This was really amazing. Can't recall having seen an interview with John Chowning. I will share it in some FB-Groups so more will take notice of your channel and good work.
I was _never_ a fan of Yamaha DX - hearing the presets persistently rinsed on the radio traumatised me as a kid, lol. However, I loved how Korg took FM to another level with MOD7, and with the Opsix, made it so user friendly. This interview was fascinating stuff. Good interview, thanks for sharing.
Well done! This was a great interview. Really cool that you got to speak with John and it was good to hear his words of recollection and wisdom. Oddly enough I've recently been thinking about the physics of spatialisation myself, so it was a nice surprise to see that come up as one of the things that led to his discoveries.
There is another great DX7 interview, with Dave Bristow (who programmed the early sound banks), on RU-vid. It was a fab time... I sold mine to a keyboard rental company in the 1990s, but still have the excellent TX802 (new OLED panel!). Still sounds great.
I had the privilege of visiting CCRMA as part of an AES field trip in the mid 00s, and we were treated to (among other things) an 8(?)-track surround playback of one of Dr. Chowning's FM works that demonstrated spatial sounds in spades. I think all the sounds were early 2-op and it was perhaps unsurprising how familiar the sounds were, given that they pre-dated Yamaha's work on FM. Seems like an Atmos release of these early works by Dr. Chowning might have an audience?
I often hear “before and after the internet” and “before and after the mobile phone”, but “before and after music for loudspeakers” was new to me and is currently blowing my mind a little bit… fantastic interview! 👍
Amazing. This was recommended to me. I have always loved FM. I'm an FM fanatic since I had the YX81z. Whenever I mess with sound programming it's FM. The math is fascinating.
I've been learning FM synthesis on the Yamaha Reface DX, and it's so intuitive on that device that now I can't understand why people say it's difficult. I've tried the same didn't-read-the-manual approach to "traditional" synthesizers, and I couldn't get a single sound going. I had to go read up on VCO and all before I could get anything to happen
I am trying to understand how to predictably create sounds with FM synthesis, so it was interesting to hear John talk about curiosity and surprise. Perhaps more than other sound design methods, FM synthesis is meant to be surprising!
If you just limit it to two operators it is much easier to predict how the the harmonics will increase, but for more complex sounds the surprise is certainly an aspect.
What a legend. I gave John a shout out in my Synth Guide Video a few months back. Very jealous you got this interview, but ultimately happy to hear from the great man! Well done 👊❤
Way back in 1986-ish. I got a chance to go to CCRMA (I lived in Palo Alto) and got to meet Dr. Chowning. Unfortunately, I was a dumb, opinionated little sh*t and complained to him about the DX, and “why couldn’t they have knobs on it?” I still regret it to this day… what a prick I was. My most sincere apologies Dr. Chowning!
What a wonderful video. My first synthesizer was the home keyboard Yamaha PSS480. It was a 2 operator FM synthesizer. So I learnt synthesis by FM rather than the traditional subtractive synthesis. As a result, I 've always found FM synthesis very familiar rather than intimidating.
Still have my DX7IID, love that synth, it has such a unique & versatile sound - I've bought & sold many other synths over the years but the DX7 is a keeper. Thanks for the great & informative video, it's important to capture these stories now.
Dr Chowning is wrong about one thing. The FM synths of Yamaha were not democratization of electronic music. Most musicians did not explore the synthesis capabilities of the DX7 and it's siblings at all. They were more than happy to just use them as very futuristic preset organs. Polyphonic keyboards with hundreds of possible sounds. Keyboardists were more likely to keep scrolling until they found a preset that they liked than try and program them. The sound editing interface was as bad as many early samplers. Sampling is also incredibly powerful, but most keyboardists were content to just use the barking dogs and glass harmonica patches than sample their own. As evinced by the rompler popularity of the late 80s early 90s. That said, I'm a huge fan of FM synthesis. Owned a few 4 OP synths that I programmed with some windows application that is abandonware now. Moved to the Digitone. Which is the best FM synth you can buy. It's intuitive, easy to program and sounds great. But lately I like using analog synth emulators to do FM synths. They have inherent pitch stability that real analogs do not. So they can do linear and exp FM very musically, and very precisely (for the most part). But they have baked in warmth and character since they are emulating 'phat' analog synths. So you get interesting results.
They used fm synthesis for sega genesis soundtracks very great sounds. I know many keyboards and drum machines from the 80s and 90s when you mix them it gets spicy.
Fantastic that you conducted this interview with Dr. Chowning, and I have to congratulate you on the quality of your background research and b-roll footage. Fascinating that he describes it as a "discovery," when the mathematics behind the phenomenon was widely known in radio and acoustics. For more homework, look up Bessel functions to see how they all tie together
What a pleasure to see that John Chowning is still with us. He influenced my early life in both career choices and personal development in the electronic music field. His work has influenced generations of technical and non-technical folks, musicians and amateurs alike. His really is a lasting legacy. Bravo on the interview.
Great interview, but the explanation of the Doppler effect is a bit strange… I might be mistaken but… imho…The pitch is higher when it’s approaching because the wave is being compressed. It’s lower when it’s getting further away because the wave is having to travel further to reach you, so is stretched. It’s not about amplitude or knowing how close something is… is it? I’m sure someone will correct me :)
