discoDSP has released Retromulator, a free plugin designed to bring classic hardware cores back to life through authentic low-level emulation.
Featuring eight classic synthesizer and sampler cores in one plugin, Access Virus ABC/TI, Waldorf MicroQ, Waldorf XT, Nord Lead 2X, Roland JP-8000, Yamaha DX7, and Akai S1000, it is built on Gearmulator, an open-source synthesizer emulation project by the dsp56300 team.
Hardware Cores:
- Akai S1000 sampler — SF2, SFZ, ZBP, and ZBB sample bank playback via the SFZero v3.0.0 engine with 8-point sinc interpolation, extended SFZ/SF2 opcode support, discoDSP Bliss sampler format (.zbp/.zbb), MIDI CC support (mod wheel vibrato, volume, expression, pan), sustain pedal, and pitch bend. No ROM required.
- 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.
New in 1.1:
- JP-8000 .pfm performance bank loading support.
- SysEx preset and bank export with embedded patch names.
- Virus ABC/TI SysEx cross-detection on patch import.
- Nord Lead 2X SysEx patch name support expanded from 10 to 20 bytes.
- Per-synth remembered file chooser directory.
- Fixed SysEx hang when using external patch editors.
- Fixed Linux and Windows build issues.
Firmware & ROM Management:
- ROMs NOT included.
- Browse dialog accepts .bin, .mid, and .zip files; ZIP archives are extracted flat to the ROM folder with automatic multi-synth detection — all recognized firmware files are saved in one pass.
- Required ROM files per core: 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). Akai S1000 requires no ROM.
- 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.
- AAX, 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.
Price:
Free (with optional tech support license) and available for Windows, macOS (including Apple Silicon), and Linux in AAX, VST3, AU, and standalone formats.