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Real-Time Touch Controller for the Yamaha DX7 Synthesizer

105 points by processing 7y ago

jacquesm 7y ago
There is this: https://www.musicradar.com/news/tech/dtronics-dt7-has-just-made-the-yamaha-dx7-easier-to-use-636276 https://www.musicradar.com/news/tech/dtronics-dt7-has-just-m...
- mrob 7y ago
  Looks like a clone of the Jellinghaus DX-Programmer. Supposedly only 25 were made, and it's hard to find info on it. There's a good picture from when Brian Eno's was auctioned: http://www.spheremusic.com/Bargaindtl.asp?Item=4626 http://www.spheremusic.com/Bargaindtl.asp?Item=4626
cawlin 7y ago
The DX7 uses FM synthesis which is all digital meaning one can more or less the same results with vastly more flexible interface (Bazille, Dexed, Operator etc.) all inside a computer software. Despite that fact this is incredibly cool and impressive!
- indigochill 7y ago
  On this topic, something I don't understand which is probably just a limit of my experience in the field is if one is sufficiently talented at digital synthesis, why not use CSound for everything? It supports virtually any synthesis technique and can run in real-time. It also gives designers the freedom to define their own parameters on their instruments. And it's open source. But it seems mostly relegated to art projects, which confuses me.
  - mrob 7y ago
    Have you tried programming a DX7? It's difficult enough already with just 6 FM operators. Expand to "virtually any synthesis technique" and most musicians will decide they don't need that much flexibility. But there are some exceptions, e.g. Autechre are well known for using the similarly flexible MaxMSP. As Sean Booth said in an interview with Resident Advisor[0] when asked about new equipment: "I just use MaxMSP now, because in Max I can generally build the thing I need, and if I don't know how to do that it'll generally be worthwhile learning. Intellectual capital or whatever. So rather than spend me money on equipment, I spend me money—as time—in learning how to build stuff." [0] https://www.residentadvisor.net/features/2756 https://www.residentadvisor.net/features/2756
  - brandonmenc 7y ago
    > why not use CSound for everything? Because there are a ton of alternatives to CSound. I use Max/MSP. But you could also use PureData, SuperCollider, Chuck, JUCE, etc.
    - dx7tnt 7y ago
      > why not use CSound for everything? And it's actually quite boring to grind through compared to the modern alternatives. SuperCollider is incredible in its powers of brute synthesis. So much fun.
  - justinclift 7y ago
    Thanks for mentioning CSound, hadn't heard of it before and it looks interesting. :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Csound https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Csound
  - cawlin 7y ago
    I think CSOund's popularity with art projects and the elctoacoustic scene in general comes down to interface. CSound is great if you're supplying/inventing the interface or program to create the sounds/music. Compare a CSound IDE to something like the Ableton Operator interface or even PureData as someone else mentioned. Very different (and both great for different approaches and people!). A lot of folks want flexibility in the sound by exploring an interface/instrument without having to come up with that interface/instrument themselves.
  - scarecrowbob 7y ago
    Well, for a lot of us the interface (and all the limitations or possibilites attached to it) --is-- what makes an instrument. I mean, I can put stuff into WordPress with SQL directly, but it's much nicer to do it with an interface. Similarly, I can program a snare sound using a noise generation, an envelope, and a filter, but it's sometimes nice to grap a box and it a button even if I'm constrained by whatever filter and parameters are already in the box... because the interface will dictate a lot of how I use the tool, and that is a feature not a bug :D
  - rhizome 7y ago
    Because typing and mouse-clicking are not everybody's favorite way of making music, if they can even make music that way, or if CSound is even appropriate for the kind of music they want to make.
  - detaro 7y ago
    Why use something like CSound when you don't need it's complexity? Sure, it can theoretically do all the same stuff, but if you can buy a software package or hardware box that saves you a few hundred hours of doing stuff yourself, the vast majority of which is re-implementing what's readymade in other tools, it's typically an easy choice.
  - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
    Because Csound is mostly a trashcan of naive cookbook implementations of synthesis and processing algos collected by academic dilettantes who seem to have no clue about commercial production values or professional DSP coding. Simple example - Chebyshev polynomials. How many Csound users even understand that these will alias if they cross Nyquist? So Csound does a lot badly. It's not quite unusable in a commercial setting, but the sound quality is a long way behind even basic VSTs - which means the steep learning curve and 1960s-style programming system don't justify the benefits. Supercollider has similar issues. The control language is more interesting, but the synthesis and processing code are similarly unrefined.
- teilo 7y ago
  Bazille can't really be compared to the DX7. It's really its own thing, and cannot replicate DX7 patches. It's built around phase distortion of tradition oscillator waveforms, not phase modulation of sine waves, like the DX7. It also only has 4 oscillators, which are not analogous to DX7 operators, traditional ADSR envelopes, and also does traditional subtractive filtering. Dexed, FM8, or Operator though, yes for sure.
Doctor_Fegg 7y ago
Pretty much every synthesiser for 15 years had the same two-row LCD interface as the DX7. My first job out of university in 1995 was as assistant editor of Keyboard Review magazine (UK), and the vast majority of synths I reviewed - wonderful beasts from Ensoniq, Roland, Korg, technologically way ahead of the DX7 - had exactly the same bloody awful UI. Akai's S-series samplers, which everyone was using back then, did provide a decent display... but at a price. When someone finally made a sampler affordable by the home market (Ensoniq's ESI-32) it too had a greatly compromised display, though at least four rows rather than two. I've always suspected this actually influenced the electronic music styles of the time. The 90s were the start of the analogue resurgence. Sure, an 808 or a 303 is a fabulous-sounding beast in itself. But twiddling knobs is just so much more rewarding and responsive than spending hours squinting at a two-line LCD.
- ChuckMcM 7y ago
  I love my Arrick analog (modular) synth because it is so easy to just reach out and tweak the sound to set the right timbre. I believe bringing that flexibility to a digital synth is a good thing. I imagine that there could be ways to create a modular 'control panel' and with the help of an embedded compute (as suggested in the article) provide rapid mirroring to the synth. I am a bit surprised that isn't an 'addon' already :-)
  - scarecrowbob 7y ago
    I haven't done it with a DX7, but it's pretty straightforward to map whatever you can to external midi controllers. That solution is not as tightly coupled as this solution, but it works well enough... I have a newere electribe and a midi controller with a bunch of knobs and it's a lot more fun to play when I've mapped out a bunch of CCs. So, like the "addon" is midi, but it's just a lot of work to setup maps in certain sitations, and the controllers usually don't know where things might already be set in the patch on a device. I agree that modular are much more rewarding as you really can just tweak knobs (or have the machine tweak its own knobs in stragne ways)... that's really what I prefer.
- ksangeelee 7y ago
acomjean 7y ago
I had a dx7. I will vouch for it being difficult to program decent sounds for. Despite having a map of how the 6 oscillators interacted on top of the Keyboard. See photo: https://mn2s.com/news/features/brief-history-yamaha-dx7/ https://mn2s.com/news/features/brief-history-yamaha-dx7/ It didn’t help that in the 90s when I had that keyboard they’re weren’t many online sources of info about it.. The dx7 was neat but couldn’t make very realistic instrument sounds. Very popular though.
yowlingcat 7y ago
Wow, very cool! This seems like a great thing to pair with a DX7 and a Reface DX [1], which seems like Yamaha's attempt to take the linage of the DX7 and do it justice in modern form with an increased emphasis on usability. I once had a DX7, and I loved it to pieces. The DX7 is one of my favorite synthesizers in history, and its software successor, FM8 [2] by Native Instruments is my favorite synthesizer that I regularly use. As with many of the 61-key workhorse keyboards of the 80s, the DX7 is extremely solidly built and has excellent synth key action which makes it a joy to play. It's not weighted, but it also doesn't feel like a toy, and the velocity range (while oddly bound to 0-100, one of its few unnecessary flaws) is very playable throughout the entire range. Beyond that, the DX7 as a synthesizer is technologically a legendary synthesizer that contributed heavily to 80s and 90s music [3][4]. It had great presets, the most recognizable of which is the default patch which is it's rendition of a Rhodes piano. Many folks bought it for that purpose, and you'll that patch in many songs that you may recognize. The DX7 uses a type of synthesis called FM synthesis, which (sort of like FM radio encoding) allows any of its 6 operator oscillators to be used additively or as an operator which feeds its signal to one or many other oscillators, potentially in a cyclical manner. Operators can use frequency multipliers and dividers with base oscillators (I believe only sine waves for the DX7 although there's a fair amount more in FM8) so that you can have operators sound harmonically many octaves above a base oscillator, or vice versa. In FM8, you can use multipliers anywhere from 0-64 with a 0.001 resolution. Through careful usage of envelopes and oscillator feedback structures, you can go quite a bit beyond your usual virtual analog style subtractive synthesis. but you can do quite a bit of semi-realistic physical modeling and beyond, whether it be orchestral instruments, drums, or punchy cartoonish caricatures of either. It's easily the most versatile form of non-sample based synthesis I've ever found. The wonderful thing about FM8 is how intuitive and flexible the synth gets once you begin to get used to it. The envelope editor makes it straightforward to create arbitrary stage envelopes with the curvature of each stage customizable and really straightforward to visualize. I personally lean on FM synthesis so heavily for a variety of reasons. It's a taste thing, but it's also a matter of practicality. If you're judicious about patches you use, it's easier to tune FM instruments to make them take up less spectral space, and clash with other elements in a mix without extra post-processing. Additionally that they tend to be quite CPU light, so the number of distinct instances you can run in realtime without maxing out your CPU is a fair amount higher than hefty virtual analog synths like Massive (it may potentially be the same for Spire). Finally, when it comes to soundscape design possibilities, long envelopes and frequency modulation open the door to ambient shape design that is borderline impossible to do otherwise. I believe this is why the DX7 became Brian Eno's favorite synth [4]. FM8 is not free (although it and Komplete were some of the best investments I ever made in my music) but there are a variety of free DX7 synths out there that you can use, some of which are compatible as editors for DX7 SysEx patches. The one I'd recommend is Dexed [5], which is open source and pretty nice, because you can use it with the giant free DX7 patch ecosystem that's built up over decades. Give that a go with REAPER (trialware), LMMS (open source but a little hard to use with VST/AU plugins), Live (evolving and likely the best for professional musicians to create on), or a DAW of your choice and you're in business. Which reminds me, I have a track I need to finish...and based on my commentary, you can probably accurate guess whether there's at least 1 instance of DX7 on it. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3PGO_DiuYU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3PGO_DiuYU [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lx_L9dPIa78 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lx_L9dPIa78 [3] https://reverbmachine.com/blog/exploring-the-yamaha-dx7 https://reverbmachine.com/blog/exploring-the-yamaha-dx7 [4] http://bobbyblues.recup.ch/yamaha_dx7/dx7_examples.html http://bobbyblues.recup.ch/yamaha_dx7/dx7_examples.html [5] https://asb2m10.github.io/dexed/ https://asb2m10.github.io/dexed/
brandonmenc 7y ago
Nowadays, Patch Base is the way to go. https://coffeeshopped.com/patch-base/editor/yamaha-dx7 https://coffeeshopped.com/patch-base/editor/yamaha-dx7
dontreact 7y ago
I have spent a few months this year trying to wrap my head around FM synthesis. Unfortunately I don’t think the DX7 is hard to program just because of the user interface. I have read up and thoroughly understand the theory behind FM synthesis. I have followed various tutorials to design patches. At the end of the the day FM synthesis is powerful but it is inherently much less intuitive and also much easier to get horrible ugly sounds out of than something like the subtractive synthesis seen on most analogue synths. The reason FM synths need to be digital is that very precise pitch ratios between oscillators are important in order to get good sounds. For example you may want to modulate the pitch of one oscillator with another exactly a fifth up (3 to 2 frequency ratio). It can easily sound terrible if the fifth up oscillator goes slightly out of tune. These sort of precision and nonlinearity in output are also one thing that makes FM synthesis a lot harder to use.
- sramsay 7y ago
  > Unfortunately I don’t think the DX7 is hard to program just because of the user interface. That was my first thought. And actually, I kept trying to understand (from the article) how exactly this UI makes FM programming easier. Does it? Or is that not the point? Because one of my "sound designer dreams" is being able to get the sound in my head coming out of the machine using FM. I can do that with regular subtractive synthesis (more or less) but with FM, I feel like I'm twiddling knobs until I like the way it sounds. And that's with a really good interface!
  - mntmoss 7y ago
    I think the trick to getting FM into a better UX would be to apply more computation to it to identify ahead of time which parameters and ranges will produce dramatic variation from a given starting point, and so reduce the programming to a model where you aren't repeatedly searching for where sweet spots are, but rather quickly paging into the zone desired and then adding minor adjustments. However part of the challenge of this would be in covering numerous combinations and identifying places where two or more parameters need to be changed simultaneously. Still basically a problem governed by combinatorial constraints.
- 7y ago
IAmGraydon 7y ago
For those who are interested in the DX7 but can't obtain one, there's a VST version that is literally a perfect recreation. It's called Dexed and you can get it here: https://asb2m10.github.io/dexed/ https://asb2m10.github.io/dexed/ Personally, I'm a synth nut and Dexed is my go-to when I'm in the mood for FM, but I prefer good old subtractive synths over FM most of the time.
- JoeyJoJoJr 7y ago
  And if you don’t want to use a PC to get the DX7 sound you can purchase a Korg Volca FM for really cheap. It’s sound engine is modelled from the DX7 and you can load in DX7 patches.
- rcarmo 7y ago
  Dexed is great, although I would love to have the canonical set of DX7 patches that shipped with the original synth. Most of the sysex stuff I found for it seems to be tweaked (or part of thousands of other presets and hard to single out).
jancsika 7y ago
Has anyone tried to take the parameters of an FM synthesis chain as if they were the hash of a particular timbre? In other words, you start with a recording of the sound you're after and then just start brute-force iterating through the parameter choices until an analysis of the output looks close enough to the input? I mean, fftw3 takes about a full minute on my Chromebook to measure the quickest algo. So I'd hope that generating output analyses would be fairly snappy...
- xkcd-sucks 7y ago
  https://fo.am/activities/midimutant/ https://fo.am/activities/midimutant/ An Aphex Twin collaboration, naturally
cmroanirgo 7y ago
The DX7 is directly the reason I'm where I'm at in the world. As a kid, when the DX7 was new, I'd spend hours making sounds and writing music on it. I explicitly went to uni (an Electrical/computer systems Engineering degree) to learn how to make my own synth. I learnt pretty much how in the first 12 months (although I never got around to making my own). I got head hunted from uni and here I am 3 decades later. If it weren't for the DX7 I would have stayed in the classical instrument stream and done a music degree. I wouldn't be on HN today. So, it's great that people are still applying new tech and gizmos to the DX7. It's got a special place in my heart.
- romwell 7y ago
  Have you seen the Reface DX? It's the new life of a DX7. Still FM, but something you can bring to a campfire. Or a party. Or to the office. Always at your fingertips. I never leave this thing at home; it's either in my car, or my backpack. https://usa.yamaha.com/products/music_production/synthesizers/reface/dx/index.html https://usa.yamaha.com/products/music_production/synthesizer...
malthaus 7y ago
For anyone interested in FM synthesis without the DX7 "baggage" and more limitations which help you steer away from too harsh sounds, check out the Elektron Digitone. As an added bonus you get a very capable sequencer and it can act as a groovebox on its own for quick sketches.
brokenmachine 7y ago
This looks like basically a MIDI controller that has some software so it can send presets to the DX7. I wonder how much those touch sensors cost, because I'm sure it could quite easily be used as generic MIDI controller.
- rylos 7y ago
  Anything that can be computer controlled, it could work for if built appropriately. As it sits, the midi interface will let it work with about any midi-based device, if the software is written to match. My next step is going to be having it run my Ensoniq VFX. At that point I'll have it be able to switch between the DX7 and VFX at the touch of a button. I've already used it with a DX7 MkI, and a DX21. A very early prototype got hooked into a theatrical lighting system, just because. I only had it wired in for a few minutes, the guy that did the lighting design for that theater really, really, wanted me to leave it. The ability to be able to be so interactive with the lighting appealed to him. As to cost, the sensors themselves would be dirt cheap to mass-produce, the most expensive part would be the display. This one uses discrete LEDs, but I think an old-style, low-res, low cost monochrome LCD would be plausible, allowing more sensors in the same space, and a alphanumeric for labels & such. Most of the circuitry could be replaced by a simple microcontroller, it doesn't require any high-power math or signal processing.
rylos 7y ago
The key concept of this control pamel is the ability to recall a patch preset, and have all the real-time controls immediately present the new paramaeter values, ready for tweaking. the only way a knob box can do that is by using motorized pots, or rotary encoders & LEDs. The fact that it's running a DX7 series synth is simply because I wanted to see how much easier it would make a synth to operate, so why not try it out on the one with the scariest reputation, a DX7. The result was much more than I had bargained for, it actually made it a fun instrument to play with. Of course, it could operate about anything that can be digitally controlled. I wanted to use capacitive-type touch sensors, but the problem with touch technology is it's sensitivity to ambient electrical noise, which can wreak havoc with the sensing signals. So I designed a variation that ignores electrical interference. This lets it be responsive & reliable; no lag, ever, giving it a more natural feel in use than you'd expect.

105 points by processing 7y ago

There is this: https://www.musicradar.com/news/tech/dtronics-dt7-has-just-made-the-yamaha-dx7-easier-to-use-636276 https://www.musicradar.com/news/tech/dtronics-dt7-has-just-m...

mrob 7y ago
Looks like a clone of the Jellinghaus DX-Programmer. Supposedly only 25 were made, and it's hard to find info on it. There's a good picture from when Brian Eno's was auctioned: http://www.spheremusic.com/Bargaindtl.asp?Item=4626 http://www.spheremusic.com/Bargaindtl.asp?Item=4626

cawlin 7y ago

The DX7 uses FM synthesis which is all digital meaning one can more or less the same results with vastly more flexible interface (Bazille, Dexed, Operator etc.) all inside a computer software. Despite that fact this is incredibly cool and impressive!

indigochill 7y ago
On this topic, something I don't understand which is probably just a limit of my experience in the field is if one is sufficiently talented at digital synthesis, why not use CSound for everything? It supports virtually any synthesis technique and can run in real-time. It also gives designers the freedom to define their own parameters on their instruments. And it's open source. But it seems mostly relegated to art projects, which confuses me.
- mrob 7y ago
  Have you tried programming a DX7? It's difficult enough already with just 6 FM operators. Expand to "virtually any synthesis technique" and most musicians will decide they don't need that much flexibility. But there are some exceptions, e.g. Autechre are well known for using the similarly flexible MaxMSP. As Sean Booth said in an interview with Resident Advisor[0] when asked about new equipment: "I just use MaxMSP now, because in Max I can generally build the thing I need, and if I don't know how to do that it'll generally be worthwhile learning. Intellectual capital or whatever. So rather than spend me money on equipment, I spend me money—as time—in learning how to build stuff." [0] https://www.residentadvisor.net/features/2756 https://www.residentadvisor.net/features/2756
- brandonmenc 7y ago
  > why not use CSound for everything? Because there are a ton of alternatives to CSound. I use Max/MSP. But you could also use PureData, SuperCollider, Chuck, JUCE, etc.
  - dx7tnt 7y ago
    > why not use CSound for everything? And it's actually quite boring to grind through compared to the modern alternatives. SuperCollider is incredible in its powers of brute synthesis. So much fun.
- justinclift 7y ago
  Thanks for mentioning CSound, hadn't heard of it before and it looks interesting. :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Csound https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Csound
- cawlin 7y ago
  I think CSOund's popularity with art projects and the elctoacoustic scene in general comes down to interface. CSound is great if you're supplying/inventing the interface or program to create the sounds/music. Compare a CSound IDE to something like the Ableton Operator interface or even PureData as someone else mentioned. Very different (and both great for different approaches and people!). A lot of folks want flexibility in the sound by exploring an interface/instrument without having to come up with that interface/instrument themselves.
- scarecrowbob 7y ago
  Well, for a lot of us the interface (and all the limitations or possibilites attached to it) --is-- what makes an instrument. I mean, I can put stuff into WordPress with SQL directly, but it's much nicer to do it with an interface. Similarly, I can program a snare sound using a noise generation, an envelope, and a filter, but it's sometimes nice to grap a box and it a button even if I'm constrained by whatever filter and parameters are already in the box... because the interface will dictate a lot of how I use the tool, and that is a feature not a bug :D
- rhizome 7y ago
  Because typing and mouse-clicking are not everybody's favorite way of making music, if they can even make music that way, or if CSound is even appropriate for the kind of music they want to make.
- detaro 7y ago
  Why use something like CSound when you don't need it's complexity? Sure, it can theoretically do all the same stuff, but if you can buy a software package or hardware box that saves you a few hundred hours of doing stuff yourself, the vast majority of which is re-implementing what's readymade in other tools, it's typically an easy choice.
- TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
  Because Csound is mostly a trashcan of naive cookbook implementations of synthesis and processing algos collected by academic dilettantes who seem to have no clue about commercial production values or professional DSP coding. Simple example - Chebyshev polynomials. How many Csound users even understand that these will alias if they cross Nyquist? So Csound does a lot badly. It's not quite unusable in a commercial setting, but the sound quality is a long way behind even basic VSTs - which means the steep learning curve and 1960s-style programming system don't justify the benefits. Supercollider has similar issues. The control language is more interesting, but the synthesis and processing code are similarly unrefined.
teilo 7y ago
Bazille can't really be compared to the DX7. It's really its own thing, and cannot replicate DX7 patches. It's built around phase distortion of tradition oscillator waveforms, not phase modulation of sine waves, like the DX7. It also only has 4 oscillators, which are not analogous to DX7 operators, traditional ADSR envelopes, and also does traditional subtractive filtering. Dexed, FM8, or Operator though, yes for sure.

Doctor_Fegg 7y ago

Pretty much every synthesiser for 15 years had the same two-row LCD interface as the DX7. My first job out of university in 1995 was as assistant editor of Keyboard Review magazine (UK), and the vast majority of synths I reviewed - wonderful beasts from Ensoniq, Roland, Korg, technologically way ahead of the DX7 - had exactly the same bloody awful UI. Akai's S-series samplers, which everyone was using back then, did provide a decent display... but at a price. When someone finally made a sampler affordable by the home market (Ensoniq's ESI-32) it too had a greatly compromised display, though at least four rows rather than two. I've always suspected this actually influenced the electronic music styles of the time. The 90s were the start of the analogue resurgence. Sure, an 808 or a 303 is a fabulous-sounding beast in itself. But twiddling knobs is just so much more rewarding and responsive than spending hours squinting at a two-line LCD.

ChuckMcM 7y ago
I love my Arrick analog (modular) synth because it is so easy to just reach out and tweak the sound to set the right timbre. I believe bringing that flexibility to a digital synth is a good thing. I imagine that there could be ways to create a modular 'control panel' and with the help of an embedded compute (as suggested in the article) provide rapid mirroring to the synth. I am a bit surprised that isn't an 'addon' already :-)
- scarecrowbob 7y ago
  I haven't done it with a DX7, but it's pretty straightforward to map whatever you can to external midi controllers. That solution is not as tightly coupled as this solution, but it works well enough... I have a newere electribe and a midi controller with a bunch of knobs and it's a lot more fun to play when I've mapped out a bunch of CCs. So, like the "addon" is midi, but it's just a lot of work to setup maps in certain sitations, and the controllers usually don't know where things might already be set in the patch on a device. I agree that modular are much more rewarding as you really can just tweak knobs (or have the machine tweak its own knobs in stragne ways)... that's really what I prefer.
ksangeelee 7y ago

acomjean 7y ago

I had a dx7. I will vouch for it being difficult to program decent sounds for. Despite having a map of how the 6 oscillators interacted on top of the Keyboard. See photo: https://mn2s.com/news/features/brief-history-yamaha-dx7/ https://mn2s.com/news/features/brief-history-yamaha-dx7/ It didn’t help that in the 90s when I had that keyboard they’re weren’t many online sources of info about it.. The dx7 was neat but couldn’t make very realistic instrument sounds. Very popular though.

yowlingcat 7y ago

Wow, very cool! This seems like a great thing to pair with a DX7 and a Reface DX [1], which seems like Yamaha's attempt to take the linage of the DX7 and do it justice in modern form with an increased emphasis on usability. I once had a DX7, and I loved it to pieces. The DX7 is one of my favorite synthesizers in history, and its software successor, FM8 [2] by Native Instruments is my favorite synthesizer that I regularly use. As with many of the 61-key workhorse keyboards of the 80s, the DX7 is extremely solidly built and has excellent synth key action which makes it a joy to play. It's not weighted, but it also doesn't feel like a toy, and the velocity range (while oddly bound to 0-100, one of its few unnecessary flaws) is very playable throughout the entire range. Beyond that, the DX7 as a synthesizer is technologically a legendary synthesizer that contributed heavily to 80s and 90s music [3][4]. It had great presets, the most recognizable of which is the default patch which is it's rendition of a Rhodes piano. Many folks bought it for that purpose, and you'll that patch in many songs that you may recognize. The DX7 uses a type of synthesis called FM synthesis, which (sort of like FM radio encoding) allows any of its 6 operator oscillators to be used additively or as an operator which feeds its signal to one or many other oscillators, potentially in a cyclical manner. Operators can use frequency multipliers and dividers with base oscillators (I believe only sine waves for the DX7 although there's a fair amount more in FM8) so that you can have operators sound harmonically many octaves above a base oscillator, or vice versa. In FM8, you can use multipliers anywhere from 0-64 with a 0.001 resolution. Through careful usage of envelopes and oscillator feedback structures, you can go quite a bit beyond your usual virtual analog style subtractive synthesis. but you can do quite a bit of semi-realistic physical modeling and beyond, whether it be orchestral instruments, drums, or punchy cartoonish caricatures of either. It's easily the most versatile form of non-sample based synthesis I've ever found. The wonderful thing about FM8 is how intuitive and flexible the synth gets once you begin to get used to it. The envelope editor makes it straightforward to create arbitrary stage envelopes with the curvature of each stage customizable and really straightforward to visualize. I personally lean on FM synthesis so heavily for a variety of reasons. It's a taste thing, but it's also a matter of practicality. If you're judicious about patches you use, it's easier to tune FM instruments to make them take up less spectral space, and clash with other elements in a mix without extra post-processing. Additionally that they tend to be quite CPU light, so the number of distinct instances you can run in realtime without maxing out your CPU is a fair amount higher than hefty virtual analog synths like Massive (it may potentially be the same for Spire). Finally, when it comes to soundscape design possibilities, long envelopes and frequency modulation open the door to ambient shape design that is borderline impossible to do otherwise. I believe this is why the DX7 became Brian Eno's favorite synth [4]. FM8 is not free (although it and Komplete were some of the best investments I ever made in my music) but there are a variety of free DX7 synths out there that you can use, some of which are compatible as editors for DX7 SysEx patches. The one I'd recommend is Dexed [5], which is open source and pretty nice, because you can use it with the giant free DX7 patch ecosystem that's built up over decades. Give that a go with REAPER (trialware), LMMS (open source but a little hard to use with VST/AU plugins), Live (evolving and likely the best for professional musicians to create on), or a DAW of your choice and you're in business. Which reminds me, I have a track I need to finish...and based on my commentary, you can probably accurate guess whether there's at least 1 instance of DX7 on it. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3PGO_DiuYU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3PGO_DiuYU [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lx_L9dPIa78 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lx_L9dPIa78 [3] https://reverbmachine.com/blog/exploring-the-yamaha-dx7 https://reverbmachine.com/blog/exploring-the-yamaha-dx7 [4] http://bobbyblues.recup.ch/yamaha_dx7/dx7_examples.html http://bobbyblues.recup.ch/yamaha_dx7/dx7_examples.html [5] https://asb2m10.github.io/dexed/ https://asb2m10.github.io/dexed/

brandonmenc 7y ago

Nowadays, Patch Base is the way to go. https://coffeeshopped.com/patch-base/editor/yamaha-dx7 https://coffeeshopped.com/patch-base/editor/yamaha-dx7

dontreact 7y ago

I have spent a few months this year trying to wrap my head around FM synthesis. Unfortunately I don’t think the DX7 is hard to program just because of the user interface. I have read up and thoroughly understand the theory behind FM synthesis. I have followed various tutorials to design patches. At the end of the the day FM synthesis is powerful but it is inherently much less intuitive and also much easier to get horrible ugly sounds out of than something like the subtractive synthesis seen on most analogue synths. The reason FM synths need to be digital is that very precise pitch ratios between oscillators are important in order to get good sounds. For example you may want to modulate the pitch of one oscillator with another exactly a fifth up (3 to 2 frequency ratio). It can easily sound terrible if the fifth up oscillator goes slightly out of tune. These sort of precision and nonlinearity in output are also one thing that makes FM synthesis a lot harder to use.

sramsay 7y ago
> Unfortunately I don’t think the DX7 is hard to program just because of the user interface. That was my first thought. And actually, I kept trying to understand (from the article) how exactly this UI makes FM programming easier. Does it? Or is that not the point? Because one of my "sound designer dreams" is being able to get the sound in my head coming out of the machine using FM. I can do that with regular subtractive synthesis (more or less) but with FM, I feel like I'm twiddling knobs until I like the way it sounds. And that's with a really good interface!
- mntmoss 7y ago
  I think the trick to getting FM into a better UX would be to apply more computation to it to identify ahead of time which parameters and ranges will produce dramatic variation from a given starting point, and so reduce the programming to a model where you aren't repeatedly searching for where sweet spots are, but rather quickly paging into the zone desired and then adding minor adjustments. However part of the challenge of this would be in covering numerous combinations and identifying places where two or more parameters need to be changed simultaneously. Still basically a problem governed by combinatorial constraints.
7y ago

IAmGraydon 7y ago

For those who are interested in the DX7 but can't obtain one, there's a VST version that is literally a perfect recreation. It's called Dexed and you can get it here: https://asb2m10.github.io/dexed/ https://asb2m10.github.io/dexed/ Personally, I'm a synth nut and Dexed is my go-to when I'm in the mood for FM, but I prefer good old subtractive synths over FM most of the time.

JoeyJoJoJr 7y ago
And if you don’t want to use a PC to get the DX7 sound you can purchase a Korg Volca FM for really cheap. It’s sound engine is modelled from the DX7 and you can load in DX7 patches.
rcarmo 7y ago
Dexed is great, although I would love to have the canonical set of DX7 patches that shipped with the original synth. Most of the sysex stuff I found for it seems to be tweaked (or part of thousands of other presets and hard to single out).

jancsika 7y ago

Has anyone tried to take the parameters of an FM synthesis chain as if they were the hash of a particular timbre? In other words, you start with a recording of the sound you're after and then just start brute-force iterating through the parameter choices until an analysis of the output looks close enough to the input? I mean, fftw3 takes about a full minute on my Chromebook to measure the quickest algo. So I'd hope that generating output analyses would be fairly snappy...

xkcd-sucks 7y ago
https://fo.am/activities/midimutant/ https://fo.am/activities/midimutant/ An Aphex Twin collaboration, naturally

cmroanirgo 7y ago

The DX7 is directly the reason I'm where I'm at in the world. As a kid, when the DX7 was new, I'd spend hours making sounds and writing music on it. I explicitly went to uni (an Electrical/computer systems Engineering degree) to learn how to make my own synth. I learnt pretty much how in the first 12 months (although I never got around to making my own). I got head hunted from uni and here I am 3 decades later. If it weren't for the DX7 I would have stayed in the classical instrument stream and done a music degree. I wouldn't be on HN today. So, it's great that people are still applying new tech and gizmos to the DX7. It's got a special place in my heart.

romwell 7y ago
Have you seen the Reface DX? It's the new life of a DX7. Still FM, but something you can bring to a campfire. Or a party. Or to the office. Always at your fingertips. I never leave this thing at home; it's either in my car, or my backpack. https://usa.yamaha.com/products/music_production/synthesizers/reface/dx/index.html https://usa.yamaha.com/products/music_production/synthesizer...

malthaus 7y ago

For anyone interested in FM synthesis without the DX7 "baggage" and more limitations which help you steer away from too harsh sounds, check out the Elektron Digitone. As an added bonus you get a very capable sequencer and it can act as a groovebox on its own for quick sketches.

brokenmachine 7y ago

This looks like basically a MIDI controller that has some software so it can send presets to the DX7. I wonder how much those touch sensors cost, because I'm sure it could quite easily be used as generic MIDI controller.

rylos 7y ago
Anything that can be computer controlled, it could work for if built appropriately. As it sits, the midi interface will let it work with about any midi-based device, if the software is written to match. My next step is going to be having it run my Ensoniq VFX. At that point I'll have it be able to switch between the DX7 and VFX at the touch of a button. I've already used it with a DX7 MkI, and a DX21. A very early prototype got hooked into a theatrical lighting system, just because. I only had it wired in for a few minutes, the guy that did the lighting design for that theater really, really, wanted me to leave it. The ability to be able to be so interactive with the lighting appealed to him. As to cost, the sensors themselves would be dirt cheap to mass-produce, the most expensive part would be the display. This one uses discrete LEDs, but I think an old-style, low-res, low cost monochrome LCD would be plausible, allowing more sensors in the same space, and a alphanumeric for labels & such. Most of the circuitry could be replaced by a simple microcontroller, it doesn't require any high-power math or signal processing.

rylos 7y ago

The key concept of this control pamel is the ability to recall a patch preset, and have all the real-time controls immediately present the new paramaeter values, ready for tweaking. the only way a knob box can do that is by using motorized pots, or rotary encoders & LEDs. The fact that it's running a DX7 series synth is simply because I wanted to see how much easier it would make a synth to operate, so why not try it out on the one with the scariest reputation, a DX7. The result was much more than I had bargained for, it actually made it a fun instrument to play with. Of course, it could operate about anything that can be digitally controlled. I wanted to use capacitive-type touch sensors, but the problem with touch technology is it's sensitivity to ambient electrical noise, which can wreak havoc with the sensing signals. So I designed a variation that ignores electrical interference. This lets it be responsive & reliable; no lag, ever, giving it a more natural feel in use than you'd expect.