I built a browser-native SysEx librarian for 80s/90s synthesizers

Discussion (4 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

SwellJoe•44 minutes ago

I've been working on a similar-ish set of tools for my old synths and have been pleasantly surprised to find that synth manuals used to include the full SysEx spec for the synth. Most synths/controllers today don't come with a manual, and rarely provide all the information you'd need to create software to interact with it. They just expect you to use their shitty software, or worse, their mobile app, which will not work in ten or twenty years.

swatcoder•19 minutes ago

> Most synths/controllers today don't come with a manual, and rarely provide all the information you'd need to create software to interact with it. They just expect you to use their shitty software, or worse, their mobile app, which will not work in ten or twenty years.

Then if you have some of those old newer and more opaque devices too, you would be doing the world a service to reverse engineer their formats with your favorite AI tool and publish them somewhere. For all the conflicting takes that people can harbor about using AI for vibe coding, technical writing, or creativity, the opportunity it provides for documentation/archive enrichment is tremendous.

So many people would be delighted if six months from now we had "SwellJoe's Sysex Wiki" with docs and scripts for a bunch of recovered sysex formats and some prompt/harness/skill tips to help others expand and enrich it further.

doawoo•25 minutes ago

> iCloud for sysex

I just have sysex librarian installed and pointed to my iCloud directory. It sure works.

TazeTSchnitzel•about 1 hour ago

So have many other people. What makes yours special? The vibecoding? The sloppy marketing site is really off-putting.

I'd honestly be curious what those “83+ vintage & modern synths” are but you don't even provide a list…

Also, what the hell is a “Hex-to-ASCII Parser”…

I built a browser-native SysEx librarian for 80s/90s synthesizers

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Discussion (4 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews