Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

They don't make them like that any more: the Yamaha DX7 keyboard

kevinboone.me

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 225 posts

Re: They don't make them like that any more: the Yamaha DX7 keyboard

#11

Post by ajxs »

If people are interested in the DX7's technical details, I've done some work reverse-engineering it, and some of Yamaha's other FM synths: https://ajxs.me/blog/tag/DX7.html

Ken Shirriff has also done some amazing work analysing the DX7's sound chips: https://www.righto.com/2021/11/reverse-engineering-yamaha-dx...

A really awesome documentary on the DX7 by MadFame: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXt_NXjc7oY

There are a lot of software emulations of the DX7 that are quite realistic, like the amazing Dexed. Here's one that deserves a lot of credit for how accurate it is: https://github.com/chiaccona/VDX7

Re: They don't make them like that any more: the Yamaha DX7 keyboard

#12

Post by MarcelOlsz »

Hey this is the synth I started with way back! I used this[0] 3 hour video to teach me the ins and outs of sound synthesis from the NY School of Synthesis by Dean Friedman.

It still holds up today as it did back then for anyone trying to get into synths.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFa4_po__8wMNscyFfDy6...

Re: They don't make them like that any more: the Yamaha DX7 keyboard

#13

Post by satori99 »

> The use of mathematics to produce sounds resembling real instruments quickly became obsolete once we could just go out and sample the real thing. Sampling is a boring, brute-force approach to sound synthesis, but it’s a relatively straightforward one, now we have the computing power and memory.

I guess this is true, but the next thing to come along that made me leave the DX7 at home was an Ensoniq EPS-16+.

https://www.vintagesynth.com/ensoniq/eps-16

Re: They don't make them like that any more: the Yamaha DX7 keyboard

#14

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

I had one. I wrote MIDI software. I wasn’t a particularly good keyboardist.

Pretty damn powerful, and a "pure" synthesizer. Too complicated for a lot of musicians.

Things really took off, when samplers hit the scene. People were much more comfortable modifying existing sounds, as opposed to creating them from whole cloth.

Re: They don't make them like that any more: the Yamaha DX7 keyboard

#15

Post by xanderlewis »

glimshe wrote: post #6

FM synth is tough to tame, but the possibilities are endless. More so than the standard subtractive VA that most synths use. I feel that we haven't yet fully explored what FM has to offer!

Try listening to early 2010s Skrillex!

Re: They don't make them like that any more: the Yamaha DX7 keyboard

#16

Post by ajxs »

satori99 wrote: post #13

> The use of mathematics to produce sounds resembling real instruments quickly became obsolete once we could just go out and sample the real thing. Sampling is a boring, brute-force approach to sound synthesis, but it’s a relatively straightforward one, now we have the computing power and memory. I guess this is true, but the next thing to come along that made me leave the DX7 at home was an Ensoniq EPS-16+. https://…

On the subject of Ensoniq, here's a great article written about them and the huge impact they had on the music industry: https://reverb.com/news/history-of-ensoniq-samplers-mirage-e...

Re: They don't make them like that any more: the Yamaha DX7 keyboard

#17

Post by spamizbad »

> Building an analog synthesizer that was polyphonic – where many keys could be played at the same time – was stupendously expensive. The same electronic circuitry had to be duplicated many times, sometimes for each key. These instruments were mostly of academic interest – I can’t think of any band that used one on stage (but I could be wrong).

Divide-down synths like the Arp Solina and Omni were widely used in live bands and weren’t that difficult to trek around for the period. Certainly lighter than the contemporary transistor organs of the era

True Analog polysynths were also used extensively live going back to the late 70s with the arrival of the Prophet 5, Roland Jupiter 4 - and by the early 80s (before the DX7 arrived) there were a tons of artists performing with them live.

Re: They don't make them like that any more: the Yamaha DX7 keyboard

#18

Post by coldtea »

>With hindsight, the DX7 and its ilk look like a weird diversion in the path of musical progress. Operator synthesis makes no logical sense. It became popular because we had the capability to do digital sound generation, but lacked the technology to do it in a comprehensible, systematic way. So the DX7 enjoyed huge popularity for a few years, before fading into obscurity.

That's a weird take. I mean "Operator synthesis makes no logical sense"? He writes like FM went away.

While DX7 itself was eventually retired (and synths like M1 became popular), Yamaha made several further flagship FM synths, and FM synthesis is still widely popular, used in both plugin form (including several DX7 emulations plus lots of fresh FM implementations), modern dedicated FM synths (e.g. Korg Opsix, Elektron Digitone), and of course as FM sound engines in multi-engine synths (FM-X in Yamaha's keyboards like Montage and MODX, Hydrasynth's FM mode, Nord's FM engine, to name but a few). There are even boutique options (ReFace DX, Volca FM).

And of course even vintage DX7s go for a quite high price in second+ hand market...

Re: They don't make them like that any more: the Yamaha DX7 keyboard

#19

Post by fuhsnn »

ajxs wrote: post #11

If people are interested in the DX7's technical details, I've done some work reverse-engineering it, and some of Yamaha's other FM synths: https://ajxs.me/blog/tag/DX7.html Ken Shirriff has also done some amazing work analysing the DX7's sound chips: https://www.righto.com/2021/11/reverse-engineering-yamaha-dx... A really awesome documentary on the DX7 by MadFame: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXt_NXjc7oY There are…

>Here's one that deserves a lot of credit for how accurate it is: https://github.com/chiaccona/VDX7

I read "bit-accurate" and immediately went Ctrl+F "rate": "It then resamples from the native 49khz sample rate", yeah, this one is serious!

Re: They don't make them like that any more: the Yamaha DX7 keyboard

#20

Post by miunau »

My DX7 take is this: I don't think time has made any other synth less desirable to own than the original DX7's.

- Keyboard velocity maxes out at 100 and the action sucks.

- Membrane buttons.

- Weighs way too much.

- Dinky 2-line screen for controlling dozens and dozens of parameters using one slider.

You can run the entire thing completely correct off of a chip the size of a fingernail these days, so there's no practical reason to own one. No wonder the prices have dunked lately. Even the FB-01 is a much better proposition, at least it only takes up half a rack.

Post reply on HN