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

kevinboone.me

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

#51

Post by ecocentrik »

Suppafly wrote: post #41
coldtea wrote: post #18

> 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 synthe…

>And of course even vintage DX7s go for a quite high price in second+ hand market... Everytime I read about some cool old synth, I check how much they cost and they are always hundreds or thousands of dollars, I think DX7s are like $500+.

The DX7 might be the best selling synth of all time. There's a lot of them out there.

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

#52

Post by fuhsnn »

alterom wrote: post #48
coldtea wrote: post #18

> 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 synthe…

They also didn't get why FM synthesis was so appealing, in spite of being difficult to understand for the common musician. It's in the tone . Acoustic instruments respond in a complex way to the variation in strength of input: when you strike the key in the piano faster, pluck a string harder, or blow air info the saxophone stronger, you don't merely get a louder sound: the harmonic content , the timbre of the sound…

>It's also for this reason that DX7 only has membrane buttons, and no knobs or sliders. It didn't need them.

I wouldn't romanticize it as anything other than cost-cutting, later flagship models got sliders.

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

#53

Post by chubs »

I recently was obsessed with FM for a while! If you want a bit of fun, here’s a synth I made, the codes fairly simple if you want to poke around, you can fool with parameters easily. Doesn’t work great on mobile though. https://chrishulbert.github.io/you-synth/

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

#54

Post by nine_k »

ecocentrik wrote: post #51
Suppafly wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And of course even vintage DX7s go for a quite high price in second+ hand market... Everytime I read about some cool old synth, I check how much they cost and they are always hundreds or thousands of dollars, I think DX7s are like $500+.

The DX7 might be the best selling synth of all time. There's a lot of them out there.

They are still excellent midi keyboards, in addition to an iconic synth engine. So I suspect DX7s are more widely applicable, and thus are much sought after, which keeps the prices not very low.

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

#55

Post by adzm »

alterom wrote: post #48
coldtea wrote: post #18

> 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 synthe…

They also didn't get why FM synthesis was so appealing, in spite of being difficult to understand for the common musician. It's in the tone . Acoustic instruments respond in a complex way to the variation in strength of input: when you strike the key in the piano faster, pluck a string harder, or blow air info the saxophone stronger, you don't merely get a louder sound: the harmonic content , the timbre of the sound…

Beautiful summary of a rich and poorly commonly understood subject

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

#56

Post by adzm »

xanderlewis wrote: post #15
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!

That's totally wavetable synthesis though right?

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

#57

Post by scelerat »

coldtea wrote: post #18

> 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 synthe…

I heartily recommend the Korg Opsix to anyone who wants to experiment with FM synthesis.

As the article mentions, the UI of the DX7 made programming it, modifying existing sounds or coming up with new ones entirely, difficult to say the least.

With the Opsix, much of the ability to tweak aspects of the operators, envelopes, LFOs and so on, are given dedicated knobs and sliders, or easily accessible menus whose parameters are tweakable with physical knobs. The hands-on UI of the Opsix turns what once was an ordeal of menu diving and incremental buttons into a much more rewarding, interactive experience.

I play one live in a band and use an old Yamaha KX76, the dedicated controller bigger brother to the DX7 as a controller for the Opsix. Best of both worlds. The feel on those old keyboards is superb.

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

#58

Post by nine_k »

alfiedotwtf wrote: post #27
coldtea wrote: post #18

> 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 synthe…

I have a MODX and although it’s so damn powerful when it comes to sound design - each of the 16 parts can have 8 layers each, it’s a lot of work to do anything with it. I’ve seen piano patches that sound REALISTIC because in 8 layers, you can model the hammer, the initial string hit, the cabinet echo, string resonance, and a whole lot of other timbres… but it takes SO MUCH EFFORT. So unless you’re a /real/ sound desi…

But what's the point of making piano patches that sound realistic, except as a tour de force? It's sort of a "Pierre Menard, author of Quixote" sort of thing.

What I'd be interested in is how viable it is for producing intetesting, distinctive sounds, and tweaking them to your liking in a comprehensible way, not poking blindly.

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

#59

Post by Foobar8568 »

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://…

There is an obvious sounds to pianoteq which is basic the best place ano modeler out there. We are closed to the real thing but so far at the same time.

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

#60

Post by alterom »

fuhsnn wrote: post #52
alterom wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also didn't get why FM synthesis was so appealing, in spite of being difficult to understand for the common musician. It's in the tone . Acoustic instruments respond in a complex way to the variation in strength of input: when you strike the key in the piano faster, pluck a string harder, or blow air info the saxophone stronger, you don't merely get a louder sound: the harmonic content , the timbre of the sound…

>It's also for this reason that DX7 only has membrane buttons, and no knobs or sliders. It didn't need them. I wouldn't romanticize it as anything other than cost-cutting, later flagship models got sliders.

Sure, but they could get away with this cost cutting, because the synth had enough to offer without them.

A classic analog synth wouldn't sell with such controls.

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