Since the beginning of Time … well, the beginning of my time in the Audio Industry, there has always been the wish for users of music technology to build their own custom bank of sounds. What musicians and producers want to do is to pick a few sounds from a bank, then a few more from a different bank, and so on. The problem has been that, whether it’s hardware or software, synth manufacturers don’t really provide a great set of tools to build a custom bank.
Really, though, Dexed offers a pretty good set of tools. It’s visual, it’s clear once you understand the process, and it’s relatively quick. I’m guessing just about everyone would like to peruse the included Dexed bank of sounds, and there are a lot of sounds, and as they are auditioning, build a custom bank. Whether it’s for a song, a composition session, or a live gig. Having the ability to build a custom CART, or more than one, if needed, is pretty easy in Dexed.
In this post, we’ll get Dexed up on the rack and have a look at how to build a custom CART of sounds for Dexed. So, put on your overalls, let’s get underneath the Dexed’s chassis, and get to work.
Where to Start:
To build a custom CART in Dexed, you start in the CART screen of the plug-in. Press CART in the lower left corner of Dexed. You will see a screen that looks like this:
Now, just looking at that screen on the surface, it’s not entirely clear what is going on. There are a bunch of voice names along the bottom, a bunch of blank spaces along the side, and all of our CARTs – at least those that have been put in the primary CART folder for Dexed. Even though it doesn’t look like much, this is a very powerful screen that is the main interface for building custom CARTs.
The first step we’ll take is to load and audition a CART to see if there are any voices in the file we want to use in our Custom CART. Navigate to the Dexed_cart_1.0 folder and select a subfolder within that primary folder – let’s select Original Yamaha to begin. For this tutorial, double-click TX7, then click once on TX10.SYX.
It’s Drag-and-Drop
The right-hand side of the screen has now changed to show the names of the voices in the CART named TX10.SYX. The four rows of voices at the bottom of the screen are the names of voices already loaded and active in Dexed. In the right-hand columns, select Brass ‘Bell. If you play your controller at this point, you’ll hear the sound Brass ‘Bell. This is a handy way to browse CARTs and try out sounds without actually loading the CART into Dexed.
The next step is to drag Brass ‘Bell into our active CART. Click and drag it into the leftmost voice slot on the top row of the voices along the bottom (where Chuck Pluc is located in the screenshot. That’s step one towards building your own Custom CART. Now, select MUTE ‘Sines and repeat, this time dropping onto STRINGS 2.
Next, let’s get a little crazy and select some sounds from a different CART. Let’s single-click on TX18.SYX, then pull over FAIRLIGHT and TEAPOT, just for fun. The first four voices along the bottom of the screen, in our active CART, should look like the highlighted area below:
Save Early, Save Often
Now would be a good time to perform an interim SAVE of this working CART. Thankfully, Dexed knows what we’re up to and presents a Save As… dialog, which enables us to enter a working name for the bank we’re building. Name it what you like and save it.
That’s the overall workflow in building your own custom Dexed CART. In summary, while auditioning a CART on the right-hand side, drag-and-drop the sounds you like into the active CART along the bottom. Remember to save early and save often.
There is one thing to be cautious of while we are on this screen. If we accidentally double-click a .SYX cart file name instead of single-clicking, that .SYX CART loads and becomes the active CART, which, depending on when we last performed a save, may overwrite our work. This is why I recommend saving early and saving often, so that if you do accidentally wipe your work, you can reload your working bank.
As an aside, I always name stuff (patch banks, CARTs, sample bank folders) with the letters WIP (Work-In-Progress) so I can find them easily. That’s mainly because if I named it TX53.SYX, I would absolutely get confused when I went to look for it.
You can repeat the workflow above for 32 voices – that’s the maximum number of sounds in a CART. If you have a gig, session, or plan to spend time composing “FM Overture 2026” using only your favorite Dexed sounds, you can just create another CART or TWO for your work.
Wrapping Up
That’s it! The solution for the often-requested call for assistance – “How do I make a Custom Bank of sounds in …” – in almost any hardware or software synth. This tutorial was using Dexed, my favorite FM plug-in around. Dexed is indeed pretty awesome, especially for the price (free), and we’ve covered a lot of functionality in our set of tutorials at DexedOwnersManual.com. Check it out: we start by downloading the VST, then understanding its interface, and finally building custom sounds. Now, we’ve just built our own custom CART of stuff to use.
DexedOwnersManual.com is pretty extensive. I encourage you to check it out, and to join our mailing list (soon Discord!) – that will get you a 20% coupon to use anywhere on SoundEngine.com, for Dexed sounds or not. We’ve got similar sets of tutorials for Nils’ K1v, a Kawai K1 emulation, as well as Logic’s Sampler VST and MIDI Sysex messaging and management. I hope you’ll join us.
In the meantime, thank you for reading, and I hope this post has given you some creative horsepower for your tunes.
Resources:
- SoundEngine’s Complete Dexed Owner’s Manual Series:
- Our custom programmed Crankshaft: Dexed bank:
- Our custom programmed Flywheel: Dexed bank:
- The Dexed plug-in:
- FM Synthesis:
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