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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

#141

Post by throw_m239339 »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #108

>These instruments were mostly of academic interest – I can’t think of any band that used one on stage (but I could be wrong). Very wrong. The Prophet 5, Oberheim 4/8 voice, Roland Jupiter 8, MemoryMoog, and especially the Yamaha CS80 were all available before the DX7, and very widely used on stage and in the studio. But they really were stupendously expensive - far too expensive for mere mortals. (There were also fu…

> The maximum for a pure analog polysynth was 8 notes, and cheaper models had between four and six notes. No fancy jazz chords. Especially not with sustain.

Some had total polyphony though, by using divide down oscillators.

> The DX7 stood out because the keyboard responded to velocity, and it had an incredible 16 notes of polyphony. So you could play your fancy jazz chords on the epiano sound with the sustain pedal down, and the notes would respond to your fingers and wouldn't cut off too obviously.

The dx7 was capable of making sounds that were simply impossible to create with regular analogue subtractive synthesis, because FM (phase modulation in practice) allowed drastic tonal changes in a timbre "through time". So the attack of a patch could have a completely different "waveform" than its release, thanks to operator interaction. That's what the true novelty, a realism no analogue synth could achieve.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ApmgnKkqaI

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

#142

Post by piltdownman »

dmix wrote: post #133
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+.

Plenty of people hoard classic synths like trophy pieces and never use them. Which sucks for people interested in making music or starting a new hobby with some old gear. It’s probably one of the most popular things to do in the music scene.

God bless our lord and saviour Uli Behringer for delivering us from the dark ages of Virtual Analog c.1995-2012.

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

#143

Post by alterom »

brudgers wrote: post #28
mastazi wrote: post #24

Anthony Marinelli (film composer and synth programmer for many artists including Micheal Jackson) recently made a series of documentaries about FM Synthesis and its inventor John Chowning, the DX7 is mentioned multiple times alongside the Synclavier which used the same synthesis method but predated the DX7. About Chowning and the DX7 https://youtu.be/Mu8lHX-xuSg Other videos about FM and contemporary applications htt…

In the future you can get a synclavier on your iphone. We live in that future. https://www.synclavier.com/synclavier-go/

Oh, and apparently there's a new hardware desktop Synclavier!

Synclavier Regen weighs in at $2.5K, but then again, it was never a budget brand in the first place:

https://www.synclavier.com/synclavier-regen/

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

#144

Post by vr46 »

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…

The Opsix looks very straightforward. I bought the Digitone Keys about three years ago and it's a lot of fun, along with having that sequencer and Elektron Interface. It does not appear to have been a successful product, and I do not think it's really possible to use a full instrument, but I have enjoyed using it as a plaything to learn and understand FM synthesis. No doubt there is some creative wizard like Blue Lab Beats who probably uses this and a Digitakt to make whole albums.

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

#145

Post by throw_m239339 »

mastazi wrote: post #24

Anthony Marinelli (film composer and synth programmer for many artists including Micheal Jackson) recently made a series of documentaries about FM Synthesis and its inventor John Chowning, the DX7 is mentioned multiple times alongside the Synclavier which used the same synthesis method but predated the DX7. About Chowning and the DX7 https://youtu.be/Mu8lHX-xuSg Other videos about FM and contemporary applications htt…

The synclavier went even further with resynthesis capabilities:

You would feed the synth some audio and the synclavier would attempt at reproducing the audio snippet through FM synthesis.

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

#146

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#147

Post by jdietrich »

rvense wrote: post #96
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…

FM/PM synthesis makes no "logical sense"... until you spend the twenty minutes required to understand it. Really people gave up on the DX7 because of the limited interface, somehow FM got the blame. A subtractive synth with a knob for each function is a fantastically intuitive thing, but when it's three buttons and a line of abbrv txt it's not very nice either.

FM is inherently more difficult to understand than subtractive, even with a very good interface. It's the double-edged sword of FM - you can create very complex behaviours from a small number of simple operators, which makes FM both uniquely powerful and uniquely difficult to think about intuitively.

I can model subtractive and additive patches quite accurately in my head. That's not a brag, it's just not very difficult if you understand the basic principles and you've put in a bit of practice. FM still takes me by surprise after decades of trying to master it.

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

#148

Post by tinco »

vanadium1st wrote: post #109
tinco wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you recommend a patch set for the reface? I bought mine off someone who had some great presets and I loved it, but one day I accidentally factory reset it and there's only a few factory defaults that are really musical as you say.

There's a guy who is a genius at creating Reface DX patches, and he uploads them all for free on SoundMondo. I recommend everyone checking this video to see how wonderful Reface DX can sound. After discovering those patches I've sold my Reface CP because I've liked the DX simulated Rhodes just as much. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWcEruvc9eA&t=72s https://soundmondo.yamahasynth.com/user/7744

Thanks! Those sound amazing.

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

#149

Post by piltdownman »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #87
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+.

I think the cheapest you could reasonably expect to get a useable synth with a decent keyboard is $300, independent of age and coolness. That's where you'll find a Microkorg or a Mininova or something. Of course you can get romplers and keyboards with preprogrammed sounds much cheaper. And you can probably do something quite nice with a Behringer JT-4000M (once it hits the shops) and a cheap MIDI keyboard.

Depends on your definition of 'useable' but you'd certainly get an early VA board 2nd hand for $300-400 like the Yamaha CS1X.

For monophonic new you have options like the

Korg Minilogue Behringer MS-1 IK Multimedia UNO Synth Pro Novation Bass Station II Yamaha Reface series

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

#150

Post by sho_hn »

> The use of mathematics to produce sounds resembling real instruments quickly became obsolete once we could just go out and sample the real thing.

No. One of the most popular piano VSTs on the market is Pianoteq, which uses physical modelling of the instrument rather than being sample-based. It's often considered one of the most realistic-sounding piano VSTs all the same (they have models of many popular acoustic models, authorized by their builders), and offers a much higher degree of dynamism and reactivity than sample-based ones, and much more flexibility in simulated microphone placement, etc.

This approach is still leading-edge in places.

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