7 ms·

>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 b

>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 synthesis makes no logical sense"? He writes like FM went away. While DX7 itself was eventually retired (and synths like M1 became popular), Yamaha made several further flagship FM synths, and FM synthesis is still widely popular, used in both plugin form (including several DX7 emulations plus lots of fresh FM implementations), modern dedicated FM synths (e.g. Korg Opsix, Elektron Digitone), and of course as FM sound engines in multi-engine synths (FM-X in Yamaha's keyboards like Montage and MODX, Hydrasynth's FM mode, Nord's FM engine, to name but a few). There are even boutique options (ReFace DX, Volca FM). And of course even vintage DX7s go for a quite high price in second+ hand market...

MBCook 2y ago
From what follows after that I think they were referring to the configuration interface being effectively unusable by most people when they said “makes no logical sense“.
- musicale 2y ago
  The tiny LCD UI was a typical cost-cutting measure for synths from that era and isn't unique to FM or even digital synths. I bought a vintage Yamaha TX81z (they're cheap on ebay) and while it features a tiny LCD UI it also comes with a very logical diagram printed on the top of the case. Yamaha's user manuals are also well written. I've enjoyed making dozens of FM synth patches on all sorts of instruments (perhaps because I am attracted to the FM sounds that you still hear all the time in pop and dance music.) At the end of the day most synthesis methods boil down to two knobs: signal amplitude and spectral complexity, and FM isn't that different, especially with a single oscillator/operator pair.
alfiedotwtf 2y ago
I have a MODX and although it’s so damn powerful when it comes to sound design - each of the 16 parts can have 8 layers each, it’s a lot of work to do anything with it. I’ve seen piano patches that sound REALISTIC because in 8 layers, you can model the hammer, the initial string hit, the cabinet echo, string resonance, and a whole lot of other timbres… but it takes SO MUCH EFFORT. So unless you’re a /real/ sound designer or you buy patches online, you’re better off getting a Digitone for “simpler” FM or just stick to the MODX’s excellent sampled acoustic instruments. Yeah… the MODX/Montage UI is really bad and feels like something out of 2004.
- thrtythreeforty 2y ago
  I would be extremely interested in a video or article describing that kind of patch (one with a physical analogue/interpretation). Are you referring to something specific?
  - gausswho 2y ago
    You might be interested in physical modeling synthesis. It's got a long history. Here's a good run down: https://www.perfectcircuit.com/signal/what-is-physical-modeling https://www.perfectcircuit.com/signal/what-is-physical-model...
    - thrtythreeforty 2y ago
      Yes, I have a hobby of implementing physical modeling synths. I am off the deep end in digital waveguide synthesis, and I was curious about the FM equivalent.
      - alfiedotwtf 2y ago
        I’m pretty sure my original comment was referring to a YouTube video I saw of physically modelling a piano on the Montage. Can’t find the video now though :( … but if you’re into modelling… man, I’m hankering for an Erica Synth Steampipe! Just found out about them yesterday. Dear Santa…
bartread 2y ago
“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, including the free Dexed. There are literally thousands of DX7 patches available online, and what’s great about Dexed is it makes it easy to transfer them to a real DX7 using MIDI sysex. What’s also great about Dexed is that it makes programming the DX7 a lot easier, especially if you have the first revision, like me, with the membrane buttons that look cool in all their multicoloured glory but are complete ass to use. I get the sense there’s a really thriving community around this excellent and highly influential synth. And that’s not even going in to all the excellent new FM synths that you’ve talked about, which trace their heritage back to the DX7.
- fuhsnn 2y ago
  >I get the sense there’s a really thriving community around this excellent and highly influential synth. Not specific to DX7, but its OPL cousins are also highly regarded and extensively researched in game emulation community.
- xpe 2y ago
  Some great synths are taxing to operate and tweak in real time even if you know what is happening. So I appreciate your point about variations on the interface.
- dboreham 2y ago
  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.
  - bartread 2y ago
    > 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) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairlight_(company).
romwell 2y ago
[dead]
Suppafly 2y ago
>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+.
- ecocentrik 2y ago
  The DX7 might be the best selling synth of all time. There's a lot of them out there.
  - Suppafly 2y ago
    >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.
  - nine_k 2y ago
    They are still excellent midi keyboards, in addition to an iconic synth engine. So I suspect DX7s are more widely applicable, and thus are much sought after, which keeps the prices not very low.
    - TheOtherHobbes 2y ago
      The keyboard may have one of the best synth actions ever made - smooth but fast, mid-weighted, not at all spongy.
    - dinnerpianist 2y ago
      I read sometwhere that the DX7IID had corrected the original DX7's whimpy full velocity numbers delivery but found that not to tbe the case. I felt I had to use an Anatek POCKET CURVE with its dedicated DX7 compensation curve and beyond when using my IID to program the TX802 and 81Z.
  - rvense 2y ago
    > The DX7 might be the best selling synth of all time They were, for a long time, but the figure I've seen is something like 100k for the original model. The market is so much bigger now I don't really believe it's true anymore.
alterom 2y ago
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 changes as well. Analogue synthesis struggled accomplishing this. The classic analog synth would have an envelope generator ("ADSR") controlling the loudness of the tone, and another, most commonly, controlling the filter (the thing that makes the synth do a wowowow sound on the same note), but responsive fading and evolution of the harmonics wasn't readily available. On the Yamaha DX7, it was built into the core idea of FM synthesis. You don't know it when you hear it, you know it when you play it: the way the keyboard responded to the touch was alive, magical. You didn't need to rely on the modulation wheels and joysticks and knobs to vary the timbre as you play. You could simply play the keyboard. On my Yamaha Reface DX (which overcomes the drawbacks of FM user interface), I can easily make a tone whose character (not loudness! - or not just loudness) changes when I simply play harder. It's like having several instruments at once at your disposal, blending between them on the fly. It's that playability that makes FM make sense — and it was what other digital synthesis technologies went for, too. Roland's "linear arithmetic", vector synthesis, and M1's multisampling all explored that area — but they came after DX7. What makes FM synthesis unique is the heavily non-linear response of the tone to the dynamics. At worst, it's unpredictable, but once you figure out where the sweet spots are in the parameter space, you get a tone like nothing else. A bell that's also a string orchestra. A guitar with a soul of the saxophone, but not mistaken for either; an identity all of its own. Yamaha DX7 heavily leaned into this aspect in instrument's design, via providing additional parameters that controlled the sensitivity of operators to velocity depending on where on the keyboard you are, so that the lower tones would have a different character from higher ones. The "diminished brilliance" the author writes about was likely that — i.e., the author not figuring out how FM sound design works, which they openly admitted. It was matter of taste of whoever made the presets; without programming those curves in, the higher notes can easily sound screeching. The point, again, was that the instrument wasn't merely responsive in a way that analogue synths couldn't dream of, but that the way in which it was responsive, tone-wise, was programmable, and varied not just from patch to patch, but across the scale and velocity range. Again, think about how plucking different strings on a guitar harder produces a different variation in tonal response. Each string has its own character. This is the soul of the mathematical idea of FM synthesis: that the tone evolution should not merely be controlled by time passing (as it is on most analogue synths, via envelope generators and LFO's), and not by knob twiddling (modulation wheels, knobs, sliders, joysticks,...) — but by playing the instrument itself. And on a keyboard, what you really play with is where on the keyboard you strike a key, and how fast. Yamaha DX7 allowed the player to vary the timbre by playing the instrument, with both hands, by having all tone generators depend on these two variables in a programmable, non-linear, interesting way. FM synthesis of Yamaha DX7 therefore can't be separated from the physical keyboard it shipped with. The way the tones felt as you played them were determined by the response curves which simply don't map in the same way to a different keyboard. The fact that the DX7 was a digital synth obscured the fact that it was a very analog instrument in that way; that to get a truly good FM preset, you need to tune it to the keyboard response (i.e. velocity curves), and that involves the analog components. It's also for this reason that DX7 only has membrane buttons, and no knobs or sliders. It didn't need them. The 60 keys were your knobs and sliders, the means to control the tone. That's why the ePiano on the DX-7 was on 60% of the new releases. It didn't merely emulate the Rhodes (which, by all means, wasn't a rare instrument). What it did was it gave keyboard players a way to play with the tone of their instrument while playing the instrument, something the Rhodes would have a more limited range for, as the variation in tone response was constrained by how similar the actual metallic forks that made the sound were to each other, and how similar the hammers are across the octaves — and the digital DX7 didn't have that limitation. It also gave the people used to playing the synth with one hand (to be able to tweak the sound with the other) the freedom to play truly polyphonically, and use the keyboard itself to control the tone dynamics. Playing it was a liberating experience, and it still is, because while intricate multi-sampling can also give you that effect (at no less difficulty, mind you, even if you have the samples!), FM does it differently. The musicians didn't need to be mindful of all that; the absolute majority (Brian Eno expected) were outright oblivious to why and what made DX7 the instrument that you had to have. You just felt it. And yes, new FM synthesizers keep coming. Because emulating acoustic instruments is not just easy with sampling these days, it also isn't enough. You can just hire someone to play the real instrument, after all. You need a bit more than that to craft a distinctive sound — especially a new one. Liven XFM, Korg Opsix, Arturia Minifreak all go boldly where manmade sound didn't go before, and these are just three novel FM synthesizers from this decade. Reface DX came out less than 10 years ago; and its FM engine is different from DX7 (as is the UX — you can finally change the tone while playing it with live controls). And for all the talk of how FM is old, I've yet to see someone not be captivated by the ePiano patch that comes stock on the Reface DX when I let them play it when I bring the instrument around with me on trips (which I often do). Current developments in the controllers (like what ROLI is doing) will allow all the existing sound generation techniques to shine in new ways, including FM. But I think it's the physical package of the keyboard, the algorithm, and the presets tuned to the combination of the two is what made the DX7 such a success. A new FM instrument could easily be a hit with these factors, particularly if they don't skimp on including built-in speakers and making the presets sound great on them. FM truly shines when all the pieces are aligned in a performer's instrument. Reface DX comes close to that point, but the presets it ships with are more of an engine demo than sounds to make music with, the speakers are not loud, and the mini-keys (which I love!) were a turn-off for many people — because in the Internet age, people would judge a machine without actually playing it, and that's the only way to understand what's so damn special about FM synthesis. It's the way you feel when you play it. A sound demo simply won't get that across.
scelerat 2y ago
I heartily recommend the Korg Opsix to anyone who wants to experiment with FM synthesis. As the article mentions, the UI of the DX7 made programming it, modifying existing sounds or coming up with new ones entirely, difficult to say the least. With the Opsix, much of the ability to tweak aspects of the operators, envelopes, LFOs and so on, are given dedicated knobs and sliders, or easily accessible menus whose parameters are tweakable with physical knobs. The hands-on UI of the Opsix turns what once was an ordeal of menu diving and incremental buttons into a much more rewarding, interactive experience. I play one live in a band and use an old Yamaha KX76, the dedicated controller bigger brother to the DX7 as a controller for the Opsix. Best of both worlds. The feel on those old keyboards is superb.
- vr46 2y ago
  The Opsix looks very straightforward. I bought the Digitone Keys about three years ago and it's a lot of fun, along with having that sequencer and Elektron Interface. It does not appear to have been a successful product, and I do not think it's really possible to use a full instrument, but I have enjoyed using it as a plaything to learn and understand FM synthesis. No doubt there is some creative wizard like Blue Lab Beats who probably uses this and a Digitakt to make whole albums.
- BodyCulture 2y ago
  For people interested in this product but not sure buying a hardware synth: opsix native is the name for the software only version of it available at the Korg website…
- peapicker 2y ago
  I have one and agree wholeheartedly. The opsix makes FM fun and relatively easy. Excellent for sound design.
atoav 2y ago
I'd argue the opposite, the DX7 worked great because it came with good presets and you could expand it with those cartriges, although programming your own was annoying as heck. But most people cared about getting the newest sounds and at max tweaking them slightly, which was a pain. But the FM engine was/is immensly powerful and the sounds are to that day extremely iconic. Just as a visualization for the parameters that DX7 hides from its users behind that interface, Matrixsynth made thebDT7 which puts all parameters on knobs and it looks like this: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEDuzORvU79oWmb35BFoTKWBlWygckRkPl30pOvFlCgqJKi5o1OXn0vBwBF6N8RUMMQk1wvLdKBQQgT7i3nHj5mYBXKQJGFwPteVH8Ddp8KhtmVGNfBc0qd3lCzdie8sNS2imGLfNCsjPJtmvD0OUH9Lx894csz_mq4qR-dnXdWaLMUAhRog/s1600/2.webp https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj...
rvense 2y ago
FM/PM synthesis makes no "logical sense"... until you spend the twenty minutes required to understand it. Really people gave up on the DX7 because of the limited interface, somehow FM got the blame. A subtractive synth with a knob for each function is a fantastically intuitive thing, but when it's three buttons and a line of abbrv txt it's not very nice either.
- jdietrich 2y ago
  FM is inherently more difficult to understand than subtractive, even with a very good interface. It's the double-edged sword of FM - you can create very complex behaviours from a small number of simple operators, which makes FM both uniquely powerful and uniquely difficult to think about intuitively. I can model subtractive and additive patches quite accurately in my head. That's not a brag, it's just not very difficult if you understand the basic principles and you've put in a bit of practice. FM still takes me by surprise after decades of trying to master it.
  - nine_k 2y ago
    Subtractive is intelligent design. FM is discovery :)
- consf 2y ago
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tiborsaas 2y ago
> He writes like FM went away. Absolutely. The whole genre of dubstep is based on FM synthesis :)
deleted 2y ago
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teilo 2y ago
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.
- coldtea 2y ago
  >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.
  - teilo 2y ago
    I rebuild these things. I know the market.
  - alterom 2y ago
    > (so trivial to replicate one to one) Good luck finding a 60-key MIDI controller with velocity-sensitivity and aftertouch for less than $200, and it's without getting into replication (of either the controller or the synth).
consf 2y ago
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mrandish 2y ago
Agreed. It's nice that the TFA is celebrating the DX7 because it was absolutely a seminal synth but it's a pretty uninformed take on FM synthesis. Depending on how you count there's really only a handful of fundamental synthesis approaches used for musical tone generation (subtractive, additive, granular, wavetable and frequency modulation). Most synthesizers being made today just use evolved forms and combinations of these basic techniques. As you said, FM synthesis is one of those fundamental building blocks and it didn't go away. Instead, it went pretty much everywhere - including into the ringtone chips in the vast majority of mobile phones of the early 2000s. Just last month I got a cheap RF doorbell chime for $3 from AliExpress with a dozen different selectable tones and they all have that distinctive FM sound. I was a little surprised that even today FM synthesis remains a cheaper way to generate complex tones than sampled waveforms. The article didn't even explore the fascinating development of FM synthesis which made an unlikely leap from esoteric academic research at Stanford to an incredibly successful product that had global pop culture impact. https://usa.yamaha.com/products/contents/music_production/synth_50th/history/chapter002.html https://usa.yamaha.com/products/contents/music_production/sy...
BodyCulture 2y ago
Digitone II is available since a few weeks and is an excellent choice for exploring FM!

MBCook 2y ago

From what follows after that I think they were referring to the configuration interface being effectively unusable by most people when they said “makes no logical sense“.

musicale 2y ago
The tiny LCD UI was a typical cost-cutting measure for synths from that era and isn't unique to FM or even digital synths. I bought a vintage Yamaha TX81z (they're cheap on ebay) and while it features a tiny LCD UI it also comes with a very logical diagram printed on the top of the case. Yamaha's user manuals are also well written. I've enjoyed making dozens of FM synth patches on all sorts of instruments (perhaps because I am attracted to the FM sounds that you still hear all the time in pop and dance music.) At the end of the day most synthesis methods boil down to two knobs: signal amplitude and spectral complexity, and FM isn't that different, especially with a single oscillator/operator pair.

alfiedotwtf 2y ago

I have a MODX and although it’s so damn powerful when it comes to sound design - each of the 16 parts can have 8 layers each, it’s a lot of work to do anything with it. I’ve seen piano patches that sound REALISTIC because in 8 layers, you can model the hammer, the initial string hit, the cabinet echo, string resonance, and a whole lot of other timbres… but it takes SO MUCH EFFORT. So unless you’re a /real/ sound designer or you buy patches online, you’re better off getting a Digitone for “simpler” FM or just stick to the MODX’s excellent sampled acoustic instruments. Yeah… the MODX/Montage UI is really bad and feels like something out of 2004.

thrtythreeforty 2y ago
I would be extremely interested in a video or article describing that kind of patch (one with a physical analogue/interpretation). Are you referring to something specific?
- gausswho 2y ago
  You might be interested in physical modeling synthesis. It's got a long history. Here's a good run down: https://www.perfectcircuit.com/signal/what-is-physical-modeling https://www.perfectcircuit.com/signal/what-is-physical-model...
  - thrtythreeforty 2y ago
    Yes, I have a hobby of implementing physical modeling synths. I am off the deep end in digital waveguide synthesis, and I was curious about the FM equivalent.
    - alfiedotwtf 2y ago
      I’m pretty sure my original comment was referring to a YouTube video I saw of physically modelling a piano on the Montage. Can’t find the video now though :( … but if you’re into modelling… man, I’m hankering for an Erica Synth Steampipe! Just found out about them yesterday. Dear Santa…

bartread 2y ago

“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, including the free Dexed. There are literally thousands of DX7 patches available online, and what’s great about Dexed is it makes it easy to transfer them to a real DX7 using MIDI sysex. What’s also great about Dexed is that it makes programming the DX7 a lot easier, especially if you have the first revision, like me, with the membrane buttons that look cool in all their multicoloured glory but are complete ass to use. I get the sense there’s a really thriving community around this excellent and highly influential synth. And that’s not even going in to all the excellent new FM synths that you’ve talked about, which trace their heritage back to the DX7.

fuhsnn 2y ago
>I get the sense there’s a really thriving community around this excellent and highly influential synth. Not specific to DX7, but its OPL cousins are also highly regarded and extensively researched in game emulation community.
xpe 2y ago
Some great synths are taxing to operate and tweak in real time even if you know what is happening. So I appreciate your point about variations on the interface.
dboreham 2y ago
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.
- bartread 2y ago
  > 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) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairlight_(company).

romwell 2y ago

[dead]

Suppafly 2y ago

>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+.

ecocentrik 2y ago
The DX7 might be the best selling synth of all time. There's a lot of them out there.
- Suppafly 2y ago
  >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.
- nine_k 2y ago
  They are still excellent midi keyboards, in addition to an iconic synth engine. So I suspect DX7s are more widely applicable, and thus are much sought after, which keeps the prices not very low.
  - TheOtherHobbes 2y ago
    The keyboard may have one of the best synth actions ever made - smooth but fast, mid-weighted, not at all spongy.
  - dinnerpianist 2y ago
    I read sometwhere that the DX7IID had corrected the original DX7's whimpy full velocity numbers delivery but found that not to tbe the case. I felt I had to use an Anatek POCKET CURVE with its dedicated DX7 compensation curve and beyond when using my IID to program the TX802 and 81Z.
- rvense 2y ago
  > The DX7 might be the best selling synth of all time They were, for a long time, but the figure I've seen is something like 100k for the original model. The market is so much bigger now I don't really believe it's true anymore.

alterom 2y ago

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 changes as well. Analogue synthesis struggled accomplishing this. The classic analog synth would have an envelope generator ("ADSR") controlling the loudness of the tone, and another, most commonly, controlling the filter (the thing that makes the synth do a wowowow sound on the same note), but responsive fading and evolution of the harmonics wasn't readily available. On the Yamaha DX7, it was built into the core idea of FM synthesis. You don't know it when you hear it, you know it when you play it: the way the keyboard responded to the touch was alive, magical. You didn't need to rely on the modulation wheels and joysticks and knobs to vary the timbre as you play. You could simply play the keyboard. On my Yamaha Reface DX (which overcomes the drawbacks of FM user interface), I can easily make a tone whose character (not loudness! - or not just loudness) changes when I simply play harder. It's like having several instruments at once at your disposal, blending between them on the fly. It's that playability that makes FM make sense — and it was what other digital synthesis technologies went for, too. Roland's "linear arithmetic", vector synthesis, and M1's multisampling all explored that area — but they came after DX7. What makes FM synthesis unique is the heavily non-linear response of the tone to the dynamics. At worst, it's unpredictable, but once you figure out where the sweet spots are in the parameter space, you get a tone like nothing else. A bell that's also a string orchestra. A guitar with a soul of the saxophone, but not mistaken for either; an identity all of its own. Yamaha DX7 heavily leaned into this aspect in instrument's design, via providing additional parameters that controlled the sensitivity of operators to velocity depending on where on the keyboard you are, so that the lower tones would have a different character from higher ones. The "diminished brilliance" the author writes about was likely that — i.e., the author not figuring out how FM sound design works, which they openly admitted. It was matter of taste of whoever made the presets; without programming those curves in, the higher notes can easily sound screeching. The point, again, was that the instrument wasn't merely responsive in a way that analogue synths couldn't dream of, but that the way in which it was responsive, tone-wise, was programmable, and varied not just from patch to patch, but across the scale and velocity range. Again, think about how plucking different strings on a guitar harder produces a different variation in tonal response. Each string has its own character. This is the soul of the mathematical idea of FM synthesis: that the tone evolution should not merely be controlled by time passing (as it is on most analogue synths, via envelope generators and LFO's), and not by knob twiddling (modulation wheels, knobs, sliders, joysticks,...) — but by playing the instrument itself. And on a keyboard, what you really play with is where on the keyboard you strike a key, and how fast. Yamaha DX7 allowed the player to vary the timbre by playing the instrument, with both hands, by having all tone generators depend on these two variables in a programmable, non-linear, interesting way. FM synthesis of Yamaha DX7 therefore can't be separated from the physical keyboard it shipped with. The way the tones felt as you played them were determined by the response curves which simply don't map in the same way to a different keyboard. The fact that the DX7 was a digital synth obscured the fact that it was a very analog instrument in that way; that to get a truly good FM preset, you need to tune it to the keyboard response (i.e. velocity curves), and that involves the analog components. It's also for this reason that DX7 only has membrane buttons, and no knobs or sliders. It didn't need them. The 60 keys were your knobs and sliders, the means to control the tone. That's why the ePiano on the DX-7 was on 60% of the new releases. It didn't merely emulate the Rhodes (which, by all means, wasn't a rare instrument). What it did was it gave keyboard players a way to play with the tone of their instrument while playing the instrument, something the Rhodes would have a more limited range for, as the variation in tone response was constrained by how similar the actual metallic forks that made the sound were to each other, and how similar the hammers are across the octaves — and the digital DX7 didn't have that limitation. It also gave the people used to playing the synth with one hand (to be able to tweak the sound with the other) the freedom to play truly polyphonically, and use the keyboard itself to control the tone dynamics. Playing it was a liberating experience, and it still is, because while intricate multi-sampling can also give you that effect (at no less difficulty, mind you, even if you have the samples!), FM does it differently. The musicians didn't need to be mindful of all that; the absolute majority (Brian Eno expected) were outright oblivious to why and what made DX7 the instrument that you had to have. You just felt it. And yes, new FM synthesizers keep coming. Because emulating acoustic instruments is not just easy with sampling these days, it also isn't enough. You can just hire someone to play the real instrument, after all. You need a bit more than that to craft a distinctive sound — especially a new one. Liven XFM, Korg Opsix, Arturia Minifreak all go boldly where manmade sound didn't go before, and these are just three novel FM synthesizers from this decade. Reface DX came out less than 10 years ago; and its FM engine is different from DX7 (as is the UX — you can finally change the tone while playing it with live controls). And for all the talk of how FM is old, I've yet to see someone not be captivated by the ePiano patch that comes stock on the Reface DX when I let them play it when I bring the instrument around with me on trips (which I often do). Current developments in the controllers (like what ROLI is doing) will allow all the existing sound generation techniques to shine in new ways, including FM. But I think it's the physical package of the keyboard, the algorithm, and the presets tuned to the combination of the two is what made the DX7 such a success. A new FM instrument could easily be a hit with these factors, particularly if they don't skimp on including built-in speakers and making the presets sound great on them. FM truly shines when all the pieces are aligned in a performer's instrument. Reface DX comes close to that point, but the presets it ships with are more of an engine demo than sounds to make music with, the speakers are not loud, and the mini-keys (which I love!) were a turn-off for many people — because in the Internet age, people would judge a machine without actually playing it, and that's the only way to understand what's so damn special about FM synthesis. It's the way you feel when you play it. A sound demo simply won't get that across.

scelerat 2y ago

I heartily recommend the Korg Opsix to anyone who wants to experiment with FM synthesis. As the article mentions, the UI of the DX7 made programming it, modifying existing sounds or coming up with new ones entirely, difficult to say the least. With the Opsix, much of the ability to tweak aspects of the operators, envelopes, LFOs and so on, are given dedicated knobs and sliders, or easily accessible menus whose parameters are tweakable with physical knobs. The hands-on UI of the Opsix turns what once was an ordeal of menu diving and incremental buttons into a much more rewarding, interactive experience. I play one live in a band and use an old Yamaha KX76, the dedicated controller bigger brother to the DX7 as a controller for the Opsix. Best of both worlds. The feel on those old keyboards is superb.

vr46 2y ago
The Opsix looks very straightforward. I bought the Digitone Keys about three years ago and it's a lot of fun, along with having that sequencer and Elektron Interface. It does not appear to have been a successful product, and I do not think it's really possible to use a full instrument, but I have enjoyed using it as a plaything to learn and understand FM synthesis. No doubt there is some creative wizard like Blue Lab Beats who probably uses this and a Digitakt to make whole albums.
BodyCulture 2y ago
For people interested in this product but not sure buying a hardware synth: opsix native is the name for the software only version of it available at the Korg website…
peapicker 2y ago
I have one and agree wholeheartedly. The opsix makes FM fun and relatively easy. Excellent for sound design.

atoav 2y ago

I'd argue the opposite, the DX7 worked great because it came with good presets and you could expand it with those cartriges, although programming your own was annoying as heck. But most people cared about getting the newest sounds and at max tweaking them slightly, which was a pain. But the FM engine was/is immensly powerful and the sounds are to that day extremely iconic. Just as a visualization for the parameters that DX7 hides from its users behind that interface, Matrixsynth made thebDT7 which puts all parameters on knobs and it looks like this: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEDuzORvU79oWmb35BFoTKWBlWygckRkPl30pOvFlCgqJKi5o1OXn0vBwBF6N8RUMMQk1wvLdKBQQgT7i3nHj5mYBXKQJGFwPteVH8Ddp8KhtmVGNfBc0qd3lCzdie8sNS2imGLfNCsjPJtmvD0OUH9Lx894csz_mq4qR-dnXdWaLMUAhRog/s1600/2.webp https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj...

rvense 2y ago

FM/PM synthesis makes no "logical sense"... until you spend the twenty minutes required to understand it. Really people gave up on the DX7 because of the limited interface, somehow FM got the blame. A subtractive synth with a knob for each function is a fantastically intuitive thing, but when it's three buttons and a line of abbrv txt it's not very nice either.

jdietrich 2y ago
FM is inherently more difficult to understand than subtractive, even with a very good interface. It's the double-edged sword of FM - you can create very complex behaviours from a small number of simple operators, which makes FM both uniquely powerful and uniquely difficult to think about intuitively. I can model subtractive and additive patches quite accurately in my head. That's not a brag, it's just not very difficult if you understand the basic principles and you've put in a bit of practice. FM still takes me by surprise after decades of trying to master it.
- nine_k 2y ago
  Subtractive is intelligent design. FM is discovery :)
consf 2y ago
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tiborsaas 2y ago

> He writes like FM went away. Absolutely. The whole genre of dubstep is based on FM synthesis :)

deleted 2y ago

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teilo 2y ago

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.

coldtea 2y ago
>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.
- teilo 2y ago
  I rebuild these things. I know the market.
- alterom 2y ago
  > (so trivial to replicate one to one) Good luck finding a 60-key MIDI controller with velocity-sensitivity and aftertouch for less than $200, and it's without getting into replication (of either the controller or the synth).

consf 2y ago

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mrandish 2y ago

Agreed. It's nice that the TFA is celebrating the DX7 because it was absolutely a seminal synth but it's a pretty uninformed take on FM synthesis. Depending on how you count there's really only a handful of fundamental synthesis approaches used for musical tone generation (subtractive, additive, granular, wavetable and frequency modulation). Most synthesizers being made today just use evolved forms and combinations of these basic techniques. As you said, FM synthesis is one of those fundamental building blocks and it didn't go away. Instead, it went pretty much everywhere - including into the ringtone chips in the vast majority of mobile phones of the early 2000s. Just last month I got a cheap RF doorbell chime for $3 from AliExpress with a dozen different selectable tones and they all have that distinctive FM sound. I was a little surprised that even today FM synthesis remains a cheaper way to generate complex tones than sampled waveforms. The article didn't even explore the fascinating development of FM synthesis which made an unlikely leap from esoteric academic research at Stanford to an incredibly successful product that had global pop culture impact. https://usa.yamaha.com/products/contents/music_production/synth_50th/history/chapter002.html https://usa.yamaha.com/products/contents/music_production/sy...

BodyCulture 2y ago

Digitone II is available since a few weeks and is an excellent choice for exploring FM!