Yamaha DX7: The Birth Of FM Synthesis

[Paul Gilby]

Listen to our superb extended length podcast and hear the real story behind the creation of the iconic DX7.

In May of 1983, the world of synthesizers and electronic music as we knew it would change forever with the launch of the Yamaha DX7. To celebrate 40 years since its launch, Rob Puricelli spoke to Dr John Chowning, the developer of FM synthesis, Dave Bristow and Gary Leuenberger, sound designers for the original DX7 and Manny Fernandez, who has worked on all Yamaha’s FM projects from the MkII DX7 through to today’s Montage M series.

https://www.soundonsound.com/people/yam ... is-podcast
.

[Hugh Robjohns]

Excellent!

[Failed Muso]

This was a lot of fun to make! I hope everyone enjoys listening to it

[resistorman]

Shared to my FB synth group, thanks!

[sonics]

That'll be a good listen, thanks.

I was an early FM enthusiast. I'm so glad it's still with us, and more popular than it's been in some years, it seems.

[hogberto]

I wish Yamaha would do a DX7 reissue.

[Tomás Mulcahy]

It's a great listen, such enthusiasm from everyone. Nice work Rob.

[muzines]

This was great, and too short...

For those who weren't around at the time, it's impossible to over-estimate how much the DX7 was the exact right combination of ingredients and timing to basically blow-up the entire synth/keyboard industry and the commercial/fashionable music of the time.

The form factor, price, styling, preset recall, polyphony, keyboard sensitivity, MIDI, the strengths and sound character of FM over what came before and, of course, *those* presets... it really was a game-changer that, unlike most uses of the term, *actually* changed the game.

Thanks for getting these folks together for us!

[Arpangel]

I didn’t go gently into digital synthesis, by any means.
I was out of music, for many years, all I owned before, a VCS3, Moog Prodigy, Sequential Pro 1, Juno 6.
Then I met a guy and we a started duo, but I didn’t have a keyboard, or much money. I saw a DX7 in a secondhand shop, not really knowing anything about it, but I bought it, it was cheap and I needed a keyboard.
I hated it, I just found it useless, where are the knobs? where's the f*****g filter!?
My friend said look, stop moaning and just buckle down and use it, it’ll be fine.
So I did, I bought a copy of "The Complete DX7" and spent at least six hours a day on it for about three months, result? I loved it, with two RAM carts of my own sounds already.
I then found out that Brian Eno used one, so that made everything "alright" instantaneously, I had cred.
We then went on to become the "FM Kids" I got a TX802 and a TX81Z, my friend bought an SY77, from then on there was nothing that touched FM for us.
Now all I want is knobs and filters.

"Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel"

[ajay_m]

I remember seeing the Yamaha ads for the DX7 down in New Zealand where I lived at the time and rushing to the big music store in Auckland and ordering one. It was months before they shipped and I still remember the day I drove over to the store and picked it up.
It was my first synth, I didn't have a lot of money and had to put it on hire purchase to buy it. Sadly, when I emigrated back to the UK I decided it would be better to sell it, something I kind of regret now, though I do have an FS1R and to be honest that's far, far more powerful than the DX7. [and I drove up to Lincoln from London to buy the FS1R second-hand from someone who wanted to sell it to buy an Access Virus. Ah well, each to their own...]
As I recall the serial number was 1001 so it must have been a very early unit off the production line as well. It had the bug where MIDI status was sent far too often which freaked out a lot of other stuff like drum machines until Yamaha released a ROM update to fix it. And of course Yamaha's engineers misread the MIDI spec so you're stuck with the very odd 0-99 range of velocity response, but then this was virtually the first MIDI-capable synth, as I recall.
I got the breath controller for it, which was another unique feature at the time, and a rewritable memory cartridge as well for extra patches. It survived someone spilling a beer into it (some quick work opening the case and cleaning up before any damage could be done) and ultimately the internal linear regulator chip died, fortunately without causing any damage, and that was easily replaced. So it gave me many years of faithful service. I hope, somewhere, that unit still exists and is loved by someone.

[muzines]

I hope, somewhere, that unit still exists and is loved by someone.

I often wonder where the gear I owned once is now. I always kinda wanted to do a website you could post say "My first synth was a XXX with serial number YYY. I bought it here in 1980-whatever and here's a little story about it, and have other people add on "Hey, I had your synth about 1991, and here's my little story about it, and I sold it about 92", and "yeah, I bought it from this guy and I still have it - I live in Iceland now... it's happy and here's a pic" etc...

At least I have a gear database now (because of mu:zines) but I don't really think it would be popular enough to catch on to make it useful or interesting enough. It would be a bit like Friends Reunited ("Gear Reunited"?) when there was only fifty people on it... of very little value.... And probably not enough people recorded, or had pictures of their serial numbers as well.

[tea for two]

This was somewhere in the 90s I wanted to get a DX7 or D50. I didn't know about Synths I just remember seeing DX7 D50 a whole lotta on Top of the Pops, reading Synth names on JmJarre's albums wondering what they were.
A chum said you do know DX7 D50 doesn't have a sequencer you can't make whole songs on them, you'd be better oorrff with a workstation. I was like what's a workstation DOH. Cue reading up on SoS magazine. Whereupon I took a student loan purchased 4op FM Yamaha V50 workstation.

SoS review on Mu:Zines.
http://www.muzines.co.uk/articles/yamaha-v50/67
"Basically, the V50 embodies twoTX81Z four-operator synths, an RX-style drum machine, a QX-style sequencer, a single effects processor and a disk drive."
Another SoS review on Mu:Zines.
http://www.muzines.co.uk/articles/fms-finest-hour/4553

Adored V50 made stuff on it I later transferred to Sonar in the early 2Ks. I've repurposed some of those stuff for pieces I've done since I started making museek again from since lockdown.
The best bit of sequencing making a whole piece I did on V50 was a cover of JmJarre's 1990 Calypso pt2 from 3min57sec onwards.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GQsjTbWDl ... YXJ0IDI%3D
There was a pretty accurate sheet music for some of the parts I just copied it into my V50.
Water droplets sequence patterns I couldn't do also some other bits n bobs.

I remember being so upset when I heard the first part of this Calypso pt2 from 0.00-3.56 as it was is so basic, a typical Electronic piece not a patch on the masterpiece of his earlier 1984 Zoolook album not a patch on his earlier excursions with African Turkish Arabic in his 1988 Revolution album.