The DX7 can lay claim to being one of the most important advances in the history of modern popular music. Perhaps not since Leo Fender attached a pick-up to a six-string in 1949
Statements like this are, exaggerated, to say the least. While the DX7 is undoubtedly prolific in 80s pop, it was just a synth that was successful for its price point (and timing!) as called out in the article. Case in point that today, nearly all the major manufacturers are building re-issues and the most coveted are those the analog counterparts of the Dx-7 (the sequential prophets, Oberheims, ARP...). FM has no way succeeded the typical subtractive synthesis of the analog machines.
source: I write 80s influenced music and collect synths
The DX series is having a bit of a revival: Yamaha's Reface, Korg's Volca, and a few others. The DX are also in demand again: not so long ago I bought a TX7 for around $75, now they sell for $350. The DX100/DX27 is also desired by quite a few, it seems.
There are multiple reasons, I think:
- analog got popular again because bands started using it again when the prices dropped (due to digital tech, of course)
- classic synths are vulnerable, making them decent investement objects, thus pushing the price, and making them more coveted than they deserve
- that left only cheap digital synths for players bands without money, much like the 303, 808 and 909 back in the day (speaking of synths that changed music...)
- which makes them desirable for the trend-followers, like analog 10 years ago.
- the DX series fits better in modern music than something like the early Roland romplers with their super-cheesy sound.
How do you get good bells and brass or as punchy bass sounds from subtractive-only synthesis?
"According to Dave Smith, founder of the synthesizer company Sequential, 'The synthesizer market was tiny in the late 70s. No one was selling 50,000 of these things. It wasn't until the Yamaha DX7 came out that a company shipped 100,000-plus synths'"
> How do you get good bells and brass or as punchy bass sounds from subtractive-only synthesis?
Quick answer: modulation (primarily oscillator modulation but also filter and amplitude modulation.)
Analog brass is great already, but for metallic (or sometimes woody) sounds oscillator sync, cross modulation and/or analog FM, and ring modulation are your friends.
You can also get some pretty jarring sounds out of pulse width modulation, some tinkly bells out of sine and triangle waves, and "punchy" basses out of square and sawtooth waves. I hear a lot of pretty raw sawtooth-derived basslines and leads. Stacked waves of different shapes can also be interesting.
It also depends on your oscillators. Many subtractive synths will feature analog filters attached to flexible oscillators that can generate waves other than classic waveforms.
Are there any reasons to use a full synth these days? I'm not a musician but I've been dabbling in digital audio on and off and I really like the sound quality of sampled instruments especially for Piano. I haven't used the original DX7 only a VST (Dexed) for it.
Physical synths are great because they have knobs and are great for real time tweaking along with playing. Also, some people enjoy some of the "special sauce" that analog synths have due to their imperfect nature.
...with that said: the DX7 is digital, and its UI/UX sucks. It has only buttons and menus, so no realtime control, and it's a bit unpleasant to use IMO. There used to be an external programmer unit with knobs but I never saw one in the flesh.
So, your VST is light-years better in terms of both UI/UX and sound due to better anti-aliasing filters and probably new features. Another good option if you enjoy the DX7 sound is the Native Instruments FM7.
If you want to experiment with a real analog synth may I suggest something in the subtractive synthesis family? Something Moog-ish is a great start! Behringer makes some very affordable ones!
I much prefer using the Dexed VST software based synth for recording over a DX7. The sound is hard to tell apart, the DX 7 doesn’t have a good surface for programming, has a crappy midi implementation, and doesn’t integrate into a DAW as well as a plugin. Since the DX7 is digital anyway, you also don’t loose much real or perceived “analog warmth”.
Disclosure/shameless self-brag: I wrote the original synthesizer engine that became Dexed, though the team has moved it forward in lots of important ways. I did careful reverse engineering of an actual DX7 II, including disassembling its ROM, so the fact that it matches well should not be surprising.
You deserve a lot of praise for your engine! And the reverse engineering leading to full patch compatibility is one of the real gems about Dexed. And therefore it becoming arguably the unofficial official editor and librarian software for the DX7.
I hope you got some satisfaction out of the fact that 2020 seemed to be a real renaissance year for Dexed. It’s been at or near the top of every list of free plugins I’ve seen or watched, so your work from a long time ago keeps bearing lots of musical fruit!
Computers still can’t handle the style of complex analog FM synthesis that people do with “eurorack” style modular synthesizers. You can approach it with software like https://vcvrack.com, but it will start to stutter out quickly even on a fast computer, and introduces artifacts if you are modulating with high frequencies.
Well, VCV rack is far from the definitive solution here. There are commercial alternatives like Reaktor which are much more powerful. Reaktor is powerful to a fault, you might say, but if you are running into limitations with VCV Rack then something like Reaktor is the obvious upgrade.
As an analogy, if VCV Rack is like a Unix shell that lets you pipe programs, then Reaktor is like a C compiler.
Or Bitwig where you can integrate your physical Eurorack modules or other voltage controlled analog synths and build any synth or effects unit you want from small building blocks with Grid.
Statements like this are, exaggerated, to say the least. While the DX7 is undoubtedly prolific in 80s pop, it was just a synth that was successful for its price point (and timing!) as called out in the article. Case in point that today, nearly all the major manufacturers are building re-issues and the most coveted are those the analog counterparts of the Dx-7 (the sequential prophets, Oberheims, ARP...). FM has no way succeeded the typical subtractive synthesis of the analog machines.
source: I write 80s influenced music and collect synths