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I would agree that the DX7's sound is really dated has honestly really negatively impacted some of my favorite songs recorded in the the 1980's [0][1], but I re

by Exmoor 6y ago

I would agree that the DX7's sound is really dated has honestly really negatively impacted some of my favorite songs recorded in the the 1980's [0][1], but I really cannot think of an specific instrument as distinctive and widespread as it. The Telecaster and Stratocaster were very popular, but it's very tough to pick them out in a recording from other types of electric guitars. Hammond Organs are distinct and popular, but nowhere near as ubiquitous as the DX7. [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTTC_fD598A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTTC_fD598A [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXRLozwejDk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXRLozwejDk

scoopdewoop 6y ago
I'd say that roland drum machines and bass synths would be up there, especially in the past 30 years.
- alisonatwork 6y ago
  I think the TR-808 is the only one that might qualify. Although there are loads of synthesizers that were extremely influential in the industry and are immediately recognizable to hardcore synth fans (M1, D-50, Prophet 5, TB-303, Minimoog etc), I doubt there are many that the average listener would consider to be "distinctive". This is what makes the TR-808 special, I think, even though there are lots of other drum machines that can make the same sounds. It's become a part of the standard lexicon of hip-hop, R&B and electronic music. I imagine a fair amount of casual pop music fans know that when someone says an 808 beat is about to drop, they're gonna get that booming bass drum and typewriter snare, maybe a cowbell. I'm not sure the DX7 ever had the same widespread name recognition, even back in its heyday. And outside of synths, I don't think the average person connects specific guitar models to distinct sounds either, even if they know the names in the abstract. The 808 might be unique in this. Then again, rock music fans might never even have heard of it?
  - ratww 6y ago
    > I think the TR-808 is the only one that might qualify. Only? No way! :D The Roland TR-909 is also extremely popular and was considered the sound of techno and house even after the TR-808 started to fade outside hip-hop. In the mid-90s it was one of the first drum machines to start being cloned by new manufacturers due to the demand. The bass drum is still used as the foundation for a lot of EDM. It never went away... while the 808 which is back but was considered passé even in hip-hop for a short while. The TB-303 Bass Synth is also extremely sought after. It was the sound of Acid House in the late 80s and was also a mainstay in the 90s for a lot of producers, even though it's limited. Today it's kind of a novelty but you still hear it in some tracks. More recently Behringer made a clone and Roland reissued it. Both of those two got in the vernacular of EDM fans at the time. Also the TR-606 has some cult status due to being used by artists like Autechre, Aphex Twin and Plastikman among others, which are sort of "musician's musicians" among the electronic music crowd, although it wasn't as famous as 303/808/909 among general listeners.
    - alisonatwork 6y ago
      I think this is where the conversation starts to get a bit far away from the original topic, which was about how the DX7 changed modern music. I am also a big fan of electronic music and owned several of the x0x synths, but they're only really recognizable to people who are already into synths. Of course if you play an 808 and 909 next to one another, they don't sound the same. But if you play a random piece of music and ask a casual listener what drum machine it features, I don't think they would be able to tell you. (Unless, perhaps, it's an 808!) Even something that synth nuts know to be as unique and genre-defining as a TB-303, to the casual listener it isn't distinguishable from an SH-101 or any other analog monosynth. People might know what an acid line sounds like, but they don't tend to have the same kind of ear that musicians do to be able to spot one synth model from the other in the final mix. When I think about a synth so distinctive and widespread that it changed modern music, I think about something that average people who aren't musicians can identify. The DX7 might have been that, since it was the first synthesizer that really went mass-market. All the synths before that were "niche" instruments, but the DX7 made synth music mainstream, so perhaps it was very identifiable. But then the floodgates opened, so it might only have lasted for a few years. The 808, though, I think a lot of people still really know and understand what kind of "sound" that is. But I could be wrong.
  - MegaDeKay 6y ago
    Have you ever listened to this Twenty Thousand Hertz podcast on the 808? It is a good deep dive into its history, its distinctive sound, and what made it as influential as it was. https://www.20k.org/episodes/808 https://www.20k.org/episodes/808
- usrusr 6y ago
  I think that there is a big difference in how easy it is to capture the, I don't know, "general musical identity" of a TB or TR with a much less constrained drum machine or bassline synth. FM synths like the DX7 are notoriously difficult to control, it's as if they were deliberately amplifying the tiniest differences. If a piece of music can "sound Roland x0x" even if it was made on an entirely different process and any arguments about possible lack of an actual Roland in the production is strictly the realm of nerd nitpicking. Everyone else simply enjoys (or doesn't, but not because of lack of synth authenticity). But if a musician goes for "that FM sound" chances are the result will be very different depending on what actual synth is used.
klodolph 6y ago
I don’t think it’s that hard to pick out a Strat or Tele in a recording, they both have fairly unique sounds and the only guitars which sound like them are direct clones. At least at low to medium gain levels, but that’s where Strats and Teles are mostly used.
- ratww 6y ago
  Agreed 100%. Teles are easy to pick out in country tunes, and guitar-based country sounds very different when people use something else. Same for Strats in blues-infused pop. I'm not a super fan but a lot of young people today would recognise the sound of John Mayer's clean Strat tones in pop-blues, for instance.
jgalentine007 6y ago
I don't agree - if you play guitar a bit, it's pretty easy to tell a telecaster from a stratocaster or a les paul, whether clean or distorted (in their traditional forms) on most any recording.
brudgers 6y ago
The Rickenbacker 360 comes to mind in the context of distinctive guitar sounds.
- ratww 6y ago
  I'd add that both the Rickenbacker 360 and the Rickenbacker 360/12 are very distinctive, each one in a different way.
mortenjorck 6y ago
Just as a Fender is always played through an amp, a DX7 would never go dry into the mixing console. What we think of as the DX7 sound is almost always a combination of the Yamaha chip and a smorgasbord of effects units, usually at least reverb but likely also chorus, delay, compression, and even distortion, not to mention extensive EQ.
jdontillman 6y ago
"Hammond Organs are distinct and popular, but nowhere near as ubiquitous as the DX7." Dude... There were about 200,000 DX7s manufactured. There were about 2 million Hammond Organs manufactured.
- ratww 6y ago
  And Hammond Organs never went out of style. ...okay, maybe in the 80s. But in the 90s/2000s they were back in full force. One of the best concerts of my life was The Mars Volta in the early 2000s, and Ikey, the keyboard player (RIP) left me speechless with his Hammond soloing.
- kristjankalm 6y ago
  Could I ask the source for these numbers? I've been trying to find some production numbers for popular synths (including submodels, e.g. all Minimoog or Prophet 5 versions combined etc), but haven't really found anything properly sourced/cited.
tenebrisalietum 6y ago
The Roland TB-303--definitely unique--for a while there in the late 80's and through the 90's seemed like it was everywhere in any electronica/techno-based song.

by Exmoor 6y ago

scoopdewoop 6y ago

I'd say that roland drum machines and bass synths would be up there, especially in the past 30 years.

alisonatwork 6y ago
I think the TR-808 is the only one that might qualify. Although there are loads of synthesizers that were extremely influential in the industry and are immediately recognizable to hardcore synth fans (M1, D-50, Prophet 5, TB-303, Minimoog etc), I doubt there are many that the average listener would consider to be "distinctive". This is what makes the TR-808 special, I think, even though there are lots of other drum machines that can make the same sounds. It's become a part of the standard lexicon of hip-hop, R&B and electronic music. I imagine a fair amount of casual pop music fans know that when someone says an 808 beat is about to drop, they're gonna get that booming bass drum and typewriter snare, maybe a cowbell. I'm not sure the DX7 ever had the same widespread name recognition, even back in its heyday. And outside of synths, I don't think the average person connects specific guitar models to distinct sounds either, even if they know the names in the abstract. The 808 might be unique in this. Then again, rock music fans might never even have heard of it?
- ratww 6y ago
  > I think the TR-808 is the only one that might qualify. Only? No way! :D The Roland TR-909 is also extremely popular and was considered the sound of techno and house even after the TR-808 started to fade outside hip-hop. In the mid-90s it was one of the first drum machines to start being cloned by new manufacturers due to the demand. The bass drum is still used as the foundation for a lot of EDM. It never went away... while the 808 which is back but was considered passé even in hip-hop for a short while. The TB-303 Bass Synth is also extremely sought after. It was the sound of Acid House in the late 80s and was also a mainstay in the 90s for a lot of producers, even though it's limited. Today it's kind of a novelty but you still hear it in some tracks. More recently Behringer made a clone and Roland reissued it. Both of those two got in the vernacular of EDM fans at the time. Also the TR-606 has some cult status due to being used by artists like Autechre, Aphex Twin and Plastikman among others, which are sort of "musician's musicians" among the electronic music crowd, although it wasn't as famous as 303/808/909 among general listeners.
  - alisonatwork 6y ago
    I think this is where the conversation starts to get a bit far away from the original topic, which was about how the DX7 changed modern music. I am also a big fan of electronic music and owned several of the x0x synths, but they're only really recognizable to people who are already into synths. Of course if you play an 808 and 909 next to one another, they don't sound the same. But if you play a random piece of music and ask a casual listener what drum machine it features, I don't think they would be able to tell you. (Unless, perhaps, it's an 808!) Even something that synth nuts know to be as unique and genre-defining as a TB-303, to the casual listener it isn't distinguishable from an SH-101 or any other analog monosynth. People might know what an acid line sounds like, but they don't tend to have the same kind of ear that musicians do to be able to spot one synth model from the other in the final mix. When I think about a synth so distinctive and widespread that it changed modern music, I think about something that average people who aren't musicians can identify. The DX7 might have been that, since it was the first synthesizer that really went mass-market. All the synths before that were "niche" instruments, but the DX7 made synth music mainstream, so perhaps it was very identifiable. But then the floodgates opened, so it might only have lasted for a few years. The 808, though, I think a lot of people still really know and understand what kind of "sound" that is. But I could be wrong.
- MegaDeKay 6y ago
  Have you ever listened to this Twenty Thousand Hertz podcast on the 808? It is a good deep dive into its history, its distinctive sound, and what made it as influential as it was. https://www.20k.org/episodes/808 https://www.20k.org/episodes/808
usrusr 6y ago
I think that there is a big difference in how easy it is to capture the, I don't know, "general musical identity" of a TB or TR with a much less constrained drum machine or bassline synth. FM synths like the DX7 are notoriously difficult to control, it's as if they were deliberately amplifying the tiniest differences. If a piece of music can "sound Roland x0x" even if it was made on an entirely different process and any arguments about possible lack of an actual Roland in the production is strictly the realm of nerd nitpicking. Everyone else simply enjoys (or doesn't, but not because of lack of synth authenticity). But if a musician goes for "that FM sound" chances are the result will be very different depending on what actual synth is used.

klodolph 6y ago

I don’t think it’s that hard to pick out a Strat or Tele in a recording, they both have fairly unique sounds and the only guitars which sound like them are direct clones. At least at low to medium gain levels, but that’s where Strats and Teles are mostly used.

ratww 6y ago
Agreed 100%. Teles are easy to pick out in country tunes, and guitar-based country sounds very different when people use something else. Same for Strats in blues-infused pop. I'm not a super fan but a lot of young people today would recognise the sound of John Mayer's clean Strat tones in pop-blues, for instance.

jgalentine007 6y ago

I don't agree - if you play guitar a bit, it's pretty easy to tell a telecaster from a stratocaster or a les paul, whether clean or distorted (in their traditional forms) on most any recording.

brudgers 6y ago

The Rickenbacker 360 comes to mind in the context of distinctive guitar sounds.

ratww 6y ago
I'd add that both the Rickenbacker 360 and the Rickenbacker 360/12 are very distinctive, each one in a different way.

mortenjorck 6y ago

Just as a Fender is always played through an amp, a DX7 would never go dry into the mixing console. What we think of as the DX7 sound is almost always a combination of the Yamaha chip and a smorgasbord of effects units, usually at least reverb but likely also chorus, delay, compression, and even distortion, not to mention extensive EQ.

jdontillman 6y ago

"Hammond Organs are distinct and popular, but nowhere near as ubiquitous as the DX7." Dude... There were about 200,000 DX7s manufactured. There were about 2 million Hammond Organs manufactured.

ratww 6y ago
And Hammond Organs never went out of style. ...okay, maybe in the 80s. But in the 90s/2000s they were back in full force. One of the best concerts of my life was The Mars Volta in the early 2000s, and Ikey, the keyboard player (RIP) left me speechless with his Hammond soloing.
kristjankalm 6y ago
Could I ask the source for these numbers? I've been trying to find some production numbers for popular synths (including submodels, e.g. all Minimoog or Prophet 5 versions combined etc), but haven't really found anything properly sourced/cited.

tenebrisalietum 6y ago

The Roland TB-303--definitely unique--for a while there in the late 80's and through the 90's seemed like it was everywhere in any electronica/techno-based song.