I’ve been a fan of MAME, which most people know as an arcade machine emulator, for many years, but one thing I didn’t know is that its reach has gone some way beyond just arcade games. It has also been used to emulate a number of synths, music keyboards and modules.
Even the acronyms — initially Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator and, later, MAME is an Arcade Machine Emulator — tend to suggest its scope is just classic arcade cabinets. But then you think about it, and the overlaps, and you can see how electronic instruments are a good fit too.
MAME for Musical Instruments
Not only were some of the sound chips used in synths and keyboards also used in arcade games, but many of the more vintage instruments were not just some hardware and a generic computer, but a massive collection of electronic hardware including CPUs, microprocessors, DSPs, ROMs, timers, envelope generators, filters, oscillators, MIDI interfacing, and much more.
Well, anyway, MAME has been used to capture a lot of synths and doing a fine job of emulating them. Interestingly, unlike most software emulators developed down the line, MAME-based instruments retain the original essence, the features and the quirks, often down to the last diode or resistor.
What isn’t so great is the usability of these emulated instruments. Unlike the arcade machine side of MAME where it’s relatively easy to fire up some software and begin playing, these instruments require quite a bit of extra work to become playable.
Vintage Emulator Studio
Enter the Vintage Emulator Studio (VES) from Autodafe. It takes the raw preserved machines from MAME and makes them easily usable from within a DAW.
VES is curated; it doesn’t feature every instrument available in MAME, partly because different instruments have varying levels of usability. It’s also up to the end user to supply their own ROMs, though that’s fairly standard and anyone already using MAME in other ways is used to that.
VES is completely open source.
Features
- Standalone application
- AU and VST3 plugin formats
- MIDI input from your keyboard or DAW
- Multiple vintage synths, samplers, drum machines and sound modules in one interface
- Integrated machine selection and artwork
- Resizable interface
- Based on the MAME emulation framework
- Available for macOS, Windows and Linux
Included Machines
Currently the following instruments are supported within VES. It’s likely this number will increase over time with continued development.
- Akai
- CD3000i
- CD3000XL
- MPC60
- MPC3000
- S2000
- S3000
- S3000XL
- Casio
- AP-10
- CT-8000
- CT-FK1
- CZ-101
- CZ-1
- CZ-230S
- RZ-1
- Ensoniq
- ESQ-1
- VFX
- VFX-SD
- SD-1 32 Voice
- Linn
- LinnDrum
- Oberheim
- DMX
- Roland
- TR-707
- TR-727
- Sequential
- Prophet-5
- Six-Trak
- Yamaha
- DD-9
- DX100
- FB-01
- TG100
- TX81Z
- MU-50
- MU-2000
- PSR-11
- PSR-60
- PSR-70
- PSR-75
- PSR-76
- PSR-110
- PSR-150
- PSR-180
- PSS-6
- PSS-11
- PSS-12
- PSS-21
- PSS-31
VES is free, but there’s a supporter option so you can donate to help fund continued development of this and other software.
If you’ve always wanted to try out MAME instruments but didn’t feel comfortable setting them up, or you (ahem) didn’t even know about them in the first place, this is definitely software worth checking out.
