Amiga TFMX Hardware Synth Prototype

Musician, Coder & Tech-tinkerer Mario Volkel has shown off a prototype TFMX-Hardware Synth. TFMX, (The Final Musicsystem Extended) is a music format, created by Chris Hülsbeck for the C64 and later on, the Commodore Amiga.

The music format - used for classic game music like Turrican II and Apidya, is fairly versatile - providing the volume and pitch modulation tools required to create expressive music. Later versions even allowed 7-channel playback from the Amiga's 4 hardware channels (by mixing multiple channels onto channel 4)! The trick was fairly CPU intensive, and some tones mixed better than others - but if you love hardware pushing, this is it!

Mario's new hardware TFMX synth, still in an early state, can already play back these classic soundtracks:

"My new TFMX-Hardware Synth is coming along nicely. Not only you can play the Voices via MIDI; I have implemented a simple player for the original Songs as well.

The PCB you can see is called TeensyFX. It's my development platform for Eurorack modules using a Teensy. So it does have Eurorack Audio ins and outs as well as CV Inputs, MIDI. However, the TFMX synth is not planned as a Eurorack Module. Instead it will be an 8-Voice polysynth based on the original Amiga TFMX-System for various reasons.

I might do a Single/Dual Oscillator at some Point, but essentially I decided against that idea. Also, I made the player just for fun. You can use the existing macros of a TFMX file via midi - but then you can also hear the original songs that are in the file anyway. For the sequencer part I have written an App for macOS. This side is covered and I don't need that in Hardware. It has the Sound-Engine built in, which I can also compile as a VST3-Plugin btw. All this is written in Rust, and the Hardware synth is just a simple conversion of the original Rust algorithm into C. Anyway, I'm planning to build a proper synth prototype in about 1-2 weeks. I'll take it from there..."

We wish Mario all the best with development, the thing sounds lovely!

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