5 DX7 Myths On a Vintage 1984 Yamaha DX7 

Great Demo, I'm watching because I've got my DX apart rebuilding and upgrading it. I have the DX7 II-FD and paid $400 for it in 2013. It has real buttons, not membrane buttons, and many other things lacking in the basic DX7. I'll be keeping mine until I'm gone from this world. The funny thing is that I was trying to sell it for what I paid for it for a few years and got lucky that it just didn't sell. Since then I have used Dexed and the DX7 in Arturia's V-Collection. I've programmed my own sounds for my DX7 II-FD using Dexed a free VST and have realized nothing comes even close to having a real DX7. On a side note, I would recommend Arturia's Analog Lab, or V-Collection to anyone wanting to learn about vintage synths. It's a cheap way of testing out many very pricy vintage synths before buying the hardware. Peace.

Great video! I love the DX7 so much!

I just bought a DX7 a few weeks ago. It is such a deep machine and has so much to give. Like you said, it is still relevant to this day (almost 40 years later). It's like the human brain. Mysterious but always full of cool secrets and all kinds of turns and doors to be opened. Amazing machine. I will never part with mine. It is my child hood dream synth. I was 11 when it came out.

Always loved the DX's. They're tons of fun to program and they sound HUGE live. I got one back when analog synths were starting to come back into fashion, and nobody wanted digital keyboards, so it was cheap!

Cool sounds! I need to dig a bit deeper into my DX7

Great video. What can't be disputed about the DX7 is that its output signal was noisy (a very noticeable white/pink noise hiss) even at moderate volume levels. This is due to the multiplexing the single Operator chip over a million times a second and using a Digital to Analog converter that has a dynamic range scaler output that is changing at nearly the same rate. I have found a simple adjustment that takes only a few minutes to reduce the noise and not lose any high end from the output. I have a DX7 Noise Reduction video on it on my channel.

Great explanation, there are a lot of dx7 tutorials on YT but they really don't explain the system as clearly as u have done here. There's a real art to cutting through to the bare bones of something so complex and making it so easily comprehensible to a newbie like me. It's my 1st day with my dx7 🥳🥳🥳 Thanks for sharing 🙏🏾

I bought my DX7 new on 5-9-86 from Zapf’s Music in Philly. Price was $1583.50, which seemed like a fortune at the time. But it was THE synth to have. It was on everything.

You got a solid deal for what you paid for your DX7 and what you got! I got an SY77, in 2020 for $150 and it just needed the floppy drive repaired. Shoot, a new, hard shell case for my SY77 is like $350 (fits DX7s too) and to get most of the cards, would be another couple hundred on top of that. I made the mistake of factory resetting my SY77 and there were a lot of perimeters that had been customized and some renamed sounds. I did not realize that and now a good number of the sounds have changed, not necessarily a bad thing as it's not broken or anything, most notably the Humbucker patch doesn't sound right, anymore, and I think I recall it being 1 AWM + 1 AWM and now it's AWM Poly...it used to sound like a midi humbucker tone, like the distorted guitar midi sound from Mega Man X for SNES. I knew some things would change, so now it's time to study the programming manual and the SY programming book by Herbert Janssen (originally published in 1995), so I can build some new sounds! That book, btw, covers nearly everything relating to FM synth and even has a chapter on DX to SY conversion. I'd love to get a DX7 someday, maybe the DX7 ii S...whichever one had the physical button upgrade. I'm not a huge fan of soft touch buttons that the original DX7 had but I'd get that one, if I ever had the chance and the price was good. Great demo, I learned a bunch of stuff that I did not know.

Great explanation of hacking existing presets to see how they work! I have been learning this programming since I acquiring two DC7’s this past year to use for creating sound packs for Akai MPC. I am just starting to release my soundpacks made from these and dozens of other synths.

I just bought an original DX7 on Ebay a few days ago. As a kid I had always wanted one. The DX7 is a legend. I can't wait to get it and start programming it. Closest I got to programming a DX7 is when I had my DX27 and TX81Z

The model in the video is of the 1983 variant, but it is a real legend of a synthesizer. Beautiful sounds can be produced with this unique FM hardware.

I got mine last winter. I love that thing. I have a TX7 module that I pair with it. You can get a pseudo chorus effect when you program them right.

Not sure if one can call a sound build from a branched algorithm a Layer sound...

I'm an old RTFM computer guy. that means that i look into the manual if i get stuck or nowaday with PDF manuals available i read them even before buy to find shortcomings in advance. is there a possibility that the myth of the DX7 being difficult comes from the predisposition of many folks NOT reading any instruction at any time? (i got me a Korg Opsix FM synth. Relatively DX7-compatible but many great departures from it.)

I have never heard any of those things- usually the opposites. But then the people I know who talk about DXs are synthheads. Quite a lot of those people make their own sounds and share them in the community.

If you have a dx7 try playing it from a controller keyboard. The experience can be quite a revelation. The built in keyboard doesn't generate the full range of MIDI note velocity so when played from a controller the sounds become more dynamic and you can push them to new places at higher note velocities.

Lovely synth. I have one and will never sell it!. And I have a Montage also, but the DX7 is the real thing

The sound cartridges (and the voices in memory out of the box - also from a sound cartridge) were designed for musicians as a starting point to make their own sounds. I heard that the Yamaha engineers were only given 10 days (back around 1983) when the DX7 first came out to develop the voices for 4 cartridges. 2 for Europe, 2 for the US. Each cartridge holds two banks of 32 voices (patches/programs). That is 256 patches total, or over 25 voices a day! For an 8 hour day, that is one voice less than every 20 minutes - from scratch. They simply didn't have time for many elegant patches, just enough for people to use it out of the box and not just put out a sine wave (a perfect flute with no overtones).

This is great! I am struggling to save my presets at the moment, could you show us how you save your preset in your internal memory once you've designed a preset you like? Thanks!

Could you do a tutorial on how to do the split keyboard myth? Not using the cartidges with the already set patches, but like actually programming it?

I knew what the last myth was going to be right away. I hear the "impossible to program" myth not just with the DX7, but extending to FM synthesis in general. Even with very simple interfaces like the DX-Reface and MegaFM or softsynths like FM8 or DEXED, FM synthesis still can't shake the image of being difficult. If you hear someone these day say FM synthesis is difficult, 90% of the time it's an armchair expert who's never actually tried it.

Love the DX7 ❤️

Bells and whistles.Cannot imagine what genre of song youd use that

Cool video! Whats the name of the classical piece you play at 3.30?

Don't fall for Ebay or Reverb prices, what people ask is far different than reality. I regularly see these for $400 and under. I paid $260 for mine and it's in really good condition. Craigslist is your friend.

I think the owners manual probably caused a lot of the “it’s impossible to program” myth. I have the mk ll and as a retired graphic designer l was really thinking of re-releasing my own version but not something l want to do now.

I think what a lot of people would like to know is, do you still need a DX7 if you have a Montage or MODX? How about a video on that? I had a TX-7 (DX-7 table top) and don't miss it in the least with the MODX. I was able to load in all the DX-7 patches I previously used into the MODX. They sound the same to me. But a couple people say no. What is your opinion?

After a while, you get faster at programing the DX7 but, the best way to program a DX7, especially back in the day, was to use the MidiQuest Editor/Librarian. MidiQuest is still being sold and is good for just about any synth you own. It's well worth using if you have a bunch of different keyboards. No matter how well you know a keyboard and how fast you are at navigating menus, you'll never compete with a visual representation of all the parameters laid out in front of you with the ability to use a mouse for a keyboard that has limited data sliders or only has 1 like the DX7 does. Today, you have a free option If you don't have a bunch of keyboards and only need something to program the DX7, use the free program Dexed. You can think of it like MIDIQuest but with an audio engine as a bonus. It's like having a 2nd DX7.

Muito bom o vídeo! Sou programador de DX7 e gostei de seu video.

I have a stock DX7 II FD.

I got my mk1 dx7 in the 200 euro era and that is the best money ever spend, they are masively under rated and under priced to this day. They are build like tank and nearly 40 years old people stil get totaly new sounds out of them.

Anyone here ever heard of Kurzweil & V.A.S.T. ? DX7 is great & all but it can't hold a candle to them pair FM with those things (plus KDFX) and u really got something truly infinite folks.

Can you explain why the cartridges are numbered the way they are?

Anyone saying the DX7 is impossible to program is like 30 years late to do that claim

What about the myth that the DX7 uses true frequency modulation? (It uses quadrature modulation, although the result is the same if the waveforms are sine waves.

❤

DX7's are dirt cheap dumpster dives compared to analog icons like the Minimoog Model D, Juno-106, Jupiter 8 and Prophet 5 which usually start around $5,000. I got my DX7 in 2008 for $300. I just bought a Hypersynth Hcard-701 (equal to 400 memory cards) for $199, almost the value of the synth itself.

I had 2 of those ! no more ! one i gave to a friend s kid and the other one i laft behind in Edmonton AB but it s ok i just bought my friend s Korg BX3 1979 ! best Analog clone wheel organ that came after Hammond B3 quit production in 1975 ! 🤓

The DX7 was actually released in 1983

Anyone who says this is impossible to program has never done an honest day's work of programming a digital synth. Jokes aside, lots of people don't get along with digital synth programming, but impossible? Nah.

J aurais aimé avoir ça en français

The Yamaha DX7 got made in 1983 and released in 1983-1990.

Number 5 4 and 3 is all programming tricks. If you take these as actual features of the instruments, no it's not possible. The "feature" to split or layer the keyboard like how you define these functions is not in the machine, or add effects as there isn't a built in effect processor. I would call these "Myth's" busted of yours a cheat sheat how to make it seam it is actual possible. I'ts not the same to use one or more of the carriers to make different sounds and put a keyscaling on them to create the effect of splitting or layering sounds, as you don't have the full amount of the operators available to each sound to make each sound as "big" as possible. The FM synthese is ground breaking for the time it was released, and if we have had the power of a 2021 computer chip back then you could have made computer models to imitate real instruments quite well for a synthesizer, if people had the money to buy a TX816 and a computer of the size of a warehouse back then would be crunching numbers for weeks just to make 1 realistic sounding sound like the 8 part Piano sound of the TX816. FM is kind of the mother of all Physical modelling. As for a general synth of the 1984, I still find the DX7 "interesting" with some really nice sounds, but generally "thin" sounding ootb without a chorus/Flanger box and reverb unit. There were really many other analog and hybrid Digital/analog filter synths that sounds way bigger then a single DX7 even you add a chorus pedal to it. That doesn't change that it still is one of the most iconic synths ever tho. One synth especiall that got totally missed by most people, cause the DX7 stole all the hype was the Korg DW8000 wich really is a gem as it as one of the first synths had build in delay/chorus and its analog filtering make it a perfect synth that could produce bell like voices almost as good as the DX7 but had a much bigger "sound" and was able to go toe to toe with both Oberheim and the mighty Jupiter 8 in those phat analog strings and brass sounds

The DX7 SUCKS 1-It’s digital cold and brittle 2-It’s old outdated technology 3-Can’t compare to new synths 4-It’s an ugly old brown keyboard 5-It doesn’t do analog 6-It’s too heavy 7-It has no real pianos 8-Sounds like a cheesy 80’s Casio 9-It’s too limited 10-Only 32 sounds 11-No sequencer 12-No arpeggiator 13-Not a real Rhodes like the Fender 14-It’s overused 80’s crap 15-The Roland D-50 killed it 16-The Korg M1 killed it So they say....... But I will NEVER EVER TRADE OR SELL MY YAMAHA DX7 as there’s nothing else like it

i am especially not subscribing because of that abomination of a "subscribe" clip at the beginning

Va voir un psychologue on n est pas pas la pour faire ya psychanalise.Tu napporte rien et tu nous fais perdre notre temps. Si tu t ennuis parle avec ton poisson rouge. INSIPIDE.