Yeah right, I tried first DX9 for 1 week (the lite version of DX7).
After that, a bunch of years later, I purchased the SY99, I thought I would create hundreds of presets but it was so fck difficult that at the end I just used presets with small editing in fxs.

 

4 Moog Voyagers, 1 Taurus III, doubles of every Moogerfooger pedal & triple of Freqbox, 8 Little Phattys, 1 Sub Phatty, 1 Moog Source & 1 Poly Evolver. Not a huge collection, but it was fun for a few years. Around the time Uhe Repro came out I honestly started enjoying the analog emulations as much as playing the real things… I’ve since sold every analog synth I’ve ever owned.

 

The DX7 was very difficult to program, and many people still do not really understand FM synthesis well enough to program good patches. Also, in 1980s there was no youtube, or many more people would have learned by sharing patches and information more freely.

But to say the DX7 "failed" because of this, is simply an incorrect statement. They sold 200,000 of them during the first 3 years they made them. In today's dollars, they would cost over $6,000. That wouldn't make it only one of the most expensive digital synths; it would include many currently produced analog synths as well. This kind of example frequently neglects the fact that any recordings from most early digital synths are recordings of an analog signal, as they had no digital outputs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamaha_DX7

All these clickbait videos just make money for Youtube.

 

What i meant by "failed" is in the long run : who was programming NEW sounds on it ?
But it is the same with a lot of FM synthesis (too complex for most ppl and implementations).

DX7 is a pure commercial success.

How many records with DX7 ?
" in 1986, it was used in 40% of the number-one singles on the US Billboard Hot 100"

But DX ended fast : 1983 to 1987
4 years compared to the Virus serie : 1997-2024

27 years

 

I don't own any hardware digital synths, but is there a way to control and quickly change the program settings on those or other compatible synths with some sort of software + a connection to a computer? Possible with any Yamaha or other brand?

Great for making your hardware more into a vst when doing sound designing. Some interfaces definitely make certain tasks more difficult, unless you take the time to learn the workflow of the machine.

 

You can get third party editors/librarian software for some synths, like from Sigabort. They are usually pretty expensive, often about 100$ or so. The ones which are any good are usually specific to one synth. Sometimes they work ok for a few models which are basically the same synth. There is probably something like CTRL available for the DX7's now, and sometimes a derivative emulation plugin can be used to create patches which can then be used with the hardware versions.

Usually those synths handle patch transfers like this by using SySex System Exclusive data. That data can be transferred back and forth with a librarian via Midi. Newer synths may have USB port, but for the most part it is done over 5-pin Midi DIN cables connected to the computer via a midi interface.

The older synths are often a pain to do that with also. Midi implementation has become more standardized, but it could be said it was "a work in progress". That was some pretty "high-tech" stuff at the time. Some programs like SoundQuest Midi Quest still suck to use with certain models, but are ok with others. The DX7 was not a problem due to all the menu diving for many people. It was because FM (Frequency Modulation) synthesis was a completely new thing for people to learn. All you have to do is look for DX7 patches online, and you will see many people learned it and made cool sounds. But the DX7 was very difficult for them, and it sounded great anyway; so that was a good recipe for many people to throw their hands up in frustration and just tweak some presets.

 

While I think TouchOSC is an awesome tool, I still prefer to have in some case real knobs and pads.
Think of DJing, having a tactile feel can work better even in dark environments without keeping the eye on the console.
I tried with Jog-On 2 for Traktor and while very detailed I couldn't get used to it.

Indeed working on small LCD displays to edit sounds was difficult, but not that much after all (at least on SY99).
Specific for SY99 there is Yamaha SY99 Editor Librarian that allows to edit sounds in real time on PC or Mac.

There are for sure other tools, but for me of no practical use, considering that I freezed/sold all my hw analog/digital synths/modules long ago (I basically did as Mark did).

 

I found some additional information and tools as well to add to the archive:

SY Manager Editor And Librarian (SYM5) (SY77, SY99 and the TG77 rack-mount synthesisers)
https://fm-alivedev.com/Pages/SYM.aspx
DX Manager Editor And Librarian (DXM5)
https://fm-alivedev.com/Pages/DXM.aspx
XY Manager Editor And Librarian (Supports SY & DX & More)
https://fm-alivedev.com/pages/XYM.aspx

I think I have seen the XY Manager in a certain place.

Extra resource for Yamaha synths:
http://www.synthzone.com/yamaha.htm
Homepage:
http://www.synthzone.com/

 

This video is so dumb and extremely biased.
This guy literally works for Cherry Audio. His "paper" is just a short blog post on Cherry Audio's blog... He is also the designer for Cherry Audio GX-80 and modules for Voltage Modular.

GX-80 sounds nothing like CS-80, in fact it sounds worse than Memorymoon while being 100x more CPU-intensive. You're supposed to be able to press the Brass preset and instantly sound like Vangelis (with a little reverb), but the Brass preset is offensively inaccurate in GX-80.

The truth is that we are very far from achieving highly-accurate simulations of analog synths. Most of what we have now are cheap approximations. And Cherry Audio's are among some of the cheapest attempts, which is why they're able to churn out plugins as often as they do.

You can slap alias-free oscillators and a zero-delay filter onto anything, claim it emulates a famous synth, and many people will believe you and give you money, merely because it sounds "good enough".

But many people still like the sound of 1995's Nord Lead, which is a purely digital virtual analog synth.. which neither uses alias-free oscillators nor zero-delay filters.

I agree that digital synthesis is great - far more convenient, reliable, and affordable. But my concern is not "analog vs digital", it's stagnation of progress due to profit motives.

It's easy for the public to be misled into thinking things cannot get better for them. This is a universal truth. If you can convince others to require less from you, while maximizing your net gain, why not take advantage? Why do you think Cherry Audio plugins are so cheap?

We can be told that analog synths themselves can often sound different between individual units, this is true, but this fact can be abused to convince us that this makes it impossible or impractical to truly recreate analog synths accurately. If enough people believe this without question, it reduces the incentive for the industry to innovate.

But the truth is, achieving a high level of accuracy is possible. It's just difficult, expensive to research & develop, and inevitably requires significantly more computational power than traditional synthesis methods.

The problem is, there's no expectation or pressure from the market to provide accuracy at all costs. Instead, everyone is happy if its "good enough", and if it "uses less CPU". Bad actors can corner the market with inferior products, choking out any actual innovators.

And there's no accountability, developers don't need to back their claims up with evidence. And few end-users know how to measure a plugin's accuracy outside of subjective listening tests.

People should not be giving money to companies like Cherry Audio who are grifters that do the absolute bare minimum in terms of R&D, allowing them to churn out low-quality plugins and out-compete all other companies that may actually be interested in furthering accuracy.

Cherry Audio saying its "ok" to be inaccurate and that listeners won't care, do a disservice to the act of preservation itself, which should be the absolute end-goal. All these synthesizers will never be manufactured again, so the goal should be to preserve it as accurately as possible, not merely attempt to convince people that we should stop at cheap approximations.

 

Last edited: Mar 28, 2024