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

Post by neuralRiot » Thu, Dec 05, 2024, 9:32 PM UTC

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…

Post by pea » Thu, Dec 05, 2024, 9:42 PM UTC

speed_spread wrote: post #50

brudgers wrote: post #31

If you want a professional Yamaha FM synth from the 1980’s, the V50 is a bargain. It was the last of the DX’s and is essentially two DX9’s with a sequencer and a drum machine. For clarity, the later 4 op FM chips, have multiple wave forms and provide a sonic space as powerful as the earlier sine wave only six Op chips…they are not identical but equivalent.

Also of note, the SY77 which bridges the best of Yamaha FM with AWM2 rompler tech.

Post by greenie_beans » Thu, Dec 05, 2024, 9:47 PM UTC

greenie_beans wrote: post #120

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…

we had one in my band nadir bliss. sean loved that thing, he probably still plays it everyday. it's a popular sound texture in the bedroom pop world, aka indie internet artists from like 2014-2020. we played a sort of loud chaotic post punk but some of the songs had a bedroom pop thing. https://nadirbliss.bandcamp.com/album/sharp-distance-2

Post by BodyCulture » Thu, Dec 05, 2024, 10:03 PM UTC

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…

Post by sixthDot » Thu, Dec 05, 2024, 10:43 PM UTC

ajxs wrote: post #198

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…

Great post! I always thought that the keyboard scaling was entirely for musical purposes. Such as emulating the difference in timbre in a plucked instrument as you go up in pitch. One of the main DX7 patents talks about adding an averaging filter in the path of the feedback mechanism. Averaging the current sample with the last one helps prevent the high-frequency aliasing. There's also a 16Khz low-pass filter on the…