The OPx-4 plug-in thread

would be an easy way for Akai to beef up its FX options with nearly no effort though

Soo, I ended up getting OPx4 and I think it sounds pretty good. I got it because of all the offered plugins it seems like the one with the most sound design capabilities for what I need to do.
BUT the lack of a manual makes it really hard for me to program it. I don't need to tweak a preset but start from scratch
I have a theoretical basic knowledge of FM synthesis but I never sat down and used an FM synth.
There are some functions in OPx4 that have no apparent self-explanation to me.
What is a good way to start from scratch to program something?
Not asking to hold my hand programming..
Just wish Akai would make a manual for it, and maybe for Fabric as well.

I have been exploring OPX-4. Am a big FM fan and have used Yamaha FM over the years in many tracks. DX100, FS1R, DX7. I've kept a TX81z and TX802 as they seem to capture mostly of what I love about Yamaha FM. The TX802 plays well with the Omega-8 synth, as you can route each voice more or less to an independent analog filter.

There are a few things that I think could enhance the OPX-4 experience and I wonder if others have had similar thoughts. Firstly, it seem that I can't map midi controllers to the program parameters. It would be really wonderful to do this, as a 4 op synth really invites real time control in a way that is just too hard for a 6 op synth. At the very least, the 4 x 4 matrix, which maps perfectly on to now standard 16 knob control surfaces. Next up would be envelope control of the 4 ops, and then perhaps oscillator tuning. I wonder why this is not enabled in the plugin currently.

I read with interest the issue of sine wave reproduction. That is an issue and I look forward to trying some of the program workarounds.

I notice that many of the present FM electric pianos, which is what I like FM for, use a sample to capture the aliased transient sound of classic 4-op electric pianos. That is I think telling of one of the shortcomings of the synth currently. I have to wonder if what is being lost is the aliasing that characterizes the older Yamaha technology. If that is the case, would OP4-x benefit from some kind of bit reduction effect to simulate aliasing in the signal path. I am not sure if the aliasing is more important in carriers, operator, or output. I am beginning to suspect it is important in operators, given the workaround I see in OPX-4.

It is pretty great to have a 4 op synth with a touch screen interface. Pushing the synth a few extra yards will make it a winner...as the basics are there and many of the sounds it can make are great. The presets are very well thought out. Hats off to the programmers...they know their FM!!!!

I think it is a good synth, but the UI needs work. Moving the Mod Matrix page to be next to the Operator page would be a big improvement. Hopping between those pages when designing is a pain.

AndyRAW wrote:I think it is a good synth, but the UI needs work. Moving the Mod Matrix page to be next to the Operator page would be a big improvement. Hopping between those pages when designing is a pain.

Yeah, I agree, it's way too clumsey. I'd prefer the Operator Matrix to be the first page, or the second page of the main menu.

There are 10 Menu tabs with 1,5,3,6,1,1,3,2,8 and 1 pages each. I'd much prefer the to be compacted into 6 menus so you didn't have to scroll across to get top the others. Setting could easily go with Main, and SampleLayer with SubMix.

It would also be nice if it remembered which page you were on when you jumped between menus. So If you were on Operator 4, and working on a Modulation 3, you could jump back and fourth between them honing the settings. This is where having the the Operator Matrix under the Main menu would be nice, as you could then jump between an Operator and the OpMatrix instead of scrolling through 5 pages. This would also make jumping between the Operator 3 and Envelope 3 more intuitive.

i thought 4-op FM synthesis was a pain the ass before but this plugin makes my DX-11 and Digitone look like a Casiotone

I owned and programmed a DX-11 for many years (and I still own a TX81Z). I don't think the DX-11 UI was as bad as people claim. It has buttons to go direct to certain menu items in edit mode.

On the OPx-4, just moving the Mod Matrix page (currently next to settings) to be next to the Operator page would be a simple but big improvement to the UI.

Other issues (this is on an Akai Force):
1. Many changes do not take effect until the note is retriggered. For example, turning an operator an/off, which is an important compare function during sound design mode. This means you can't check an operator's effect on the sustain part of a sound unless you retrigger the whole envelope, which can be very long on an ambient sound, which is one area I think this synth is great for.
2. There seems to be a number of bugs with the mod matrix. E.g. I enabled and assigned the ramp to various destinations and it did nothing.

I hope Akai/inMusic keep working on updates for OPx-4, and other plugins. I don't see much indication of that, and I don't think their support is good, which means they don't pay much attention to user feedback.

AndyRAW wrote:I hope Akai/inMusic keep working on updates for OPx-4, and other plugins. I don't see much indication of that, and I don't think their support is good, which means they don't pay much attention to user feedback.

I'm doubtful too.

A lot of feedback on the Jura seems to be the saturation, pre filter drive and analog are barely notable, and even doubtful if they are doing anything. I love the pre filter drive on my bass station. this should really be an obvious sound to hear.

AndyRAW wrote:On the OPx-4, just moving the Mod Matrix page (currently next to settings) to be next to the Operator page would be a simple but big improvement to the UI.

That's pretty easy, I'll upload modified skin soon

EDIT:
like this one ?


EDIT 2:
moving the tab breaks the links need to investigate more

Unfortunately it won't work - there is a lot of items in this skin that call "CurrentSubTab" parameter. Problem with this parameter is that it's not defined anywhere within the TUI file which makes me belive that it is stored internally within the plugin itself. When I shuffle the tabs, all hell breaks loose and indexing of the items that call "CurrentSubTab" gets wonky and out of sync. oh well... you won't know if you don't try

dustyslices wrote:Unfortunately it won't work - there is a lot of items in this skin that call "CurrentSubTab" parameter. Problem with this parameter is that it's not defined anywhere within the TUI file which makes me belive that it is stored internally within the plugin itself. When I shuffle the tabs, all hell breaks loose and indexing of the items that call "CurrentSubTab" gets wonky and out of sync. oh well... you won't know if you don't try

Thanks for looking at this. It sounds like it will require a major review of the code just to move the tab, which suggests the coding has not been well structured. We can only hope for a major update.

Are you working for Akai?

AndyRAW wrote:

dustyslices wrote:Unfortunately it won't work - there is a lot of items in this skin that call "CurrentSubTab" parameter. Problem with this parameter is that it's not defined anywhere within the TUI file which makes me belive that it is stored internally within the plugin itself. When I shuffle the tabs, all hell breaks loose and indexing of the items that call "CurrentSubTab" gets wonky and out of sync. oh well... you won't know if you don't try

Thanks for looking at this. It sounds like it will require a major review of the code just to move the tab, which suggests the coding has not been well structured. We can only hope for a major update.

Are you working for Akai?

oh nooo, far from it , I have authority problem and I talk too much so no NDAs for me
As for the OPx skin itself - it is their most „advanced” skin to date, over 500 parameters, a lot of direct call to plugin functions etc. It looks like they took a different approach for this skin, normally they define „local” objects and call them directly from the appropriate tab or page. here, they created „local” items and „local” page, called the items from within the page and then called a whole page from within appropriate tab. Also this is the only skin that my editor marks as broken and won’t let me edit it until I fix the error manually (.json line 19xxx - same item defined twice iirc).

AndyRAW wrote:Other issues (this is on an Akai Force):
1. Many changes do not take effect until the note is retriggered. For example, turning an operator an/off, which is an important compare function during sound design mode. This means you can't check an operator's effect on the sustain part of a sound unless you retrigger the whole envelope, which can be very long on an ambient sound, which is one area I think this synth is great for.
2. There seems to be a number of bugs with the mod matrix. E.g. I enabled and assigned the ramp to various destinations and it did nothing.

Correction, the above were not bugs. I have been evaluating OPx on trial and I am still getting to know it.

Overall, I think it is a good FM synth, but I still think moving the Modulation tab (currently next to settings) to be next to the Operator tab (as shown in a reply above) would be a simple but big improvement to the UI.

Hello everyone,

I play a Key 61 in standalone mainly for live gigs and I am very pleased with the results!
I also play a Yamaha WX 7 wind controller through a Yamaha WT11 synth module which is in fact a TX81Z performance player. The sounds are programmed for breath control Midi CC 2.

What I would like to do is to play the OPX-4 with the WX7 wind controller.

When programming the TX81Z for wind control I got good results by setting the parameters for EG Bias and Pitch Bias to breath control to get expressive phrasing typical of a wind instrument.

On looking at the modulation parameters of the OPX-4 I cannot seem to find
anything that could correspond with EG Bias and Pitch Bias so that I could set to breath control.

Has anyone any ideas where I can begin to look? I would be grateful for any help.

Many thanks.
Martin

Tinwhistle wrote:Hello everyone,

I also play a Yamaha WX 7 wind controller through a Yamaha WT11 synth module which is in fact a TX81Z performance player. The sounds are programmed for breath control Midi CC 2.

What I would like to do is to play the OPX-4 with the WX7 wind controller.

When programming the TX81Z for wind control I got good results by setting the parameters for EG Bias and Pitch Bias to breath control to get expressive phrasing typical of a wind instrument.

On looking at the modulation parameters of the OPX-4 I cannot seem to find
anything that could correspond with EG Bias and Pitch Bias so that I could set to breath control.

I've not hooked up my WX5 to the OPX4 yet, but one of the first things I did (and do with any synth) is check to see if CC2 is supported. And how the modulation is implemented. (I love Applied acoustics but I wish they'd change their mod matrix style, as I just gave up fighting the synths for my WX5)

I think there is a different mindset in the way the OPX4 operates. Because each Operator has it's own envelope, the depth of the envelope is relative to the level of the operator going into the matrix, and then it's overall level is set in the submix. So it seems to me the the level of each operator is the Target you want.

I can't see a global setting for pitch bend range, it seems to be set to 2 semitones. I ran through a bunch of presets and found nothing outside this range. There is a Tune target (3 from the top of the list), but to effect the operators separately, I think the target would be the Ratio.