Fancy the retro gaming sound of the he? A small kit awakens the sound generators YM 150 or YM 3438 to new life.

The concise sound of FM synthesis shaped a whole generation of music and games – there is hardly a title that did without the bell-like sounds of the legendary Yamaha DX7 at the end of the eighties. The ingenious synthesis process was later found in a slimmed-down form on sound cards and in game consoles (for example from SEGA): Retro gamers will love the YM 2612, which was later replaced by the compatible YM 3438. The latter is characterized by less intermodulation distortion and thus a more “analog” sound.

The Spanish company With the DAFM Synth, Kasser Synths has released a kit that skilfully solves the not entirely trivial control of the FM chips: Four small OLED graphic displays show several parameters (such as the envelopes of the four FM operators) simultaneously, making navigation easy is ensured by two rotary encoders. A small touch keyboard is built in to try out the sounds, but the device can also be completely controlled via MIDI. No SMD knowledge is required to set it up, but a ready-made device is also available. However, the pleasure is not quite cheap: Due to the limited availability of the now valuable FM ICs, the kit costs around 150 euros.

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