OPL AUv3 FM Synth

Name: OPL AUv3 FM Synth
Price: 9.99 USD
Rating: 4.3 (23 reviews)
Author: DiscoDSP LLC

OPL chip based synth

$9.99

23 Ratings
Age Rating

4+
Years
Category

Music
Developer

DiscoDSP LLC
Size

36.5
MB

The Yamaha OPL chips, introduced in 1985, shaped the sound of 80s and 90s video game soundtracks. discoDSP OPL emulates their FM and additive synthesis, including the distinctive percussion mode. With up to 16x oversampling for crystal-clear sound and over 2000 included presets, discoDSP OPL is ideal for classic game soundtracks, electronic music, or crafting unique sounds. Play it with the built-in on-screen keyboard on iPad, a MIDI controller, or your DAW. On iPhone, connect a MIDI keyboard or run it as a plugin. CORE FEATURES • YMF262 (OPL3) FM engine with all eight waveforms per operator. • Percussion mode with bass drum, snare, tom, cymbal, and hi-hat. • Over 2000 SBI instruments, organised by category. • Two operators with wave, multiplier, envelope, and attenuation. • Selectable oversampling from 1x to 16x, with a separate bounce setting. • Key-tracking stereo panning that places notes across the field by pitch. • On-screen keyboard with pitch and modulation wheels (iPad, standalone). • Analog modeled wave shaper on the carrier. • SBI instrument import and export through the Files app. • Bluetooth MIDI device discovery. • AUv3 plugin for GarageBand, AUM, Cubasis, BeatMaker, and Drambo. THE OPL SOUND Two-operator FM is the sound of Adlib and Sound Blaster era games. Each voice pairs a modulator and a carrier, each with its own waveform, frequency multiplier, envelope, and attenuation. Route them in FM for the metallic, bell-like timbres the chip is known for, or in additive to stack the two operators as independent tones. Feedback on the modulator pushes the tone from clean to gritty, and all eight OPL3 waveforms are available on every operator: sine, half sine, absolute sine, quarter sine, alternating sine, camel sine, square, and logarithmic sawtooth. They are the chip's own, not approximations. PERCUSSION MODE The rhythm section repurposes the last channels into five dedicated drum voices: bass drum, snare, tom, cymbal, and hi-hat. It is how the chip made drums without samples, and it is included here in full. INSTRUMENTS Over 2000 SBI instruments are included, sorted into categories: bass, drum, FX, guitar, keys, and more. Load one from the menu, step through them with the previous and next buttons, or import your own SBI files from the Files app. Anything you edit can be exported back out as SBI. OVERSAMPLING The chip is emulated at up to 16 times the host sample rate, which stops the FM sidebands folding back into the audio band as aliasing. Playback and offline bounces have separate settings, so you can run a lighter factor while playing and render at the highest quality. ON-SCREEN KEYBOARD The standalone app on iPad includes a keyboard with pitch and modulation wheels, so you can play without any external hardware. The mod wheel drives a vibrato LFO with continuous depth, going well beyond the original chip's fixed two-position vibrato. Hide the keyboard from the settings menu when you would rather give the panel the whole screen. STANDALONE OR AUV3 Load OPL inside GarageBand, AUM, Cubasis, BeatMaker, Drambo, or any AUv3 host, with settings saved in your project. Or run it standalone with a MIDI controller, over Bluetooth MIDI, or with the on-screen keyboard.

Ratings & Reviews

4.3

out of 5

23 Ratings

Sounds truly excellent but UI has some limitations, depending on your need.
03/30/2021
now_its_dark
For people who just want to load a patch from the tremendously large built-in library and integrate with a host for sequencing from another app (or playing via midi keyboard) this app would be great. Not so much for my purposes however, though I can’t fault it a great deal for this. It’s a fantastic emulation and the patches are solid and plentiful. Below I will explain why it didn’t work for me though, in case you are planning similarly:Since this is an accurate emulation of a real hardware chip using a standardized OPL fm preset format, I was counting on there being an easy method for programming, testing and storing presets within the app. My goal in buying this was to have a portable way to create and build a library of my own original patches to use with Adlib Tracker ][. This use-case has proved mostly fruitless however for the following reasons—1. The standalone app does not properly fit an iPhone screen (iPhone X at least); the bottom row of buttons runs below the edge of the screen.2. There is no way to save your own patches directly inside the app, only load the existing presets.3. There is no built-in keyboard, basically it’s a plugin more than an app and relies on a host to do most useful things. 4. On an iPad 11” I wasn’t able to scale the view to fit both the complete instrument UI and the AUM virtual keyboard on-screen simultaneously, making it cumbersome to edit, play and test custom patches. (Honestly this one might be user error, please correct if I’m wrong and there’s a way to achieve this)
Sounds truly excellent but UI has some limitations, depending on your need.
03/30/2021
now_its_dark

For people who just want to load a patch from the tremendously large built-in library and integrate with a host for sequencing from another app (or playing via midi keyboard) this app would be great. Not so much for my purposes however, though I can’t fault it a great deal for this. It’s a fantastic emulation and the patches are solid and plentiful. Below I will explain why it didn’t work for me though, in case you are planning similarly:Since this is an accurate emulation of a real hardware chip using a standardized OPL fm preset format, I was counting on there being an easy method for programming, testing and storing presets within the app. My goal in buying this was to have a portable way to create and build a library of my own original patches to use with Adlib Tracker ][. This use-case has proved mostly fruitless however for the following reasons—1. The standalone app does not properly fit an iPhone screen (iPhone X at least); the bottom row of buttons runs below the edge of the screen.2. There is no way to save your own patches directly inside the app, only load the existing presets.3. There is no built-in keyboard, basically it’s a plugin more than an app and relies on a host to do most useful things. 4. On an iPad 11” I wasn’t able to scale the view to fit both the complete instrument UI and the AUM virtual keyboard on-screen simultaneously, making it cumbersome to edit, play and test custom patches. (Honestly this one might be user error, please correct if I’m wrong and there’s a way to achieve this)
Please include file name display
06/06/2020
Conrad Keely
These sounds are really great, and the ammount of presets is over the top. But because there are so many presets, it would be great to be able to recall favorites. However when changing programs up and down (+, -) there is no display telling you what preset you’re playing, and therefor no easy way to recall it later. The current preset is also not highlighted in the preset menu when browsing. This would add invaluable functionality to a very cool-sounding synth.

Developer Response
Current preset highlight and preset name display is featured in 1.7 release.
Please include file name display
06/06/2020
Conrad Keely

These sounds are really great, and the ammount of presets is over the top. But because there are so many presets, it would be great to be able to recall favorites. However when changing programs up and down (+, -) there is no display telling you what preset you’re playing, and therefor no easy way to recall it later. The current preset is also not highlighted in the preset menu when browsing. This would add invaluable functionality to a very cool-sounding synth.
Developer Response 06/24/2020
Current preset highlight and preset name display is featured in 1.7 release.
This is what I was looking for!
09/25/2020
Tenente
I’ve been trying to find this “sound” on iOS for a few years.There are a lot of 8-bit/chip/lo fi apps but I never felt the sound was quite right; they didn’t sound like it did back in the day when I was kid.I have come to love OBx and in similar fashion this synth sounds just as genuine and authentic as the original synth it emulates. This devs apps deliver true, authentic sounds with plenty of parameters to manipulate. I don’t know much about the technical side of it, but if you want the best 80s synth tones, you found it.
This is what I was looking for!
09/25/2020
Tenente

I’ve been trying to find this “sound” on iOS for a few years.There are a lot of 8-bit/chip/lo fi apps but I never felt the sound was quite right; they didn’t sound like it did back in the day when I was kid.I have come to love OBx and in similar fashion this synth sounds just as genuine and authentic as the original synth it emulates. This devs apps deliver true, authentic sounds with plenty of parameters to manipulate. I don’t know much about the technical side of it, but if you want the best 80s synth tones, you found it.
Great except for UI
12/13/2020
john signal
This is a great, straightforward 2-op FM synth, but on my 5th gen IPad mini, the UI of the AUv3 in Cubasis and AUM is tiny. It doesn’t even come close to filling up the AU window the way other instruments do. It would be nice if the dev would rework the interface for smaller IOS devices rather than simply porting the interface from the desktop version. Otherwise, I’m glad to have it on my iPad. It’s a classic!
Great except for UI
12/13/2020
john signal

This is a great, straightforward 2-op FM synth, but on my 5th gen IPad mini, the UI of the AUv3 in Cubasis and AUM is tiny. It doesn’t even come close to filling up the AU window the way other instruments do. It would be nice if the dev would rework the interface for smaller IOS devices rather than simply porting the interface from the desktop version. Otherwise, I’m glad to have it on my iPad. It’s a classic!

Fixed instruments missing on new installs. The factory sound banks are now copied into the shared folder on first run, so the app and the AUv3 plugin both see them.

Version 3.0.1 Aug 8

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Accessibility

Information

Seller: DiscoDSP LLC
Size: 36.5 MB
Category: Music
Compatibility: Requires iOS 15.0 or later.

iPhone
Requires iOS 15.0 or later.

iPad
Requires iPadOS 15.0 or later.

iPod touch
Requires iOS 15.0 or later.
Age Rating: 4+

4+

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