Moat famous songs with DX7 e-piano

[RABid]

Just off the top of my head.

 

'Next time I fall in love' Peter Cetera and Amy Grant

'Best for Last' Vanessa Williams

'Hard habit to break' Chicago

'Saving all my love for you' Whitney Houston

'One more night' Phil Collins

'The finer things' Steve Winwood

'Sweetest Taboo' Sade

 

If you are my age, this should trigger a slew of additional songs.

 

I played a lot of those songs back in the 80's. One More Night is the song that finally pushed me to get my own DX7. Great keyboard, if you didn't mind the thin sound. Always in tune, which was a nice change from the analog Moogs I was playing on stage.

[konaboy]

i might just have enough material here for a video, but not too late for more suggests, thanks!

[ABECK]

Probably my fav example of an FM EP (It helps that it is a fantastic composition). This is the less bell-like variation of the patch. It's likely Patrick Leonard used a TX816, but possible it was straight up DX.

 

[video:youtube]

[Outkaster]

Not sure if this counts. It sounds like David Foster was playing two different keyboard tracks? This might be a CP80 on here also?

 

[video:youtube]

[Stokely]

I've blocked that sound out of my memory and history, there are no songs that use it.

 

Seriously, the only one I actually remember playing that used it was "Carrie" by Europe, which probably comes to nobody's mind as an iconic tune. My main keyboard at the time was the (analog) JX-10, I used it for "piano", "organ" and "electric piano" along with synths of course (in quotes because only vaguely did it resemble those things).

 

I think my current keyboards have patches for it (certainly the MODX would) but I have yet to try them. I scared myself by pulling up a patch called "80s stack" recently--you know that stack, a pad/piano/dx7 type thing combined--I may need to go talk to someone. I jest of course.

[area51recording]

Every keyboard I've owned as far back as I can remember seems to have both a "DX7 E. Piano" and a "Jump" preset. The buttons for both those presets on ALL of those keyboards are still in completely pristine condition.....factory new, if you will......

[ABECK]

Every keyboard I've owned as far back as I can remember seems to have both a "DX7 E. Piano" and a "Jump" preset. The buttons for both those presets on ALL of those keyboards are still in completely pristine condition.....factory new, if you will......

It's amazing how many boards have a bad Jump preset. I mean....2 sawtooth waves, slightly detune, add reverb, done. But wow - I've heard some crazy interpretations.

[area51recording]

Every keyboard I've owned as far back as I can remember seems to have both a "DX7 E. Piano" and a "Jump" preset. The buttons for both those presets on ALL of those keyboards are still in completely pristine condition.....factory new, if you will......

It's amazing how many boards have a bad Jump preset. I mean....2 sawtooth waves, slightly detune, add reverb, done. But wow - I've heard some crazy interpretations.

 

I actually got out of the 80's (and 90's and on and on) unscathed....never played in a band that did the tune. Don't know how I managed that.....

[ABECK]

While I love the tune and the sound, and it was one of the first things I learned to play, I wouldn't even consider playing it in a band. The performance has a very delicate balance - if one thing is off, it could enter wedding band territory really fast.

[Threadslayer]

I actually got out of the 80's (and 90's and on and on) unscathed....never played in a band that did the tune. Don't know how I managed that.....

I quit gigging full time for a living just as that song was becoming mandatory for all club gigs. Whew! In fact the guy who replaced me auditioned with that tune - on a keytar! Double Whew!!

I never had to learn it and don't regret it in the slightest.

[Stokely]

Jump has some tricky parts to it timing-wise (not so much the keyboards, the whole band).

 

Current band only plays a couple of older VH tunes...You really got me (I add piano to make it a mix of VH with the Kinks), Ain't Talkin about love. I used to do Ice cream man in an old band, that's a lot of fun.

 

Anyway, while I love a lot of FM sounds, the EP ain't one of them personally.

[ProfD]

As mentioned already, the DX7 EP was all over the 1980s and into the early 1990s as well (Babyface). I believe Bruno Mars ressurrected it on one of his hit songs too.

 

I do not have the same aversion to the DX7 EP as many others do. My bread and butter sound is a hybrid EP. A combination of Rhodes or Wurli and a dash of FM works for me.

 

IMO, the trick to making FM EP and FM sounds in general less cringe-worthy is to take some of that bright metallic bite off the attack.

 

Also IMO, sounds become cheesy and dated from over-saturation through recordings and musicians relying on presets.

[AROIOS]

IMO, the trick to making FM EP and FM sounds in general less cringe-worthy is to take some of that bright metallic bite off the attack...

 

I totally understand where you're coming from and loved Robbie Buchanan's more rounded TX816 EP sound partly because of that.

 

But there's also success in sound design by going the opposite direction, as Roland and Eric Persing demonstrated with another wildly popular FM EP sound on the JD-800: Crystal Rhodes. Walter Afanasieff used that patch on pretty much every album he produced in the early to mid 90's.

[midinut]

One of my favorite uses of it: Brenda Russell - Piano in the Dark

Chicago - Hard Habit to Break

Keith Sweat - I Give It All To You

Sergio Mendes - Never Gonna Let You Go

Linda Ronstadt & James Ingram - Somewhere Out There

 

I had a Yamaha TX802 Rack Synth that I loved. It had a patch in it that stacked several EP sounds and detuned them for a wonderful sound. Kept that module for years just for that one sound. It layered well with other sounds from other boards.