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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

#221

Post by alterom »

surfingdino wrote: post #82
alterom wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The DX7 is an incredible synth, but one of the joys of playing is hearing the sound change to your adjustments and the DX7 just doesn't do that ...but Yamaha Reface DX does. I've been changing the sound while playing the synth to go from the ePiano preset to an aggressive synth lead as a demo of that interface. It's pure joy, and an underrated piece of hardware.

It's even better with the Dtronics expander, but still too much faff for me.

Thanks, I didn't know about it - and it seems like an awesome addition to the machine!

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

#222

Post by teilo »

coldtea wrote: post #182
teilo wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DX7s don't go for a high price. The market is flooded with them. If you pay more than $600, you paid too much. You can easily find one in the $400 range.

> DX7s don't go for a high price It's a 40 years old digital synth (so trivial to replicate one to one), with no special hands on controls as a keyboard, and one with 150,000+ units sold, with about a dozen modern replications. $400 would already be an impressive sum for such constraints. But it regularly goes for 800+ in Reverb.com for example.

I rebuild these things. I know the market.

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

#223

Post by consf »

Supernaut wrote: post #178
consf wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key difference, though, as you pointed out, was the price. These analog synths were incredibly expensive, which limited their accessibility to major artists

Nothing brings home quite how much money there was to be made in the music industry in the '80s as seeing the top bands' keyboard rigs. In the video for "The Reflex", Duran Duran's Nick Rhodes is surrounded by a Fairlight CMI, a Jupiter-8 and a Prophet-5. Adjusting for inflation, that's about $250,000 worth of equipment.

[dead]

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

#224

Post by bartread »

dboreham wrote: post #195
bartread wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“DX7 … before fading into obscurity.” Uh, yeah, that is quite a take. Like most synths, the DX7 went through an untrendy era, but it’s certainly bounced back and you’ll hear its patches used all over the place today. That Top Gun tubular bell patch, for example, shows up quite a bit - most recently heard it on a track called 4AM (the Fauns Remix) by Power Glove. Not to mention there are a ton of software emulations,…

The DX7 is literally the only synth I've heard of. Well, that and the DX9 and the mini moog. Don't count the Fairlight since it's basically a computer.

> Don't count the Fairlight since it's basically a computer.

Yeah, but what a computer it was!

Sampling, waveform editing, sequencing. Incredible in the early 80s when it came onto the scene. But, of course, it was wildly expensive, and even by the late 80s its capabilities were being eroded by equipment that mere mortals could actually hope to afford, including home computers like the Atari (MIDI + sequencing) and Amiga (sampling + sequencing), along with the nascent audio scene on PCs and Macs.

Surprisingly, Fairlight still (sort of) exist although I have to squint pretty hard to see them as exactly the same company: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairlight_(company).

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

#225

Post by emchammer »

alterom wrote: post #219
emchammer wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fir…

I remember that some keys would randomly stop responding on mine as well. That was frustrating. I do not view having to take apart a modern Yamaha digital synthesizer to make it work as acceptable.
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