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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

#211

Post by peapicker »

scelerat wrote: post #57
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 parame…

I have one and agree wholeheartedly. The opsix makes FM fun and relatively easy. Excellent for sound design.

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

#212

Post by peapicker »

IAmGraydon wrote: post #45

Yamaha basically still makes the DX7 in a modernized form in the Reface DX. It just has 4 operators instead of 6, but it can create various waveshapes whereas the DX7 can only create sine waves so it requires more operators to achieve the more complex shapes. Also, Korg makes the Volca FM, which is actually a clone of the original Yamaha engine and you can actually directly load DX7 patches into it. >There remains a…

Korg Opsix can also load Dx7 patches, and has all six ops. And many waveforms beyond sine. And other weird shit you can use instead of an oscillator in an operator spot, like a comb filter and other things. Tons of fun.

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

#213

Post by cesaref »

BlandDuck wrote: post #200
cesaref wrote: post #165

There was mention of the sound becoming 'dull' at the higher octaves. This is not a limitation of the DAC as was suggested, but caused by the phase modulation algorithm aliasing badly at the top of the range. Basically the modulation causes higher harmonics to appear in the output, and if these are higher than nyquist (half the sampling rate) they reflect back into the audible range, and produce unpleasant very digit…

I know there is a bunch of new DX7 implementations on more modern hardware, i.e., the Raspberry Pi. When implemented on modern hardware, wouldn't it be possible to run the algorithm at a higher CPU processing speed, to reduce the aliasing at the higher notes, and avoid the need for keyboard scaling and thus preserve the timbre of the higher pitched notes?

You mean, would it be possible to oversample the algorithm, run it effectively at a much higher sample rate and reduce the audibility of the aliases? Yes, it'll definitely help, but no, it's not possible to eliminate this effect, even with monstrous levels of oversampling.

The problem is that, say, a piano keyboard runs from 30Hz to 4Khz, so to get an even tone, at the top of the keyboard, you are only hearing 4 harmonics of the fundamental, whilst at the bottom, you potentially have roughly 1,000 harmonics in the audible spectrum.

Without fiddling with the voice with keyboard scaling, that same tone with 1,000 harmonics played at the top of the keyboard will generate a 4Mhz frequency, so you'd need a 2Mhz sample rate to avoid the aliases reflecting into the audible spectrum.

So that's 45x oversampling, which is a scary amount of effort to throw at the problem, to resolve the issue for this one contrived sound.

Now if you modify the above sound, and double the modulating frequency (the operator pitch) then you'll double the oversampling required, and you have basically limitless control to create higher and higher levels of harmonics to tame, so you can always fiddle with the setting to produce aliasing if you try hard enough :)

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

#215

Post by xpe »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #88
xpe wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Attempt to summarize one part (the “playability”): You are suggesting the velocity curves and their interaction with the algorithms gave the DX7 a lot of its nuance?

Fine tuning with curves and offsets is what made DX programming an art. Think of a patch as a vector in the parameter space. For analogue (subtractive/linear model) synthesisers almost all of the space makes some kind of sense. You get a usable sound even if it's weird. With FM (non-linear) synthesis a lot of the parameter space is completely unusable and the great sounds are clustered in little islands around which…

Interesting! I share a keen interest in synthesizers.

If you play these patches on the DX7 itself, how good is the reproducibility? I would assume the digital settings to match perfectly. Is there anything else going on that might make patches feel different on different DX7s?

For example, I could imagine some oscillators having subtle differences, perhaps with variation with temperature? If the signal path is all downstream of the same clock, at least until the final analog conversion, I’d expect negligible variation.

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

#216

Post by nonrandomstring »

xpe wrote: post #215
nonrandomstring wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fine tuning with curves and offsets is what made DX programming an art. Think of a patch as a vector in the parameter space. For analogue (subtractive/linear model) synthesisers almost all of the space makes some kind of sense. You get a usable sound even if it's weird. With FM (non-linear) synthesis a lot of the parameter space is completely unusable and the great sounds are clustered in little islands around which…

Interesting! I share a keen interest in synthesizers. If you play these patches on the DX7 itself, how good is the reproducibility? I would assume the digital settings to match perfectly. Is there anything else going on that might make patches feel different on different DX7s? For example, I could imagine some oscillators having subtle differences, perhaps with variation with temperature? If the signal path is all do…

As far as I know the engineering standards within Yamaha are excellent and consistent. From what I've heard DX9 patches sound perfect from DX7 but without velocity, and TX7, TX816 and other modules sound identical. Also DX7 patches import perfectly into later Yamaha FM products.

About variance; I'm talking about the design of emulators. There's quite a lot of VSTs and other plugins (that all sound amazing) but the same patch doesn't necessarily sound identical on each. Two classic voices to test from the original ROM presets are Tuberise and GrandPNO2.

BTW these are digital oscillators so temperatures and component tolerances are not a factor.

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

#217

Post by schwartzworld »

jacobr1 wrote: post #173
_7acn wrote: post #91

But they still make great stuff like Korg Volca FM or Dirtywave M8 and many, many other beautiful synths! Apart from that, with music equipment, it's completely different than with computers. In our case, great hardware becomes outdated and goes out of use. You could say it disappears forever because its time has passed. With music equipment, it's entirely different. There, everything remains compatible, almost nothi…

Any recommendations for a starter synth? Something polyphonic, and has the ability to mess around to create new sounds (so analogue controls, but it could still be digital behind the scenes). I'd like some presets, but not be limited to them. What is on the market at a reasonable price point (under or around $500) that fits this profile?

There's a lot of affordable choices depending on what you want, but everything has tradeoffs. I love my Microfreak, but it only has 4 voices of polyphony, a weird keybed and no onboard effects. That said it makes amazing sounds and has a very discoverable set of controls, and since I play guitar I have external effect pedals at home anyway.

If you're not committed to hardware, a nice midi controller and a software synth will let you learn without spending big bucks. And even then the midi controller is optional.

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

#218

Post by alterom »

coldtea wrote: post #152
alterom wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Well, let's be clear: the speakers are just for noodling. Just for noodling. And trying it in a store. And playing with friends (you don't need much to play along an acoustic guitar). Or playing and singing in a room, or next to a campfire. All of these applications don't require big cabinets; beefing up the speakers to 5W (and adding a bit more bass response) would do a lot for the reface DX. >Nobody who performs w…

> Just for noodling. And trying it in a store. And playing with friends (you don't need much to play along an acoustic guitar). Or playing and singing in a room, or next to a campfire. Who plays an FM synth on a campfire? Not even Kraftwerk! And I don't think it's for jamming with friends with acoustic guitars either. It's more for electronic musicians and keyboardists wanting something portable to noodle at home, or…

>Who plays an FM synth on a campfire?

Reface DX owners, mostly, because that's the only modern FM synth with speakers.

I usually use the ePiano patch, which I modify to sound louder; it blends perfectly with the guitar.

>And I don't think it's for jamming with friends with acoustic guitars either

Then you think incorrectly. It's a very versatile instrument, which is for anything that people use it for.

Pigeonholing it as either a home studio or stage instrument is precisely what makes Reface DX such an underrated instrument.

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

#219

Post by alterom »

emchammer wrote: post #194
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…

I gave away my Reface DX after I figured out that the non-tactile capacitative touch buttons would trigger randomly when exposed to sunlight while I played it in the park.

>I gave away my Reface DX after I figured out that the non-tactile capacitative touch buttons would trigger randomly when exposed to sunlight while I played it in the park.

You might have had a defective one.

I played mine in every possible setting (walking the streets, in the forest, on a mountain top, in the desert, indoors, outdoors, at night, during the day, etc), and never had that issue. (FWIW I applied all firmware updates when they came out).

I did have other issues though:

— once in a blue moon, it'd factory reset itself on startup while running on batteries (a gentle reminder to back up your patches). I didn't have that issue after switching to powering off a power bank with a USB-to-12v adapter (with USB-C supporting 12V natively, that's just a cable).

— sometimes, F and Bflat would stop responding in all octaves. A gentle whack would fix that. Taking it apart and making sure all the connections are tight seems to have fixed it for good.

What I'm getting at is that there absolutely were some QC issues with an otherwise nearly indestructible instrument (between all the drops and two Burning Man trips, boy did that thing take a beating).

Might be worth giving it another go if that's the only problem.

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

#220

Post by alterom »

rideontime wrote: post #125
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…

Thank you for defending the DX7's honor so vociferously so that I didn't have to!

Thank you for this comment! And also, would love to hear your DX7 story :)
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