It's hard to find a great example of Factory Preset 2, Bank D, #09 "Emperor". I did find: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsQHhGXv324&feature=youtu.be&t=387

Does sound like an orchestra hit with sparkly sounds.

It's hard to put humpty dumpty back together again here without an SY99. I would imagine the Orch Hit sounds are sampled. And there's an article stating that "Mellow" is also a sample. So considering this is all samples - except for differences in the envelopes and how they work over time - the general outline of the sound should be able to transfer over fairly well through samples.

At first, I was trying to find a preset FM-X part for the sparkly bit because I thought that perhaps metallic noise was handled by AFM. This article steered me to samples:

http://www.muzines.co.uk/articles/yamaha-sy99/881

... a rich, shimmering pad sound which uses the 'Mellow' waveform to create the sparkle and sense of movement within sustained sounds which is characteristic of the Wavestation.

Note that "Mellow" finds its way in Montage as waveform #2318. So what I did to do a quick-and-dirty version of Emperor was added the AWM2 Performance "Orchestra Hit" as Part 1, then added "Init Normal (AWM2)" and changed the waveform from the piano sound to #2318 (Mellow).

There's more editing that needs to be done, but that's the general outline based on your summary.

There may be a preset PART which uses "Mellow" that gets you closer to a finished product. I haven't run the presets through my tools to do a "whereis?" on the "Mellow" waveform.

... and as a second try instead of starting with the "Orchestra Hit" Performance - I instead used a single PART starting with the "Init Normal (AWM2)", swapped out the element 1 Waveform with #2318 (Mellow), turned on Element 2 and swapped out that element's Waveform for "Hit Orchestra 1", turned on Element 3 and swapped out that element's Waveform for "Hit Orchestra 2". I'm not sure what else needs to be done in terms of the effects, envelope editing, or use of LFOs. But that seems close to what I hear on the youtube video. And fairly slim. It's a starting point.

I also added a 4th element - copy of the 1st (Mellow). Routed all elements except element 4 to (Insertion Effect) Thru - meaning no insertion. Element 4 I routed to InsA which I set to "Spiralizer F" and changed the effect template from "basic" to "slow". Also went into the element 4 amplitude (AEG) and set the levels down from 127 to 100 - in order to make the effect more of a background thing. Just one example of adding something new. Could have also accomplished the same kind of thing by routing the entire PART through a Spiralizer F Variation effect with a wet/dry mix to place wet in the background and dry in front. A little premature to determine what to do with adding sprinkles - as more may need to be done first with matching the original SY99 effects story. I'm not sure where to find the reference.

Note: probably both of those "Hit Orchestra ..." Waveforms are not needed. The original German thread discussing this said it was either OrchHit1 or OrchHit2 (and not both). Would save some polyphony to remove one.

Jeroen,
The ideal solution would be to confirm the relevant data on an actual SY99 using the Voice Edit menu 😀
Don't know if you know of any people that do - not sure If Derek Cook still has his SY99 now that he's got the Montage....
Jason,
I'm afraid I'm no good at creating sounds from waveforms like you 😀
From the video screenshot at 6:27 you can see that it's made of 4 AWM elements in Poly mode (Voice Mode 08) and that the two insertion effects are in parallel -
Effect 1 is the Pitch Change 2 (Single Type Effect) and 2 being the EQ -> Rev 1 (Cascade Type Effect)
Pitch Change 2 ..."provides two independent pitch changes, each with delay and feedback"
EQ -> Rev 1 (Hall) ...provide a three band sweepable equalizer which is then fed into a reverb effect."
The respective Data tables are Page 111 and 117 of the SY99 Manual.
As for the individual elements "Mellow" is a Preset 2 waveform #34 but have no idea what the other three are lol

I saw what the LCD was reporting - but don't know what the parameters are for the effects - so just punted and didn't try to deal with effects or anything else.

Starting with the initialized PART and just swapping out the Waveform is easy to do. You end up with something which is not velocity sensitive since that's the starting point of AWM2 Init. This can be changed easily, of course. I was more concerned about reproducing the characteristic sound more than other aspects.

Thanks to Jon and his SY Manager program have found out the Elements are as follows:
Elm 1 - Pre 2 #32 Electric Magic
Elm 2 - Pre 2 #34 Mellow
Elm 3 - Pre 2 #28 Oh Attack
Elm 4 - Pre 1 #93 BD 8

I'd highly recommend this program as it's a detailed editor which you can examine all the freely available SY77/99 voices on the web.

That helps a little. I did download the SY Manager but did not find it had the Factory Preset 2 "instruments". I only saw the Preset 1 "instruments" (filename: FACTRY99.sym).

It would help to find so I could look at the other screens.

I assume BD 8 is going to be a bass drum.

EleMagic is said to be another long sample similar to "Mellow" in concept. I haven't been able to find variations of this name in other synths to try to figure out what this, alone, sounds like. Nor did I find a clip of users playing internal waveforms one-by-one.

Oh Attack (OhAttack) is going to be a short "Oh", choir I'm guessing. It's part of the waveforms which are said to be single-note (as in single-key keybank) samples which are recommended as percussive sampled elements to add to FM sounds.

Since it didn't take any time and sounds close enough for jazz, I'm still (at the moment) a fan of the original quick-and-dirty.

I actually sent an email using the contact link of the FM-Alive website, asking if there was a file of the SY99 Pre-set 2 patches.
Jon was gracious and prompt to reply with the respective FACTRY99Presets1And2.sym file.

Yes BD 8 is a bass drum - I think it's from the SY77 being in Pre-set 1
All Elements have Level of 127 and Note Limit C2 - G8.
E1 & 2 Velocity Limit 1 - 127 while 3 & 4 are 60 - 127
Pan is R3, L3, C & C respectively

Wow, thank you very very much Jason, James & Jon!

Using the waveforms #2318 'Mellow' and #2366 'Orchestra Hit1 St' together already sounds a bit like the SY99 D09 ME*Emperor 🙂
I like the suggestion to use the "Spiralizer F"!

Great to see the details without having a SY99 anymore. I still miss mine...

Maybe someone can tell us which Montage-waveforms sounds like the SY99 ones?

Elm 1 - SY99 Pre 2 #32 Electric Magic Montage-waveform #???
Elm 2 - SY99 Pre 2 #34 Mellow Montage-waveform #2318 'Mellow'
Elm 3 - SY99 Pre 2 #28 Oh Attack Montage-waveform #???
Elm 4 - SY99 Pre 1 #93 BD 8 Montage-waveform #???

Just a generic note here: even if Montage had these exact waveforms - it may not be economical to reproduce exactly the same way the SY99 did. The original stab at this had one percussive element (which stops sounding fairly quickly) and one that drones on. The SY99 has two elements that drone on - so it's double the polyphony tax. Through effects or other means - it may be possible to build a better mousetrap with what's inside Montage.

As a side note, there's an SY99 VST that's around $50 which says it includes the samples. It's another route. You could sample this VSTi with SampleRobot and then the result would take up only a single element. If this sound had any morphing when you moved controllers - you may not be able to reproduce this (an argument against the SampleRobot approach - if you value this control) - but is totally in-line with the way Romplers tend to reproduce synths of the past - give a static preset which you can maybe change filters/pitch/etc with of the entire sound.

Jeroen,
The ideal solution would be to confirm the relevant data on an actual SY99 using the Voice Edit menu 😀
Don't know if you know of any people that do - not sure If Derek Cook still has his SY99 now that he's got the Montage....
Jason,

Hi. I still do have my SY99 as well as as Montage, so will take a look when I can fire my studio up next (very busy on other things right now).

So, I managed to have a quick look, before realising it has been confirmed above via SY Manager! 😮

It is a 4AWM element voice using the following samples...

• 32 EleMagic
• 34 Mellow
• 28 Oh Attack
• 93 BD 8

I do have the Montage Sample Robot edition, but have not tried using it yet, so I could actually see how well that works doing each Wave individually, but it might not be for a little while due to everything else going on. Let me know if you want me to have a go at that, and if you are not in too much of a rush.

Hi Derek,

Thank you! I am not in a rush, so if you have time to look at the Montage Sample Robot, I would be very pleased!

You don't know if the Montage has the same or similar waveforms as the SY99?

Elm 1 - SY99 Pre 2 #32 Electric Magic Montage-waveform #???
Elm 2 - SY99 Pre 2 #34 Mellow Montage-waveform #2318 'Mellow'
Elm 3 - SY99 Pre 2 #28 Oh Attack Montage-waveform #???
Elm 4 - SY99 Pre 1 #93 BD 8 Montage-waveform #???

Another possible resource:

Presentation of the free Wojtek Olszak bank, the Wojtek Olszak Montage Pack
...
To get his great performance pack of 128, just send him an email in English at the following address: montagepack@olszak.pl with the title Montage Pack to receive the download link.

You will receive a link to download the file in the format Library (.X7L) which weighs almost 600 MB and counts no less than 128 performances including sounds from the TX816, the M1, the SY99, the classics DX ... and a superb edition of the CFX piano.

Notice the part about performance from the SY99. Not sure if it is related to the requested Performance - but may have something else an SY99 purist would want ported over.