recategorise or hide sounds, import, save a cartridge to the library, or make random sounds. Press Sign in in the top bar at any time.

Allowing MIDI

The first time the library opens, the browser asks whether this site may use MIDI devices (it may mention "system exclusive messages"). Choose Allow. Sysex is how DX7 sounds travel over MIDI, so DX Garden needs it. If you said no by mistake, see Troubleshooting.

Your first five minutes

1. Click Settings in the top bar. If you have a synth, choose it as MIDI out and set the Channel it listens on. If not, press Play test note under Browser preview to check you can hear the built-in engine. Press Done.
2. Click a category on the left, for example Electric Piano.
3. Click a sound in the list and press P to hear it in the browser, or Space to send it to your synth.
4. Use ↓ to move to the next sound. Tick Audition on move above the list to hear each sound as you arrive on it.
5. Press 1–5 to rate sounds you like. Later, filter by ★ 4+ to find them again.

The screen

The library has a top bar and three columns.

1. Top bar. Settings and MIDI status, buttons to request sounds from a synth or import files, the random sound generator, Undo, this manual, and your account. Items marked * appear for the admin only.
2. Categories. Click one to show only its sounds. The number is how many sounds it holds. Drop sounds on a category to move them there. A category named with a dash, such as Bass - Plucked, is a subcategory: it sits under Bass, which ▸ opens and ▾ closes. Bass then counts and lists its own sounds and all its subcategories'; Bass only lists just its own. Renaming Bass renames its subcategories too.
3. Toolbar. List or Map, then search and filters for the list. The total number of matching sounds is on the right.
4. Sound list. The sounds that match. More load as you scroll. When you select sounds, a selection bar appears above the list with actions for all of them at once. With Map, the sound map takes its place.
5. Keyboard and key help. The on-screen keyboard, if you've ticked Keyboard, then a reminder of the shortcuts and the rating and "your own" markers.
6. Cartridge. The 32-slot cartridge you are building.

The columns of the sound list

To show or hide columns, right-click a column heading (or the empty space under the rows), or click the small ⋮ in the checkbox column's heading. Tick or untick columns in the menu; Name always stays, and Reset to default shows them all again. Your choice follows your account (as a guest, this browser).

A row with a yellow background is the sound that is currently playing or loaded.

Finding sounds

Categories

Click a category in the left column to list only its sounds; All sounds shows everything. Uncategorised holds sounds nobody has sorted yet, and makes a good to-do list.

Search

Type in Search names, cartridges…. The list updates as you type. Search looks in the name, the new name, the cartridge file name, and every other name the sound was ever found under. So searching rhodes finds a sound even if it's called EP 3 here but was called RHODES 1 on some other cartridge. It looks in each sound's description too, so chiming finds bell-like sounds whatever they're called. Search works together with the category you have selected; choose All sounds to search everything.

Filters

Filters combine. For example, Strings + Yamaha + ★ 4+ lists the factory string sounds you rated highly.

Pick one at random

Press ⚄ next to the search box, or R, to shuffle the list as it stands (category, search and filters are kept) and select the first sound as if you'd clicked it, so it plays or goes to the synth as usual. Press again for another shuffle, or scroll down the shuffled list for more random sounds. Click a column heading (or For you) to go back to a normal order. On the map it picks a random lit dot and opens its card. It only picks sounds already in the library; to make brand-new ones, use Random.

Listening problems

DX Garden plays every sound once in the background, a soft middle C held for 2 seconds and then released, and listens for three problems. Sounds with one get a ⚠ on their row (point at it to see which), and the Listening problems list in the left column shows how many there are; click one to list them. The list only appears when something is flagged or the check is still running.

The check starts when DX Garden starts, and new sounds, and sounds moved to another category, are checked again on their own. While it runs, the list says Checking… N left. It's a guide, not a verdict: false alarms happen, so trust your ears. The admin can clear a wrong one with Sounds fine in the sound's details or in the selection bar.

Sorting

Click a column heading to sort by it; click again to reverse. The list starts sorted by Copies, most first, because sounds that turned up on many cartridges tend to be the classics.

For you, next to the sound count, sorts by how likely you are to enjoy each sound. It learns from your star ratings (hidden sounds count as dislikes) by comparing each sound's settings (wiring, envelopes, ratios…) with the ones you rated. Unrated sounds come first, best match at the top; sounds you've rated follow, by your stars. Click again to reverse; click a column heading to go back. It works with every filter and search, and learns as you rate or hide sounds (sort again to see). With fewer than 10 ratings it leans on everyone's ratings and the count line says rate N more sounds to personalise; guests get everyone's taste. It needs the sound genetics (admin: Retrain suggestions); until then the count line says so.

Lists that shrink as you work

When the list is filtered by category or by checked status, a sound you move out of that category, or mark checked, leaves the list at once. That makes working through Uncategorised or Category not checked quick: the next sound moves up and the list gets shorter. When a change moves the selected sound out of the list you're viewing (a new category, hiding it, or a rating outside the rating filter), the next sound in the list is selected.

Listening to sounds

There are two ways to hear a sound, and you can use either or both.

On your synth (MIDI)

Choose your synth as MIDI out in Settings. Then click the MIDI socket on a row, or select the row and press Space. The sound is sent to the synth's edit buffer as a single-voice dump, so it replaces whatever sound is playing but doesn't overwrite any stored sound. Play it from the synth's keyboard or from a controller (see below).

The status next to Settings shows where sounds go, for example DreamDexed, ch 1.

No keyboard to hand? Tick Test note in Settings, and DX Garden plays a note on the synth just after each sound is sent, or use the on-screen keyboard.

In the browser (preview)

DX Garden includes Dexed, a faithful DX7 engine, running inside your browser. Click the speaker on a row or press P to hear the sound play a note through your computer's audio: middle C for 1.5 seconds, unless you choose another note and length in Settings. A low note suits basses; a long one, pads. It needs no synth and no MIDI interface. The first time takes a second or two while the engine starts.

Once the preview has played something, every sound you select is loaded into it silently, so a MIDI keyboard (see below) always plays the selected sound.

The on-screen keyboard

Tick Keyboard above the list to show a three-octave keyboard below it, so you can play the selected sound without a MIDI keyboard.

• Click a key to play it. Lower on the key is louder, so you can hear how a sound responds to velocity. Drag across the keys to play one after another.
• ◀ and ▶ move it down or up an octave.
• Plays chooses where the notes go: the Browser preview, your Synth (the MIDI out), or Both.
• Tick Computer keys to play with your computer keyboard, laid out like a piano: Z S X D C… is the lowest octave (S and D are the black keys), and Q 2 W 3 E… the next. While it's ticked, letter shortcuts such as A, H and P play notes instead; the arrow keys, Space and Esc still work.

While the keyboard plays the browser, every sound you select is loaded into the browser preview, so moving through the list with ↓ and playing a few notes is a quick way to try sounds.

Sending sounds automatically

Tick Send on select in Settings and every sound you select, by clicking or with the arrow keys, goes straight to your synth. Play it from the synth's own keys, your controller or the on-screen keyboard. This is the easiest way to work with a hardware synth.

Audition on move

Tick Audition on move above the list and each sound plays as you arrive on it with ↑ ↓: on your synth if a MIDI out is chosen, otherwise in the browser. This is the fastest way to go through a category.

Playing with a keyboard or sequencer

In Settings, choose up to two controllers, for example a MIDI keyboard and a sequencer. DX Garden passes what they play (notes, controllers, pitch bend, aftertouch and program changes) on to your MIDI out. With Move to channel ticked, their notes are moved onto the synth's channel, whatever channel the controller sends on.

To play the browser preview from your keyboard instead, tick Also play the browser preview.

Selecting sounds

Many actions work on several sounds at once. Select them first:

• Click a row to select just that sound.
• Shift+click selects every sound between the last one you clicked and this one. Shift+↑/↓ does the same from the keyboard.
• Ctrl+click, or the tick box at the start of a row, adds or removes one sound.
• Ctrl+A, or the tick box in the heading, selects every sound loaded so far.
• Select all matching in the selection bar selects every sound that matches the current category, search and filters, even those not loaded yet. Use it with care: it can be thousands.
• Esc or Clear clears the selection.

The selection bar

When sounds are selected, a bar appears above the list:

Most actions in a row also apply to the whole selection when that row is part of it: choosing a category from a selected row's menu, clicking stars or a suggestion on a selected row, and the 0–5, A, H and C keys.

Dragging

Drag a row, or a selection, onto a category on the left to move the sounds there, or onto a cartridge slot to place them.

Naming, categories and ratings

The two names

Every sound has two names:

• Name is the name stored inside the sound itself. It is at most 10 characters, because that's all the DX7 has room for, and it's what the synth shows when the sound is loaded. It goes into every sysex file and cartridge you make. It can't be empty. Only the admin, and the person who made a random sound, can change it.
• New name is optional and can be up to 80 characters. Use it for a clearer description, like Bright tine piano with slow chorus. It's for the library only. If a sound has a new name, its first 10 characters are used when the sound is placed in a cartridge (you can still edit the slot name there).

To rename, click into the name and type. Press Enter or click elsewhere to save.

Categories

Change a sound's category with the menu in its row, by dragging it onto a category on the left, or with Set category for a selection. Only the admin changes the categories everyone starts from; anyone else's change is their own (see Your view and everyone's). For the admin, categories in grey italics were guessed automatically (mostly from names) and haven't been checked; choosing one by hand counts as checked.

Suggestions Admin

The Suggested column is DX Garden's own opinion. It looks at a sound's actual settings, not its name, and compares them with the "fingerprint" of each category, learned from the sounds already sorted. The percentage is how confident it is. Hover over it to see the top three guesses.

• Click a suggestion, or press A, to accept it.
• Accept suggestions in the selection bar gives each selected sound its own suggestion.
• The Suggestion filter finds sounds DX Garden thinks belong somewhere else.

Suggestions are a starting point, not a verdict. Listen before you accept a low-confidence one.

Ratings

Rate a sound from 1 to 5 stars by clicking the stars in its row, or by pressing 1–5. Click the same star again, or press 0, to clear your rating. Your ratings are yours alone. Once you've rated a sound, its row shows only your rating, in gold. Where you haven't, it shows everyone's average in blue stars, with the average and the number of ratings beside them, for example 4.2 (3).

Hiding

Not interested in a sound? Hide it with the ⊘ button in its row (visible when you hover) or press H. Hidden sounds disappear from your lists and counts, but only for you. Tick Show hidden to see them again; they appear faded, and ◌ or H brings one back.

Checked categories Admin

The ✓ column shows whether the admin has confirmed a sound's category. The admin toggles it by clicking the ✓ or pressing C. Checked categories also count extra when the suggestions are retrained.

Your view and everyone's

Everyone shares one library, but each person sees it a little differently. The admin's names and categories are the defaults that everyone starts with. Anyone else who renames or recategorises a sound changes only their own view.

If you are not the admin, a name, category or description of your own is marked with a blue bar on its left edge. Click the ↺ next to it to go back to the default; hover over it to see what the default is. If the admin later changes the default, your own choice still wins until you press ↺.

Undo

Press Undo in the top bar, or Ctrl+Z, to take back the last change to sounds: names, categories, ratings, checks, hiding and accepted suggestions. It remembers your last 50 changes. Bigger changes also show a message with its own Undo button.

Sound details

Click the number in a sound's Copies column to open its details:

• its number in the library, category, DX7 algorithm, and how many copies were found in how many files;
• your rating and the average, and the defaults if you have your own name or category;
• Names: every name the sound was found under, and how often;
• Found in: every cartridge file and slot it was found in.

This is handy for working out what a sound was originally meant to be, or which famous cartridge it came from. The buttons at the top show sounds like this one, make variations of it, edit it, or save it as a single-voice .syx file, named after its 10-character name.

The Description is one plain sentence on how the sound sounds and plays, worked out from its settings: its tone, how it starts, holds and fades, how it answers your touch, and any vibrato or wobble. It is written again whenever the admin retrains the suggestions, unless the admin has edited it. Edit it in the box; the admin's edit is everyone's, anyone else's is their own, with the blue bar and ↺ (see Your view and everyone's). Empty the box to bring the generated one back.

A sound with listening problems says which here; the admin's Sounds fine clears them.

A sound that has been overwritten in the editor lists its Previous versions, with when, by whom and a play button. Its owner (and the admin) can Restore one; what it replaces is kept as a version too.

Sounds like this

Found a sound you love? Click the ≈ on its row, or select it and press L, to list the sounds most like it. You can also use Sounds like this in its details.

The list shows up to 60 sounds, closest first, with the sound itself at the top. A label next to each name says how close it is:

"Like" means built the same way: the same arrangement of operators that can be heard, compared setting by setting. It judges the sound's construction, not its name, so a sound called BRASS 3 can turn up next to one called HORNS. A few unusual sounds have nothing built like them, and the list then holds just the sound itself.

A Sounds like tag appears above the list while you're in this mode. All the usual tools work on the list: filters, rating, the selection bar, dragging to a cartridge. Clicking a column heading re-sorts it; closest first in the tag puts it back in order, and ✕ returns to the full list.

The sound map

Press Map above the list (List goes back) to see every sound in the library as a dot. Sounds made alike sit close together: the map compares how each sound's operators are wired and set, the same comparison the family trees use, so it works across algorithms. Wander from a sound you like to its neighbours to find related ones, or look in a quiet corner for something different.

• Colours are categories; the dots in the category list on the left show which is which, and Uncategorised sounds are grey. Click a category (or use the search and filters) and every other sound fades.
• Move and zoom: drag the empty space to move, and zoom with the mouse wheel or the − + buttons. Fit shows the whole map again.
• Hear a sound: point at a dot to see its name, and click it to hear it: it goes to your synth when a MIDI out is chosen, otherwise it plays in the browser. A card at the bottom then shows its description and offers send, play, sounds like this (everything else fades), variations, Edit, Morph, Add to cartridge and Details (or double-click the dot). Space, P, L, V, E and M work on that sound too.
• Into a cartridge: drag a dot onto a cartridge slot (or onto a category to file it there). Sounds already in the cartridge have a ring round their dot.

The layout is made when the admin presses Retrain suggestions (the first time the map is opened it takes about a minute). Sounds added since then are placed beside their closest neighbours until the next Retrain, and each Retrain may turn or rearrange the map a little.

Dots with a red ring have listening problems.

Variations Signed in

Like a sound but want it a little different? Click the fan icon on its row (next to ≈), select it and press V, or press Variations in its details. DX Garden makes six variations of it and plays the first.

A variation is the sound with a few settings nudged towards what the other sounds of its category do. Frequency ratios only move to a neighbouring harmonic, an operator never switches to fixed frequency, and the algorithm stays the same. Every variation still sounds like the sound's category (or like what the category fingerprint takes the sound for), is at least as natural as the real sounds in that category (or as the sound itself), and is new to the library. No two are close to each other.

• Subtle, Medium and Bold set how far from the original they go (about "close" to "similar" on the Sounds like this scale for Subtle, further for the others). Each card says how far it is, and describes how it sounds.
• Click a card, or press 1–9, to play a variation; 0 plays the original. With no MIDI out they play in the browser.
• Again makes six new ones in place of those you haven't added; More adds six below.
• Vary this makes variations of that variation instead.
• Each one is called by an adjective and a first name (HappyBob), with a full name to match; change either on the card.

Add to cartridge puts a variation in the first free slot as a draft: it isn't in the library yet. Drafts join the library when you save the cartridge, made by you (their source is your username and their cartridge column says what they are a variation of), so you can change their sysex names later like your random sounds. Remove a draft from the cartridge before saving and it's gone.

Save to library adds a variation to the library straight away, the same way, whether or not it's in a cartridge. Its names are fixed once it's saved (change them in the list like your other sounds).

Variations with listening problems are thrown away and quietly replaced.

Family trees Signed in

A family cartridge starts with two sounds, the parents, and breeds a family from them that fills the other 30 slots. Start a new cartridge, put just the two parents in it (any slots; every other slot empty) and press Family tree under the cartridge.

The parents have four children. Then, generation by generation, about half of the children marry a newly made partner and have two children each, until the cartridge is full: usually six generations. Partners are part of the family and take slots too. Every child:

• inherits its genes from its two parents: the wiring (algorithm) of one of them, the rest gene by gene from either, sometimes blended, sometimes mutated. Which parent's genes win depends on how common they are among real sounds of that kind;
• is clearly one kind of sound (its category isn't inherited: two pianos can have an electric piano);
• is at least as natural as the least natural real sounds of its kind, and is new to the library and to its family.

A partner is either alike (made from the sounds of the child's own kind that are closest to it) or an opposite (made from another kind of sound). Partners are never close to anyone already in the family.

Settings

The middle of each slider is what the library's own sounds suggest; the sliders shift that either way but never make anything certain or impossible. Faithful, Natural and Wild set all four. The same seed, parents and settings make the same family again (until the suggestions are retrained). The family name names the cartridge and the tree. Children and partners get names like Random's (HappyBob); a member keeps its name when a re-roll leaves it unchanged.

The tree

The family appears as a tree: one row per generation, each couple joined by a double line with their children below. Partners who married in have a dashed border; the coloured edge shows the category. The bar under a child shows where its genes came from: the left parent, the right parent, both (they had the same), or blended and mutated. Hover over a sound for the details and its description, and to light up its parents, partner and children. Fit, − and + zoom.

• Click a sound to play it; its slot lights up in the cartridge. The buttons play it in the browser or send it to the device.
• ↻ breeds that sound again, together with everyone below it (its partner, their children and so on), in the same slots.
• Breed again makes a new family from the same parents; Settings… changes the sliders or the name first. Both can be undone from the message that appears.
• Save adds one sound to the library straight away. Otherwise the family members are drafts until you save the cartridge, like variations; they are made by you, so you can rename them later.

Saving the cartridge also saves the family tree with it. Open the cartridge again and Family tree shows it, and you can keep re-breeding parts of it. You can still change the cartridge like any other: a sound you remove stays in the tree, faded, with no slot number.

Children and partners with listening problems are thrown away and quietly bred again.

Morph Signed in

Morph slides from one sound to another. Put both sounds in the cartridge (any slots) and press Morph under the cartridge. The last two slots you played are picked as A and B; choose others from the two lists at the top. A drafted sound can be A or B too.

On the sound map: click a dot, press Morph on its card (or M), then click the dot to morph to. The dialog opens with those two as A and B; the cartridge's sounds are in the lists too.

Drag the slider from A (left) to B (right). Each time it moves, the blend is loaded into your synth and the browser preview without a note, so you can play it from a keyboard; letting go plays the test note. The arrow keys move it one percent at a time, Page Up and Page Down ten.

• Blended smoothly: output levels, envelopes, keyboard scaling, velocity, detune, feedback, the pitch envelope and the LFO's speed, delay and depth.
• Switched: the rest can't be halfway. If A and B use different algorithms, B's algorithm takes over at 50%. B's operators are matched to A's by what they do (the same matching family trees use), so each of A's operators turns gradually into its partner in B. Where a pair has a different frequency (ratio or fixed mode) or different scaling curves, it switches at its own point between 30% and 70%, the quietest pair first. Those points are the marks on the slider.

The line under the slider shows the algorithm in use, how many of the switches have happened and what the blend sounds like, with its description below. To keep a blend, give it a name (one is suggested) and press Add to cartridge (a draft that joins the library when you save the cartridge) or Save to library. Kept blends are filed under the category they sound like and listed under your username as the source, like random sounds.

If a blend has listening problems, the line under the slider shows a ⚠ and names them. You can still keep it.

Building cartridges

A DX7 cartridge (or bank) holds 32 sounds. The right-hand column is where you build one.

Filling the slots

• Drag a sound from the list onto a slot to put it there (replacing what was in that slot).
• Drag a selection of several sounds onto a slot: they fill the free slots from there on.
• Or select sounds and press Add to cartridge: they fill the first free slots.
• Drag one slot onto another to swap them.
• The ✕ on a slot empties it. Clear slots empties them all.

Each filled slot shows the 10-character name that will be stored on the cartridge; click it to change it for this cartridge only. Beside it are the sound's library name and category, and buttons to send it to the synth or play it in the browser. Empty slots are saved as INIT VOICE, the DX7's blank starting sound.

Saving and opening

• Type a Cartridge name and press Save. A name is required. While there are unsaved changes, the name box is highlighted.
• Open a saved cartridge from the Saved cartridges menu. The number after each name is how many slots are filled.
• New starts an empty cartridge. Delete removes the saved cartridge; the sounds themselves stay in the library.
• If you would lose unsaved changes (opening another cartridge, starting a new one, signing out or closing the page), DX Garden asks first.

Cartridges are personal: other users don't see yours.

A cartridge you haven't saved is also kept in this browser, so reloading the page (or a crash) doesn't lose it: it comes back the next time you open DX Garden, with a Discard button if you'd rather not. Slots marked draft hold variations that join the library when you save.

Getting the cartridge onto a synth

• Save .syx saves a standard 32-voice DX7 sysex file, named after the cartridge. It works with the DX7 and TX802, Dexed, DreamDexed, MiniDexed and most DX7 librarians and editors.
• Send to device sends the whole bank to your MIDI out as a bulk dump, on the channel set in Settings. On a real DX7, turn off memory protect first; the bank replaces the synth's internal memory.

Importing sounds

New sounds can come from files or straight from a synth. Either way, DX Garden adds only sounds it doesn't already have: an exact copy of a library sound isn't added again (the file is just remembered as another place that sound is "found in"), and a sound within 0.5 of a library sound, hidden duplicates included, isn't added either: the same "close" rule Random uses. Importing the same file again changes nothing. Silent sounds (every operator turned down) are skipped. New sounds get a category guessed from their name. The message afterwards says how many were new and how many were too close to library sounds (not added).

From .syx files

Press Import .syx in the top bar and choose one or more files, or simply drag the files from your computer onto DX Garden's page. It reads 32-voice bank files, single-voice files, files holding several dumps, and raw 4096-byte bank files. When it's done, a message says how many sounds were new; Show new lists them. They get the source File import, and the file name as their cartridge.

From a synth

1. In Settings, choose the synth as MIDI in (and as MIDI out, so the request can reach it).
2. Press Request voice for the synth's current sound, or Request bank for all 32. You can also start the dump from the synth's own menus.
3. When the dump arrives, a message appears: Received a 32-voice bank…. Press Import to library.

New sounds get the source MIDI import; press Show new in the message to list them.

Random sounds

Press Random in the top bar to make brand-new sounds. Choose a style at the top of the window (Drums & percussion has its own section below):

• Alligator Mayonnaise: every setting is random. Anything goes, from gorgeous to ghastly; the only promise is that it makes a sound. Expect the unexpected.
• From a category: pick a category, and each setting is chosen at random from the values that the category's sounds use. The result follows the category as a whole rather than copying any one sound, and it's kept only if the category's fingerprint recognises it. Pitch stays musical (in tune, no drifting), except in sound-effect and drum categories, where anything goes; bell-like categories may have bell-like overtones. The very first time, DX Garden needs about a minute to learn the category fingerprints.

Between two categories

In From a category, choose a second category under and to make a sound that falls between the two, such as something between Brass and Strings, or Electric Piano and Mallets & Bells. A Balance slider appears below: slide it towards a category for more of it. It goes all the way to 100% at either end, which simply makes a sound from that one category.

• Each setting is drawn from the values one category's sounds use or the other's, picked by the balance.
• Of many tries, the one kept is the one the category fingerprint hears as both, in about the proportions you asked for. The window shows how much of each it hears, for example Between Brass 67% and Strings 30%.
• The stricter pitch rule of the two applies, so Bass with Sound Effects still stays in tune.
• File under starts on whichever of the two it sounds more like.

Some pairs blend more easily than others. When nothing quite lands between them, the window says Closest it got to….

Press Generate. The new sound plays straight away: on your synth if a MIDI out is chosen, otherwise in the browser. Every sound is checked against the whole library, and anything identical or too close to an existing sound is thrown away and replaced automatically, so what you hear is genuinely new. Below the sound, the window says which existing sound is closest and how far away it is, and describes how it sounds.

Sounds with listening problems are thrown away and replaced the same way, in every style.

Each sound gets a Sysex name, which you can change (10 characters), and an optional Full name (its new name in the library). Alligator Mayonnaise names them like variations, with an adjective or a colour and a first name (TealMax, Teal Max); sounds from a category get its short tag and a number. File under is the category it will be saved in. It starts on the category it was made from, or for Alligator Mayonnaise the one it sounds most like, and you can pick any other. If you change it after saving, the saved sound moves too. Then:

• Save to library adds it to the shared library with your username as its source (the cartridge column says how it was made, such as Random: Brass + Strings 70/30), filed under the File under category. The message that follows has a Show button.
• Save and add to cartridge also puts it in the next free cartridge slot.
• Edit… opens the sound in the voice editor, to change its envelopes or anything else. Saving there adds the edited sound to the library as a new sound; the one in the Random window stays as it was.
• The play buttons send it to the synth again or play it in the browser.

The list at the bottom keeps this session's sounds, newest first. Click one to go back to it and hear it again. Unsaved sounds are lost when you reload the page, so save the keepers.

Drums and percussion

The Drums & percussion tab in the Random window makes FM drums the way drum programmers build them on a DX7 or TX802. Each kind of drum has its own recipe: which operators make the body, the noise, the metal or the click, and how each is tuned and shaped. Every number is then picked at random within that recipe, so each press of Generate gives a different take on the same instrument. The recipes come from research into Yamaha's factory drum voices, well-known drum banks and how the 808 and 909 make their sounds; see docs/fm-drums-research.md in the project.

• Kind picks the instrument. There are over 50, in groups: kicks; snares, rimshots and claps; hi-hats and cymbals; toms; hand drums and tuned percussion (congas, bongos, timbales, tabla, talking drum, timpani); bells, wood and shakers (cowbell, agogo, clave, woodblock, shaker, cabasa, tambourine, triangle); and weird and glitchy (zaps, blips, glitch, bit-crush, stutter, metal clangs, industrial hits, noise bursts, FM plinks and boings).
• Variation sets how far it may stray from the classic recipe: Classic stays close, Varied explores, Wild pushes every range, which is where the oddities live.

Everything else works as for other random sounds: it plays straight away, you can rename it, edit it, and save it. File under starts on Drums & Percussion; saved drums are listed under your username, with the kind of drum in the cartridge column.

Which key to play

Most drums use fixed frequencies, so they sound the same on every key. That suits a kit where each drum sits on its own key. Some drums use the pitch envelope for their pitch drop (toms, congas, bongos, timbales, tabla, timpani and some of the weird ones), and that only works on operators that follow the keyboard. These are tuned for middle C (C4), and other keys play them higher or lower. The Random window says which kind you have, and its play buttons always use middle C.

The voice editor Signed in

The editor changes every DX7 setting of a sound. Open it with the pencil in a sound's row, E (in the list or on the map), Edit… in Details, Edit on the map's card, the pencil on a cartridge slot (a library sound or a draft), or Edit… in the Random window.

Every change goes to your synth and the browser preview as you make it, so a keyboard plays the edit. While you drag there is no note; letting go plays one.

The top row

• The 10-character sysex name, and where the sound came from (its number and name, or the cartridge slot).
• ↶ ↷ undo and redo (Ctrl+Z, Ctrl+Y or Ctrl+Shift+Z); a whole drag or knob turn is one step.
• Reset all puts everything back as it was opened, knobs and hand edits together, as one undo step.
• A · original and B · edit (A, B) play the sound as it was opened and as it is now. Any edit switches back to B.
• Save to library as new and Overwrite…: see Saving.

Under it are the two tabs, Quick and Operators (the editor opens on the one you used last), and a line that says what the edit sounds like, any listening problems, and the closest sound in the library. A sound with settings outside the DX7's range has them brought into range when it opens; the line says so.

The Quick tab

Seven knobs for the tweaks a sound most often needs, the routing, a picture of the wave and its harmonics, and the envelopes. Drag a knob up or down; double-click it to put it back to 0.

• The knobs work on top of your own edits. Change a setting by hand and turn a knob, and the knob moves it from where you left it; turn the knob back to 0 and your edit is exactly as it was.
• Saving makes the saved sound the new starting point, and the knobs start again from 0.
• N changes ▾ lists every setting that differs from the sound as opened.
• The routing works as on the Operators tab: drag a box for its level, M and S, the feedback knob and the algorithm picker.

Wave and Harmonics show the sound itself, worked out by a second copy of the browser's DX7 engine: two cycles of the wave, and the strength of harmonics 1 to 24 in decibels. They follow every change, and work with the browser preview off. The little triangle on the envelopes' time axis sets the moment they show: 150 ms after the key is pressed at first, and up to 3 seconds into the held note. They need the engine file the browser preview uses; if it can't load, the panels say Needs the browser synth.

MIDI Learn

The knobs on a controller keyboard can turn the Quick knobs, the feedback, the algorithm and the six operator levels. The controller has to be chosen as Controller 1 or 2 in Settings.

1. On the Quick tab, press Learn. Everything that can be learned is outlined.
2. Click one; it says move a control…. Move a knob or slider on the controller. Its CC number is shown on it from then on (a CC used elsewhere moves to the new one).
3. Press Learn again to finish.

• Pick-up: a controller knob does nothing until it reaches the setting's current value, so nothing jumps. Until then the line says, for example, CC 74: move to 30 to pick up.
• A sweep of a controller knob is one undo step, and plays no test note.
• Once learned, the controls work on both tabs. Learned CCs only move the editor; they aren't passed on to the synth or the preview. Other CCs (mod wheel, sustain pedal) are passed on as usual.
• Right-click something learned and choose Forget to remove it.
• The mappings are saved with your account, so they follow you to any computer.

The Operators tab

On the left, the sound's own settings; on the right, a card for each of the six operators and the envelope graph.

Routing

The diagram shows the algorithm: the boxes on the bottom row are the carriers (the operators you hear), the ones above are modulators (they change the tone). Each box shows its frequency, a small sketch of its envelope and its output level, which also fills the box.

• Drag a box up or down to change its output level.
• Click a box to select it: its card is outlined and its envelope gets handles. Shift- or Ctrl-click to link several (see Linked editing).
• M mutes an operator and S solos it (solo wins over mute). They only change what you hear, never what is saved, and start fresh each time the editor opens.
• The knob by the loop is the feedback (0–7): drag it up or down.
• Algorithm ▾ opens a picture of all 32 algorithms; click one to switch.
• In the corner: the Full name, File under, and buttons to send the edit to the synth and play it in the browser.

LFO, transpose and pitch envelope

• LFO: the picture draws the wave, its speed, delay and depth. Choose one of the six waves under it, and Key sync to restart it with each note. The sliders are Speed (shown in Hz), Delay (in seconds), Pitch and Amp depth, and P. sens (pitch sensitivity, 0–7).
• Transpose: drag the knob up or down, two octaves either way. C4 (middle C) means no transpose; the number under it says how many semitones. Double-click for none.
• Osc sync starts every operator's wave at the same point on each note.
• Pitch envelope: drag a point up or down for its level in semitones, and left or right for its rate (to the right is slower). The last point is where the pitch goes after key up. Point at a point for its numbers.

Operator cards

Each card is headed with the operator, what it feeds (carrier, or → OP1) and its frequency.

• Ratio or Hz: whether it follows the keyboard (a ratio of the note played) or plays one fixed frequency.
• The ruler: drag the marker to set the ratio (½ and 1 to 31), or in Hz mode the frequency. Hold Alt while dragging for the fine setting in between. The coloured dots are the other operators.
• Volume (a carrier) or Brightness (a modulator): its output level.
• Detune: drag the knob up or down, −7 to +7; double-click for the centre.
• Touch: drag the handle up or down for velocity sensitivity (0–7). The curve shows how much quieter a soft note is than a hard one.
• AMS: how much the LFO's amp depth reaches this operator (0–3).
• Keyboard level scaling: the curve over the keyboard shows how much louder or quieter the operator gets up and down the keys. Drag the tab at the top to move the break point. Drag each side's handle up or down for how much it changes: above the line turns that side up, below turns it down. Click a side to switch its curve between straight and curved. As in the engine, the curve starts bending 4 semitones left of the break point.
• Rate scaling (0–7): how much faster the envelope runs on higher notes; the shading over the keys shows it.
• M and S as in the routing.
• ⎘ copies the operator and ⎘E just its envelope; then press Paste on another card. Click the copy button again, or press Esc, to forget the copy.

The envelope graph

The graph draws all six operators' envelopes over each other, each in its own colour. The buttons above it choose which operators are selected; clicking a curve selects it too (Shift/Ctrl-click adds it). The selected operator has four handles, L1 to L4: drag one across to change that segment's rate (how quickly it gets there), and up or down to change its level. Point at a handle for its rate, level and time. Hold a handle past the right edge to give the graph more time.

• Each operator reaches its sustain level (L3) at its own time and holds it until one shared key up; the shaded band is the selected operator's sustain. The releases all start at key up, on their own scale to the right.
• Time runs on a square-root scale, so a quick attack and a slow decay are both easy to see and grab. The graph fits the slowest operator, and stays put while you drag.
• The vertical axis is in decibels below each operator's own full level, so a quiet operator's shape is as clear as a loud one's.
• Timing chooses which synth the graph describes. Dexed / DreamDexed (the default) is what the browser preview and DreamDexed play. DX7 / TX802 draws the hardware: every segment about 11% quicker, and each note starting from L4 rather than from silence (it matters when L4 isn't 0). The settings themselves are the same either way. The research behind this is in docs/dx7-envelope-research.md.

The curves are worked out with the same envelope code as the engine that plays the sound. A DX7 envelope isn't an ADSR:

• Four rates and four levels. On a key press it goes to L1 at rate R1, then to L2 at R2, then to L3 at R3, and stays at L3 while the key is held. When the key is released it goes to L4 at R4. Any level can be higher or lower than the one before, so a sound can dip and swell again. If L4 isn't 0, the sound keeps going after release.
• Rates are speeds, not times. The same rate takes longer to cover a big change of level than a small one. That is why dragging one handle can move the ones after it.
• Decays are straight lines in decibels, so a fade is a straight slope. That's what makes DX7 sounds die away so naturally.
• Attacks are different. A rising segment jumps straight out of silence, then climbs fast at first and slower as it nears its level. Even a slow attack starts with an audible step.

Linked editing

Select several operators: Shift- or Ctrl-click their boxes in the routing, their card headings or their curves, or switch on several buttons above the envelope graph. A change to one then moves the same setting on all of them by the same amount, each stopping at its own limit; once they meet at a limit they move together. Choices such as Ratio/Hz and the scaling curves are simply set the same. Pasting onto a linked operator pastes onto all of them. Linked cards are outlined.

Saving

• Save to library as new (Enter) adds the edit as a new sound, made by you. It must differ by more than 0.5 from every sound in the library; until it does, the line under the tabs says Too close to… and the button is off. Opened from a cartridge slot, the slot then holds the new sound. There is no way to change a sound for one cartridge only.
• Overwrite… changes the sound itself, for everyone who rated it or has it in a cartridge. Only its owner (whoever made or uploaded it) and the admin see it. For your own sounds a simple question confirms it.
• The admin overwriting a sound he didn't make (any import, or another user's sound) has to type its name, and sees the list of changed settings with Play original and Play edit.
• The old version is always kept: press Undo in the message that follows, or use Restore under Details → Previous versions.

Esc first closes whatever is open inside the editor (the Forget menu, then MIDI Learn, the algorithm picker or the changes list), then forgets a copied operator, and only then closes the editor.

Settings

Press Settings in the top bar. When you're signed in, everything here is saved with your account and follows you to any browser or computer you sign in on. This includes your choices in the Random window and the on-screen keyboard. MIDI devices are remembered by name, so on a computer whose devices are named differently, choose them again. Without signing in, settings are kept only in that browser.

MIDI

The same device can be MIDI in and a controller at once. Plugging devices in or out updates the menus by itself.

Browser preview

Look

The Theme menu changes DX Garden's look: Modern (which follows your computer's light or dark mode), DX7 (1983), DX7II / TX802, Brochure '83, Amber CRT and Green CRT. This manual follows the same theme.

Your account

Click your name at the right of the top bar.

• To change your username, edit it and enter your current password.
• To change your password, type the new one twice and enter your current one. Passwords need at least 8 characters.
• Sign out signs you out of this browser.

Forgotten your password? Ask the admin to set a new one for you.

For the admin Admin

The admin sees a few extra controls. Everything in this section is admin only.

First start

The first time DX Garden starts with a new library, the sign-in page asks you to create the admin account. If you do this from another computer rather than the server itself, it also asks for a setup code, which is printed in the server's log. Ratings and cartridges made before sign-in existed become the admin's.

Users

Press Users in the top bar.

• Add a user with a username and a password of 8 or more characters, then pass them on. Users can change both later.
• Rename a user, or type a new password, and press Save. A new password signs that user out everywhere.
• Delete removes a user together with their ratings, own names and categories, hidden sounds and cartridges.
• The columns show how many ratings and own names or categories each user has.

Change your own admin username and password under your name, like everyone else.

Your edits are the defaults

Your names and categories are what every user sees unless they've chosen their own (see Your view and everyone's). Choosing a category by hand marks it checked. You can also mark sounds checked or unchecked with the ✓ column, C, or the selection bar.

Managing categories

• Add: type a name in New category… under the list and press Add.
• Rename: hover over a category and click ✎, or double-click it. Every sound in it follows, including users' own choices and the suggestions. Renaming to an existing category's name merges the two.
• Delete: hover and click ✕. Its sounds go back to Uncategorised as unchecked, and users who chose it personally go back to the default.

Uncategorised can't be renamed or deleted.

Retraining suggestions

Suggestions come from category fingerprints learned from the sounds already sorted. After a good round of sorting, press Retrain suggestions on the left. It takes about four minutes (it also lays out the sound map); the progress and the time of the last training are shown below the button. Checked categories count extra, so checking sounds makes suggestions better. The random generator's From a category mode uses the same fingerprints.

The same button also relearns the sound genetics that breeding will use: which settings are inherited together, the kinds of operator and where each kind sits in each algorithm, and which traits go together in each category. Only human-made sounds count (not random ones, suppressed, silent or uncategorised sounds), and a group of very close duplicates counts once, so removing duplicates and sorting sounds improves it too.

Duplicates

Many sounds in the collection are near-copies: the same patch with a tiny tweak, a different name, or saved under another algorithm number with the same result. Duplicates in the top bar finds them so you can keep the best one.

DX Garden compares sounds by how they actually sound, judging the settings that are audible and ignoring ones that make no difference. The first time you open it, it compares the whole library, which takes a while; the progress is shown. Press Rescan after importing or generating many sounds.

• How alike sets how close sounds must be to be grouped, from Near-identical to Very loosely similar. Start at Very close and loosen it once those are done.
• Each group lists similar sounds, biggest groups first. The first sound is the suggested keeper, from the most trusted source (Yamaha first, then VRC, then GreyMatter, then the rest), then checked, then best rated, then most copies. The other rows say how far they are from it and which settings differ.
• Play them with the buttons in each row. Tick the ones to keep (the box in the group heading ticks or unticks them all). Unticked sounds will be suppressed.
• Apply settles the group. Not duplicates keeps them all and stops them being grouped again. Skip leaves the group for later. Apply all on this page settles every group shown.
• Category for all… gives every sound in the group the same category; the menu in each row sets one.

Suppressed sounds stay in the database but are never listed or searched, for anyone. Users' ratings move to the sound kept: the highest rating a user gave anywhere in the group wins, the keeper's own rating included. Keeping more than one sound in a group remembers them as different sounds.

The Suppressed tab lists every suppressed sound and the sound kept instead, with play buttons for both. Restore brings a sound back into the library.

Backups

The server copies the database to a _Backups folder next to it every time it starts, keeping the newest 20.

Keyboard shortcuts

Shortcuts work while you're in the sound list (not while typing in a box, and not while a window is open). Where several sounds are selected, they act on all of them.

Troubleshooting

"Web MIDI not available – use Chrome or Edge"

Your browser doesn't support Web MIDI. Use Chrome or Edge on a computer. (Browsing and editing still work.)

"MIDI blocked – allow MIDI/sysex for this site"

MIDI permission was refused. Click the icon to the left of the address bar, open the site settings, set MIDI devices to Allow, and reload the page. Also make sure you're on the https:// address.

"No MIDI out – open Settings"

No synth is chosen to send to. Choose one under MIDI out in Settings, or use the browser preview.

My synth doesn't change sound

• Check the Channel matches the channel the synth receives on.
• The synth must be set to receive sysex; see its manual.
• Try the Test note option to check notes reach the synth at all.
• Some USB MIDI interfaces struggle with large sysex messages, which matters most for whole banks.

The browser preview is silent or says it isn't working

• Open Settings and press Play test note; the status beside it explains what went wrong.
• The preview needs the https:// address (or localhost) in Chrome or Edge.
• Check the Audio output and your computer's volume.

A sound I hid, or a category I changed, has vanished

Hidden sounds leave your lists; tick Show hidden. Sounds moved out of the category you're viewing leave that list too; look in their new category, or use Undo.

I can't find a sound I know is in the collection

Choose All sounds, clear the filters and search again; remember search also finds old names. If it was a near-duplicate, the admin may have suppressed it in favour of a very similar one.

I was sent back to the sign-in page

Your session ended, perhaps because the admin set you a new password. Sign in again.

Glossary

Algorithm

How the DX7's six operators are wired together; one of 32 layouts.

Bank / cartridge

A set of 32 sounds, the DX7's unit of storage.

Channel

One of 16 MIDI channels. A synth only responds to messages on the channel it listens to.

Copies

How many times a sound was found across the original cartridge files.

Default

The admin's name or category for a sound, which everyone sees unless they've chosen their own.

Dexed

A software recreation of the DX7. DreamDexed and the browser preview both use its engine.

Operator

One of the DX7's six sine-wave generators. Combined through the algorithm, they make the sound.

Source

The collection a sound came from, such as Yamaha's factory sounds.

Suppressed

A near-duplicate kept in the database but never shown.

Sysex (.syx)

System exclusive: the MIDI message format, and file format, used to move DX7 sounds and banks.

Voice

Yamaha's word for a single sound.