Synthesizer Patch Editor
Synthesizer Patch Editor and Librarian (Version 37)
By Sean Luke ([email protected])
Related projects:
Donations are welcome via Paypal to my email address ([email protected]).
Edisyn was featured on Bad Gear! The second M-Audio Venom video featured Edisyn extensively and warmly as Edisyn is presently the only editor available for the unit on the Mac (and the best one overall).
Stochastic Synthesizer Patch Exploration in Edisyn. Presented at EvoMUSART 2019.
Co-creative Music Synthesizer Patch Exploration. With V. Hoyle. Presented at ICCC 2023.
So You Want to Write a Patch Editor. George Mason University Department of Computer Science Technical Report GMU-CS-TR-2023-1.
Edisyn is a synthesizer patch editor library written in pure Java. It runs on MacOS, Linux, and Windows.
Edisyn is particularly good at exploring the space of patches. It has to my knowledge the most sophisticated set of general-purpose patch-exploration tools of any patch editor available.
Edisyn presently supports:
Edisyn has infinite levels of undo, CC and NRPN mapping and learning, offline modes, per-parameter customization, real-time parameter updates, test notes and chords, Pseudo-MPE support, and lots more. Edisyn also has many specialized tools designed to help you explore new patch possibilities without directly programming them. These include:
Sure! But building a patch editor is a long-term commitment of debugging and maintenance. It can't easily be done with a remote person (you) handling the debugging. So with rare exceptions I only build editors for synths I personally own (I might sell them long after the editor is stable). So if you'd like, say, the Alesis Andromeda to have an editor, all you have to do is gift me an Alesis Andromeda! I'll even pay for shipping.
I have a special interest in hard-to-program synths, either because they have very poor interfaces (or no interface at all), or because their synthesis architecture is difficult to program (FM, Additive). You'll note the high number of 1U rackmounts. :-) Certain other synths (Blofeld, Prophet '08, etc.) are there because I own them and like making stuff for them.
See the Windows, MacOS, and Linux sections below for possible solutions. But the #1 reason why Edisyn can't connect to a synthesizer is if you are using a cheap Chinese MIDI-to-USB interface adapter cable. These cables typically use a broken MIDI chip, commonly the Nanjing Qinheng Microelectronics CH345, which has enormous, gaping MIDI bugs. Very few of these cables can handle the MIDI System Exclusive protocol at all. If you want an inexpensive MIDI-to-USB cable style interface, I suggest the Roland UM-ONE. Note to Mac Users: the UM-ONE's website does not properly point to its older Mac drivers. Google for "Roland UM-ONE drivers" and you'll get the right page.
Edisyn has an extensive manual which describes how to run it, and (if you are so inclined) how to make new patch editors.
Edisyn is cross-platform and will run on a variety of platforms (Windows, Linux) but I am personally developing on and for MacOS. I'd appreciate feedback and screenshots of it running on Windows and Linux so I can tweak things.
First install Edisyn from the Edisyn.dmg file. Sadly, it's a whopping 70MB because it includes the Java VM. :-(
If you have an old Mac that only has Java 8, you can try installing the Java 8 version: Edisyn.app.zip
MacOS has lately locked down the ability to run an application that's not from a commercial, paying Apple Developer. And I'm not one. So you will have to instruct MacOS to permit Edisyn to run.
This is pretty easy. CONTROL-Click on Edisyn's App Icon, and while holding Control down, select "Open". Now instead of telling you that Edisyn cannot be opened because it's from an unidentified developer, you'll be given the option to do so. You probably will only have to do this once.
Apple has made this much more annoying now, to everyone's consternation. You'll have to use the Terminal program. Let's assume you stuck Edisyn in the /Applications directory as usual. Now we have to tell Gatekeeper to allow Edisyn to run on your machine:
sudo xattr -cr /Applications/Edisyn.appNow you should be able to run Edisyn. You only have to do this once. This should work with earlier versions of OS X too.
If you want to use Edisyn in combination with a DAW, see the manual's section on building a MIDI Loopback.
You can also run Edisyn from its jar file from the command line: see "Running from the command line" at end of these instructions.
You may have installed the MMJ (MIDI Java) library in the past, which is now obsolete. This library was required by old applications but no longer works properly and should be removed. Look in /Library/Java/Extensions/ or in [Your Home Directory]/Library/Java/Extensions for the files mmj.jar or libmmj.jnilib. If you find them, remove them from the directory and try again.
At present Edisyn only runs under Rosetta on the M1. It'll work fine; there are challenges with fat binaries in Java on MacOS. If you have installed Java yourself, you can run Edisyn from the command line (see later below) and it'll probably run natively.
I believe that the following should work:
No open issues yet, or sync has not completed.