MIDI in/out/thru, input for foot controller x2, input for foot switch x2, input for optional breath controller
The Yamaha DX7 is a synthesizer introduced by Yamaha Corporation in 1983. It was the first successful digital synthesizer and is one of the best-selling synthesizers in history, selling more than 200,000 units.
With its complex menus and lack of conventional controls, few learned to program the DX7 in depth. However, its preset sounds became staples of 1980s pop music; in 1986, it was used in 40% of the number-one singles on the US Billboard Hot 100. Its electric piano sound was particularly widely used, especially in power ballads. The English musician Brian Eno was proficient at programming his own sounds, and it was instrumental to his work in ambient music. Chips based on the DX7 sound chip, such as the YM2612, were used in technologies such as the Sega Genesis game console.
The DX7 was succeeded by FM synthesizers including the DX1, DX21, DX27 and DX100. In later years, its sounds came to be seen as dated or clichéd and its use declined. In 2015, Yamaha released a smaller FM synthesizer, the Reface DX.
Development
By the mid-20th century, frequency modulation (FM), a means of carrying sound, had been understood for decades and was widely used to broadcast radio transmissions.[2] In the 1960s, at Stanford University, California, John Chowning developed FM synthesis, a means of using FM to generate sounds that differed from subtractive synthesis. In 1971, to demonstrate its commercial potential, Chowning used FM to emulate acoustic sounds such as organs and brass. Stanford patented the technology and hoped to license it, but was turned down by American companies including Hammond and Wurlitzer.[3] Chowning felt their engineers did not understand FM.[4]
At the time, the Japanese company Yamaha was the world's largest manufacturer of musical instruments but had little market share in the United States.[4] One of their chief engineers visited Stanford to view the technology. According to Chowning, "In ten minutes he understood ... I guess Yamaha had already been working in the digital domain, so he knew exactly what I was saying."[4] Yamaha licensed the technology for one year to determine its commercial viability, and in 1973 its organ division began developing a prototype FM monophonic synthesizer, assisted by Chowning.[3][5] In 1975, Yamaha negotiated exclusive rights for the technology.[3]
Ikutaro Kakehashi, the founder of the Japanese company Roland, was also interested, but met Chowning six months after Yamaha had agreed to the deal. Kakehashi later said Yamaha were the natural partners in the venture, as they had the resources to make FM synthesis commercially viable.[2]
John Chowning, who developed the frequency modulation technology used in the DX7
Yamaha created the first hardware implementation of FM synthesis.[4] The first commercial FM synthesizer was the Yamaha GS1, released in 1980,[6] which was expensive to manufacture due to its integrated circuit chips.[4] At the same time, Yamaha was developing the means to manufacture very-large-scale integration chips. These allowed the DX7 to use only two chips, compared to the GS1's 50.[4] Yamaha also altered the implementation of the FM algorithms in the DX7 for efficiency and speed, producing a sampling rate higher than Stanford's synthesizers. Chowning felt this produced a noticeable "brilliant" sound.[4]
Yamaha displayed a prototype of the DX7 in 1982, branded the CSDX in reference to the Yamaha CS range of analog synthesizers.[7] In late 1982, Dave Bristow and Gary Leuenberger, experts on the Yamaha CS-80, flew to Japan to develop the DX7's voices. They had less than four days to create the DX7's 128 preset patches.[8] The DX7 was released in 1983.[9]
Features
The settings buttons include controls for effects such as portamento.
Compared to the "warm" and "fuzzy" sounds of analog synthesizers, the DX7 sounds "harsh", "glassy" and "chilly",[10] with a richer, brighter sound.[11] Its presets constitute "struck" and "plucked" sounds with complex transients.[11] Its keyboard has five octaves,[8] and the keyboard expression allows for velocity sensitivity and aftertouch.[8] The DX7 has 16-note polyphony, meaning 16 notes can sound simultaneously. It has 32 sound-generating algorithms,[1] each a different arrangement of its six sine wave operators.[11] The DX7 was the first synthesizer with a liquid-crystal display and the first to allow users to name patches.[8] Its cartridge slot allows users to share patches.[5]
Sales
The DX7 was the first commercially successful digital synthesizer.[12][13][14] According to Bristow, Yamaha had hoped to sell more than 20,000 units. Within a year, orders exceeded 150,000 units,[8] and Yamaha sold 200,000 in three years.[15] It remains one of the bestselling synthesizers.[13][16]
The DX7 was the first synthesizer to sell more than 100,000 units.[8] Yamaha manufactured units on a scale American competitors could not match; by comparison, the American company Moog sold 12,000 Minimoog synthesizers in 11 years, and could not meet demand.[15] The FM patent was for years one of Stanford's highest earning.[17] Chowning received royalties for all of Yamaha's FM synthesizers.[3]
According to Dave Smith, the founder of the American synthesizer company Sequential, the synthesizer industry was "tiny" in the 1970s, which changed with the DX7.[18] Smith said it sold well as it was reasonably priced, had keyboard expression and 16 voices, and was better at emulating acoustic sounds than competing products.[18] Chowning credited the success to the combination of his FM patent with Yamaha's chip technology.[4]
Impact
At the time of release, the DX7 was the first digital synthesizer most musicians had used.[10] It differed from the analog synthesizers that had dominated the market; according to MusicRadar, its "spiky" and "crystalline" sounds made it "the perfect antidote to a decade of analog waveforms".[19] It was praised for its accuracy in reproducing tubular bells, metallophones and the harpsichord, and took over the electric piano market.[20][21]
With complex submenus displayed on an LCD and no knobs and sliders to adjust the sound, many found the DX7 difficult to program.[22]MusicRadar described its interface as "nearly impenetrable", with "operators, algorithms and unusual envelopes ... accessed through tedious menus and a diminutive display".[19] Rather than create their own sounds, most users used the presets.[10]
A few musicians skilled at programming the DX7 found employment creating sounds for other acts.[29] The English musician Brian Eno learned to program the DX7 in depth and used it to create ambient music on his 1983 album Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks.[10] He shared instructions for recreating his patches in a 1987 issue of Keyboard.[22] Eno used the DX7 on records he produced by U2 and Coldplay.[10] In later years, the DX7 sounds came to be seen as dated or clichéd, and interest in FM synthesis declined, with second-hand digital synthesizers selling for less than analog.[10] The development of software synthesizers such as Native Instruments FM8 led to a resurgence in the popularity of FM synthesis.[30]
Successors
In the mid-1980s, Yamaha released numerous cheaper FM synthesizers.[7] A desktop module version, the TX7, was released in 1985.[7] In 1987, Yamaha released the DX7II, which did not match the success of the DX7.[8] Further successors included the TX81Z, DX1, DX11, and DX21.[7] Yamaha manufactured reduced versions of the DX7 sound chip, such as the YM2612, for use in technologies such as the Sega Genesis game console.[31] In 2015, Yamaha released a smaller FM synthesizer, the Reface DX.[32]
References
12"Chapter 2: FM Tone Generators and the Dawn of Home Music Production". History, Yamaha Synth 40th Anniversary. Yamaha Corporation. 2014. Archived from the original on October 23, 2014. At that time, a number of Yamaha departments were developing different instruments in parallel, ... the direct forerunner of the DX Series synths was a test model known as the Programmable Algorithm Music Synthesizer (PAMS). In recognition of this fact, the DX7 is identified as a Digital Programmable Algorithm Synthesizer on its top panel. / As its name suggests, the PAMS created sound based on various calculation algorithms—namely, phase modulation, amplitude modulation, additive synthesis, and frequency modulation (FM)—and from the very start, the prototype supported the storing of programs in memory. However, this high level of freedom in sound design came at the price of a huge increase in the number of parameters required, meaning that the PAMS was not yet suitable for commercialization as an instrument that the average user could program. / In order to resolve this issue, the Yamaha developers decided to simplify the synth's tone generator design by having the modulator and carrier envelope generators share common parameters. They also reduced the number of algorithms—or operator combination patterns—to 32.
↑
Edmondson, Jacqueline, ed. (2013). Music in American Life: An Encyclopedia of the Songs, Styles, Stars, and Stories that Shaped our Culture [4 volumes]. ABC-CLIO. p.398. ISBN9780313393488. In 1967, John Chowning, at Stanford University, accidentally discovered frequency modulation (FM) synthesis when experimenting with extreme vibrato effects in MUSIC-V. ... By 1971 he was able to use FM synthesis to synthesizer musical instrument sounds, and this technique was later used to create the Yamaha DX synthesizer, the first commercially successful digital synthesizer, in the early 1980s.
12
Shepard, Brian K. (2013). Refining Sound: A Practical Guide to Synthesis and Synthesizers. Oxford University Press. ISBN9780199376681. The first digital synthesizer to make it into the studios of everyone else, the Yamaha DX7, became one of the most commercially successful synthesizers of all time.
↑Verderosa, Tony (2002). The Techno Primer: The Essential Reference for Loop-based Music Styles. Hal Leonard Corporation. p.120. ISBN978-0-634-01788-9.
USExpired 4554857A,Tetsuo Nishimoto,"Electronic musical instrument capable of varying a tone synthesis operation algorithm",issued November 26, 1985, assigned to Yamaha
