FB-7999 emulates the single cycle digital waveforms of the Korg DW-6000/8000
From Full Bucket Music comes a software emulation of a pair of Korg’s 1980s digital synthesizers, the DW-6000 and DW-8000. FB-7999 is just one digit away from nailing it.
FB-7999
The Korg DW-6000 and DW-8000 used the Digital Waveform Generator System (DWGS) as the basis of their sound generation. It consisted of 16 single-cycle digital waveforms that were played back via the two digital oscillators. These are then routed through an analogue filter and VCA before hitting some digital effects. Of course, the patch editing was a nightmare because this was a time when we believed editing on digit displays with data sliders and buttons was really very cool.
FB-7999 takes all that on by sampling a couple of these synthesizers to death and fleshing out the editing. Full Bucket Music has expanded the waveform palette by adding another 16 waveforms and pushed the polyphony up to 64 voices. The poly and unison modes are still there along with the digital delay. You’ll not find the arpeggiator from the DW-8000 and the filter emulation is not exactly on the money but it sounds really good.
Björn Arlt of Full Bucket Music goes into some detail about the emulation and how it compares to the hardware in the manual. He admits it’s not perfect but feels it’s close enough for him to give it the name 7999. He also mentions how he wanted to keep a bit of the 1980s in the interface which is why you still have to contend with data sliders and 2-digit displays but you can access each parameter much more easily.
Check out the demo video below to see what you think.
FB-7999 is available for macOS and Windows free of charge although donations are always appreciated.
More information from Full Bucket Music
- Full Bucket Music website.
- More from Full Bucket Music.
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8 responses to “FB-7999 emulates the single cycle digital waveforms of the Korg DW-6000/8000”
This is the perfect illustration of form over function…. Rather than concentrate his efforts on replication of the filter etc, he concentrated on replication of the LOOK, down to the last inconvenient detail.
News flash…. That’s the wrong priority.
News flash, it is free. Go complain about something that matters.
News flash! Folks have the right to complain whithout goons complaining about them complaining!
NEWS FLASH!!!! Goons have the right to complain without nitwits complaining that they’re complaining about the complaining!
That depends though. I’ve never owned or used the DW’s but I get quite a lot of enjoyment out of VST’s which look a lot like the hardware their trying to emulate. PG8X, and the Casio CZ one spring to mind; they just feel a lot more organic and real. I’d really like to see the DX7 emulated in a similar manner one day, i.e through button pressing and doing it all on a virtual LCD. It’s just fun !
Regarding FB7999 – it looks fab, even if the sound might not quite be 100% there yet – but I suppose there will be updates over time and to be honest, I have a hard time criticising something that someone is offering for free….
I have played the Kong Poly 800 (worst), Poly 800 Mark 2 (2nd best), DW 6000 (unsatisfying), DW-8000 (the bomb). Forget about ADSR, Try ADBpSSR. My Poly 800 Mark not only has wide ranging digital delay (absent I thing on the 6000) and Attack, Decay, Break point, Slope(!), Sustain, Release. So fat. 3 envelopes for 2 DCO’s and VCF&Noise. Sweeping joy my 6 other modern synths with names like Roland, Moog, Yamaha, Waldorf do not do. Some have called it Moog slayer. It can be fat but; like most synthesizers, there is something unique;y awesome to be unlocked if you go under the hood.
I think some of the above comments are a bit unfair. Bjorn’s been giving away these synths for years, and never claims them to be exact emulations, but more emulations of the architecture of the synths. There’s not one of Full Bucket’s synths that doesn’t sound great and teach you something about the original, which to be honest most people have never even heard of. Check out Full Bucket’s Modulair, if you haven’t already, it’s a monster synth and it’s free (donationware)
I have a dw8000 and this vst is the closest emulation I’ve found. There are some sample based emulations around – I think Syntronik has some dw8000 patches, but this is a proper software emulator and for free it’s very good. I encourage people to donate as I did so he writes more plugins and improves ones already out. Well done Bjorn
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