NEWS
March 7, 2026
Retromulator 1.0 released
Retromulator is a hardware synthesizer emulation plugin that brings legendary synths back to life through cycle-accurate low-level emulation. Virtual analog synths run on a faithful Motorola DSP 56300 recreation, while the Yamaha DX7 runs a full emulation of its Hitachi HD6303R sub-CPU and Yamaha YM21280/YM21290 EGS/OPS chip set.
Version 1.0 is the initial release, supporting seven classic synthesizers — Yamaha DX7, Access Virus ABC/TI, Waldorf MicroQ, Waldorf XT, Nord Lead 2X, and Roland JP-8000 — available on macOS, Windows, and Linux as AU, VST3, and Standalone. Built on Gearmulator, an open-source synthesizer emulation project by the dsp56300 team.
Synthesizer Engines
- Access Virus ABC and TI emulation with sysex patch loading and ROM preset extraction to bank combo.
- Nord Lead 2X (N2X) emulation with per-program sysex navigation, edit buffer patch support, and output level correction by summing DSP A and DSP B voices at full scale.
- Roland JP-8000 (JE-8086) emulation with ROM preset extraction, patch browsing, multi-performance bank loading, and AU MIDI latency fix running at 44100 Hz.
- Waldorf MicroQ and XT emulation via dsp56300 cycle-accurate DSP engine with folder-per-bank ROM loading.
- Yamaha DX7 emulation via VDX7 — full hardware-level emulation of the Hitachi HD6303R sub-CPU, Yamaha YM21280 EGS (Envelope Generator), and YM21290 OPS (Operator) chip set with 16 KB firmware ROM and 32 KB factory voice data.
- SRC (sample rate conversion) with high-quality Rolloff 0.97 / Beta 9 settings.
Firmware & ROM Management
- Browse dialog accepts .bin, .mid, and .zip files; ZIP archives are extracted flat to the ROM folder with automatic multi-synth detection — all recognised firmware files are saved in one pass.
- Required ROM files per synth: Virus ABC/C —
virus_c.bin (512 KB), Virus TI — virus_ti.bin (6–9 MB), Nord Lead 2X — nord_lead_2x.bin (512 KB), Roland JP-8000 — jp8000.bin (512 KB), Waldorf MicroQ — micro_q.bin (512 KB), Waldorf XT — xt.bin (256 KB), Yamaha DX7 — dx7_rom.bin (16 KB + 32 KB).
- Assembled ROM binaries are written to the ROM folder and source MIDI/IC dumps deleted, so subsequent launches load instantly from a single .bin.
- Firmware-missing browse flow on synth type change with synth-specific instructions.
- Per-synth patch name extraction and bank/program combo selectors.
Plugin & Standalone
- AU, VST3, and Standalone plugin formats with DAW state persistence.
- Resizable editor window with aspect ratio enforcement and in-editor corner resizer for AU host resize support.
- Window size persists across DAW sessions.
- DAW notified of state changes on preset and synth updates.
Retromulator is available for Windows, macOS (including Apple Silicon), and Linux in VST3, AU, and standalone formats.
