Native Instruments FM7 DXi

been involved with church praise and worship and contemporary christian music for 17 years now though i also have a band doing local pop/rock/r&b gigs playing keyboards.FM7 is absolutely one of the best sounding softsynths i've tried - very clean, expressive and the dynamics you can do with it simply blows me away.i'm using version 1.1 and though i have a bit of latency problems with my present soundcard, that'll all go away soon as my behringer bca2000 arrives in the mailbox.

very good interface.one standout thing: it doesn't "hiccup" when you switch sounds using arrow keys unlike most hardware synths.

it sounds better than most patches in my hardware rig.polyphony is a bit of a problem but its not that big a problem since i always use it in tandem with the patches of my korg sp200.

its my main standalone softsynth right now with b4, absynth and pro53 on its heels

Cubase SX - Win XP - P4 2.0 Ghz - Mackie 824 - Toa Me-265 - Event S250 Sub Woofer.

I've loved the DX7 since it first came out. I've owned a bunch of different FM incarnations, and I still have a DX7FIID and a TX7.

Interface is as easy as could be expected on a synth with so many parameters. Installed easily.

The sound is clean and pleasing to my ears.

It's ability to duplicate a real DX7 is mostly astounding, but sometimes it's ho-hum. Most of the sounds that I transfered to it that I've "appropriated" from studios I've played at sound very similar to a real DX7. A few sounded close and a few others were mysteriously not close at all...although very interesting in more than one case.

I like it's sound.

It was an Xmas gift so it was definitly worth the price since I didn't get the other person anything.

I like the way it syncs in Cubase to the time base. It makes it expressive and flexible for some interesting sounds and effects.

Not a particular CPU Hog compared to others I have. About 5%.

It's never crashed, but I rarely use it since I have the real thing.

Software Synths are always better when they have a host of presets, like this one does and there are tons of patches on the web for the DX7 - to me that's a big plus 'cause even though I'm not bad or great at programming it, it's not my first choice for my spare time.

It does most of what a DX7 does and a bunch it doesn't. It's not quite the real thing, but it's very close and you can run it with other plugs on a laptop and take it to a gig.

BOTTOM LINE: Almost as good as the real thing and does other
stuff too.

Well...it is not the easiest synth to work with but after many hours of practising it seems to me understandable

This thing sounds amazing!!!it can produces sounds of all kinds.I like to make my own presets jut because I want to find the limits of this beast!
I think it's suitable for any music that you make electronic,rock,pop,jazz...everything!The only bad side of fm synthesis is that it can't sound as warm or thick as an analog synthesizer.but who cares???for that we have the virtual analog synths!

JUST BECAUSE IS DIFFICULT TO HANDLE IT IN THE BEGINNING,IT ALSO IS MONOTIMBRAL AND IT TAKES SOME UPGRADES MORE.THE ONLY PROBLEM I HAD WITH THAT WAS WITH A PRESET I HAD MADE.AFTER A FEW SECONDS THE SOUND WAS STOPPING BUT I GUESS SOMETHING WENT WRONG WITH THE SETTINGS ON THE FILTER

I've been involved in synthesis for at least 10 years, specializing in funky techno stuff. I'm using FM7 version 1.1.

The user interface is good, except for preset handling. Native Instruments modeled FM7 on the DX7, ignoring the fact that, unlike the DX7, a computer-based synth such as FM7 COULD HAVE excellent, unlimited preset storage and access.

FM7 provides much playability: you can significantly vary a preset by altering some of the params on the easy edit page, such as brightness and timbre envelope amount, or perhaps a level of an operator that has a big influence on the preset .

Personally, I can live without the 80s style lower case text, so I only use upper case ... but that's just my personal taste, and a trivial complaint.

The manual is sufficient.

Superb sound quality, so much better than the FM synths of yore. Lots of ways to alter the sound. Factory presets are OK, but not very usable to me, mostly because I insist on creating my own presets. In my experience with synths, factory presets are sometimes designed to show a feature or capability of the synth, and not necessarily to be usable in actual music. However, the factory presets are often good starting points when I'm developing my own presets.

Well worth the price.

Never had a crash.

Preset handling should be improved. It's fun to create lots of presets in lots of banks, but then it's difficult to find and load your presets. I'm jealous of other Native Instruments products which were produced later than FM7, because they have a better preset handling system, with very flexible folders. I hope, cross my fingers, that Native Instruments will improve their patch management in their next update (Hey NI, it's almost a year since the last FM7 update, have you forgotten us?).

I would love to give FM7 a 10 rating, except I'm peeved about preset handling. In summary, a really good synth that would be great with improved preset handling.

I'm mostly a desktop musician, although I did play drums professionally in a former lifetime (about 20 years ago).

It's never crashed on me.

Overall the user interface is good, although there is still quite some room for improvement.

The easy edit page is really helpful, a simple adjustment to one of the easy edit controls alters several/many parameters on other pages. I use the easy edit page mostly when I find a patch I kinda-like, and then I tweak the easy edit parameters to improve the patch. For example, I like a patch but think it sustains too much, and adjusting the easy edit sustain parameter adjusts the sustain parameters for ALL the individual FM operators. COOL. I would like the operator waveform to be included in the edit page in a future version, because sometimes I like to start with a preset patch, and then change ALL the operator waveforms.

No complaints about the sound quality. The distortion and filtering operators are useful when you get tired of that classic 80s FM sounds. Delay effects are impressive and useful. I'm personally not into rhythmic loops, but they do seem well supported.

There seems to be a software bug in the patch compare function.

It's been so long since a software update, I wonder if Native Instruments has any plans to improve FM7, or to fix it's (relatively minor) bugs.

Native Instruments should DEFINITELY improve the patch management! I've created about 1,000 presets, but there's no easy way to organize and access them! This is a MAJOR SHORTCOMING, which mars an otherwise superb product!

I'd give it an 8. Good sound quality, lots of features and parameters to tweak ... but patch management suxs.

I've been making music for 4 years. FM7 is one of the most powerful and best sounding softsynths that i've obtained. It's a great looking and sounding synth, and is extremely versatile for electronic music. I make trance music, and the FM7 sounds come in very useful when the mix gets cluttered up with too many analog synths. The FM sound is very unique in a way that it is able to 'cut through' the analog mess, and stand out very crisp and clear in a mix, simply because of the frequencies and the type of synthesis that it uses.

Scrolling through the presets is very easy and highly entertaining. Hours and hours can be easily spent by going through and testing the versatility of all the sounds and possibilities. There is seemingly an infinite number of ways a sound can be altered, which is of course very good, and it allows the user to be as expressive as they like.
On another note though, FM synthesis is EXTREMELY complicated. If you want to fully dwelve into serious programming techniques, you'll need to know far more than the basics to fully understand the way things work. There are numerous sites on the net that teach you this, but ultimately, i think people will find it more fun and less time consuming to simply pick one of the presets, and adjust the usual attack, decay, sustain, release, cutoff/resonance.

FM7 sounds absolutely amazing. For trance and electronic music production, this synth is absolutely essential. Within the presets are a number of excellent sounding bass and lead sounds. This synth can produce very beautiful synth leads, very atmospheric effects and great strings as well. There are so many presets, and all of them of a very high quality. You'll find it very easy to just pick a preset that you like and use it straightaway, without having to adjust a lot of parameters. Simply put, the presets sound just the way they should. With some of them, virtually no tweaking is required as they sound so professional in the mix.

One of the most useful and versatile VST out there. This synth should be on top of your 'to buy' list. Once you test drive this baby, you'll want it straight away. Using it can be as easy or as complicated as you like, and if you want to be really serious and start programming sounds from stracth, its powers will entertain you for years to come. Highly recommended.

I've been involved in music for about 25 years, and I've released two CDs. I'm using the most current version of FM7, as of Feb 2003 (I don't recall the version number off the top of my head). I'm currently using FM7 in standalone mode, and I anticipate using FM7 in Sonar as an DXi plug-in, once I buy a new computer and Sonar ... so I can't comment now on how well FM7 performs as a DXi plugin.

The interface is generally very easy to use, with a few exceptions:

? FM7 would benefit from an ?import preset? function, like that found in the Abynth software, which allows you to preview and load presets from another bank without actually loading that bank. For example, you can?t load a complete 128-preset bank, and then directly store presets from that bank in another bank.
? The preset randomizer, while impressive, has two flaws. First, the user should be able to set a ?use original preset? preference, so the randomizer would work on the original preset each time randomization is performed. Currently, randomization starts from the latest randomization, which means the sound becomes totally different from the original preset within a few randomizations. Second, I?d like more specific randomization choices, such as the ability to randomize only the operator waveforms.
? It?s difficult to change the operator waveform within the user interface; this should be a larger button in a future FM7 release.
? Patch management is a little clumsy. First, if you?re storing a patch using the ?store to? approach, and you change your mind before storing the preset, there?s no easy way to stop, such as by using the escape key. Second, if you accidentally store a patch in the wrong spot, then there?s no way to undo that storage to retrieve the original patch. If you spend hours creating patches (as I do), you will eventually make this mistake.

There is no online manual, which seems to be a Native Instruments tradition ... but the paper manual is good (I'd rate it an 8) and FM7 is fairly easy to grasp if you've read the manual once or twice. One complaint about the manual: it doesn't describe how to use the MIDI learn function with a MIDI controller, perhaps the assumption is that this is obvious to the average user (but not to me).

Sound quality is excellent, with high fidelity, and huge amounts of parameter tweakability. FM7 can produce a surprising variety of sounds, from crystal clear to hellish.

FM7 is the ultimate FM synthesizer. FM7 is like the Yamaha DX and TX series synths (such as the DX7), but it provides so much more, such as 32 operator waveforms for the 6 standard operators, distortion and filter operators, stereo sound and a delay effect. A very flexible envelope is available for each operator and the pitch capability. The operators can be connected to other operators at will, leading to all kinds of sonic peace or war. The ?easy edit? page allows you to alter several related parameters with one slider, which makes it easy to experimentally find new sounds.

FM7 has about 300 fine-quality presets, and about 128 DX7 presets. There are thousands of Yamaha DX and TX series presets on the internet that can be downloaded into FM7, but this is not as useful as you might think. Although FM7 faithfully reproduces the Yamaha presets, they sound flat in FM7. You?ll have to add delay, stereo width, and perhaps the distortion or filtering operator before your preset matches the vividness of the usual FM7 preset.