FM synthesis is a bit like Lisp--everybody says it's cool, but getting acceptable results is harder than with another approach. When I need FM, I use Arturia's _DX7 V plugin and only play presets.
They don't make them like that any more: the Yamaha DX7 keyboard
81–90 of 225 posts
Re: They don't make them like that any more: the Yamaha DX7 keyboard
#82The 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 it is great fun to feed through filter, delay and reverb pedals. Thats kind of the best of both worlds
>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.
Re: They don't make them like that any more: the Yamaha DX7 keyboard
#83Earlier 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.
>There's a lot of them out there.
True, but everyone seems to want $500 for barely working ones and significantly more for decent ones.
Re: They don't make them like that any more: the Yamaha DX7 keyboard
#84> 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…
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.
Re: They don't make them like that any more: the Yamaha DX7 keyboard
#85If people are interested in the DX7's technical details, I've done some work reverse-engineering it, and some of Yamaha's other FM synths: https://ajxs.me/blog/tag/DX7.html Ken Shirriff has also done some amazing work analysing the DX7's sound chips: https://www.righto.com/2021/11/reverse-engineering-yamaha-dx... A really awesome documentary on the DX7 by MadFame: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXt_NXjc7oY There are…
The design of the DX7 ASIC is really quite astonishing. They used every trick they could think of to make it work given the technology limitations, like a 96-step shift register and using a lookup table to produce the sine wave. The lookup table is clever, too, storing only half the table, and storing log2() of the values instead of the original value so they can use addition instead of multiplication to compute the operators.
Re: They don't make them like that any more: the Yamaha DX7 keyboard
#86> "My Kawai stage piano has about forty different instrumental sounds, all produced from samples of real instruments. Apart from the string sounds: I believe it creates those by tormenting cats on Xanax." I don't quite know why but the author is really correct on synth strings. I've got a few friends who are fantastic semi pro strings players and the expressionism of their instruments are phenomenal -- I've sung with…
Regarding synth strings, maybe Roland Integra-7 (and stuff like that) can do the trick.
Re: They don't make them like that any more: the Yamaha DX7 keyboard
#87> 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+.
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.
Re: They don't make them like that any more: the Yamaha DX7 keyboard
#88Earlier 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…
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 tiny changes in any parameters has wild effects - especially for patches that use a feedback operator with high settings.
A good DX patch is a finely balanced creation. IIRC the sample rate is 60KHz and the oscillator control resolution is 14 bits, That doesn't give you as much control as with digital virtual synths today. Setting up fine control of key-tracking and velocity is absolutely essential to making the DX preformative.
Now one of the lovely things is how you can download literally tens of thousands of DX7 patches, all the Yamaha cartridges and compilations of peoples personal patch collections from the past 40 years. But because of the extreme sensitivity of the programming not all of them work perfectly with the various emulator plugins and so they need manual tweaking.
Re: They don't make them like that any more: the Yamaha DX7 keyboard
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Beautiful summary of a rich and poorly commonly understood subject
Thanks so much! I'm in love with my Reface DX, and have a soft spot for all FM synth. I'm glad it came through!
I second the GP's thanks. I know nothing about synths and really appreciated your explanation, and the passion with which you expressed it.
Re: They don't make them like that any more: the Yamaha DX7 keyboard
#90My DX7 take is this: I don't think time has made any other synth less desirable to own than the original DX7's. - Keyboard velocity maxes out at 100 and the action sucks. - Membrane buttons. - Weighs way too much. - Dinky 2-line screen for controlling dozens and dozens of parameters using one slider. You can run the entire thing completely correct off of a chip the size of a fingernail these days, so there's no pract…
Nah, I’d recommend the Yamaha DX Reface for something that’s a direct DX linage but compact (or you can use a MIDI controller if you want more than 37 keys).
Yep, I really like my little reface DX, it's reasonably easy to tweak sounds, and with the help of the free reface DX editor panel ( https://refacedx.martintarenskeen.nl/ ) you can load any patch for 4-op FM synth of yore (DX 9, DX 11, TX81Z) into it.