DX7 is 40 years old!

[Paul Woodward]

Now I feel old. Never owned one as I was 13 when it launched and boy were they expensive for a teen. By the time I could buy my own gear, the D50 was getting old and the M1 was more appealing. Great days.

I know they were used on just about everything but I was amazed to hear that in 1986 the DX sound was on 61% of the top 100 songs in the US. Not many synths can claim that sort of coverage. As the CS is so revered, Yamaha really were top of their game back then.

For those with time to kill, here is a rather exhaustive list of tracks the DX7 featured on:

https://analog-and-digital-synthesizers-in-popular-music.fandom.com/wiki/Yamaha_DX7

[Jose EB5AGV]

I own the three: DX7, D50 and M1. All bought used just a couple years ago... Each one has his appeal, really. If just for their significance in their era 

[zukskywalker]

Uh oh ….where’s Moe?

there’s something to be said about not being first kid on the block. I fell into DX world late in the game and scored all manner of DX for real cheap. Still love that 200 and don’t get me started on grey matter E!

 

 

[SamuelBLupowitz]

A classic instrument that is so sonically "of its era;" to my ears, growing up in the early aughts obsessed with music from the 60s and early 70s, it was always the definition of "cheese." But in recent years I've come to really appreciate it for how evocative the sound is, especially the legendary DX7 electric piano patch. 

 

I almost picked one up a few years back, but the seller wanted more money for it than I could justify spending at the time. I think I was better served by the used analog synth that I bought instead, but it would certainly be a cool addition to my vintage keyboard collection!

[ABECK]

My first "real" keyboard.  The architecture was completely foreign and impossible to program for someone who was still just learning basic analog synth signal flow.  Built like a tank and the only keyboard I ever had with an installed power cord.  It was never a great option as a dedicated instrument, but could layer nicely or compliment a sampler or analog synth in a rig.  I was much happier when I sold it for my DSS-1.

[eric]

Wow, 40 years ago! It doesn't feel like it was that long ago. My first exposure to the DX7 was around 1985 when a friend in HS let me borrow his for a while. I used it with my Roland JX-8P playing in various HS garage bands. I eventually got the DX7IIFD when it came out in 1987 and used it for quite some time. I don't have any DX instruments now, aside from the PLG-DX board in my S90, if that counts. 

 

If I found a minty DX7 or DX7IIFD I might consider getting one, mainly for nostalgia. Also, the keyboard plays really nice.

[ProfD]

Time flies.

 

I remember when the DX7 first came out. Full page ads in the magazine behind this forum.

 

There was consternation the DX7 would cause the demise of electromechanical KBs and put musicians out of work.

 

Many musicians copped a DX7 and chose to leave their now vintage electromechanical KBs and synths at home. It was a huge weight reduction program. 

 

The DX7 did usher in the era of ROMpler KBs which did lead to older KB gear being mothballed or sold for peanuts or given away or trashed.

 

The DX7 led to analog synths being put in a coma from the late 1980s through early 2000s.

 

No worries. Electromechanical KBs are still in favor. Analog synths are enjoying a resurgence. Musicians are still working. 

 

Happy b'day to the brown turd that changed the sound of music for a whole decade with its thin, glassy, bright, abrasive, clangorous sound.😁😎

[Paul Woodward]

Brown Turd PMSL

Not sure that colour combo (brown and green!) would get past the design stage nowadays

[conundrum]

1 hour ago, zukskywalker said:

Uh oh ….where’s Moe?

there’s something to be said about not being first kid on the block. I fell into DX world late in the game and scored all manner of DX for real cheap. Still love that 200 and don’t get me started on grey matter E!

 

 

Allow me:

[drawback]

I had a DX7, D50 and M1 in real-time succession. What a thrill it was to replace a multi-board rig with just one synth!

[mate stubb]

In '83 instead of buying this:

 

 

I bought this:

 

 

Never regretted my decision. Oh, and...

 

TREBUCHET!

 

[CEB]

Never had the DX7 but did use the TX7. Have a pair of TX81Zs also.  Paired great with the D50 and Prophets as part of a canvas.  
 

The Casio PDS synthesis was very cool.  I had the CZ 1000 and CZ-1. It could pull off FM like textures but the architecture was laid out in a way that made sense to someone versed in subtractive synthesis.  
 

[Reezekeys]

If you were a gigging keyboard player in the early 1980s you lugged around a rhodes, wurly or CP-70. When it came to synths it was SC Prophets and OBXes - neither of which could cover any kind of "piano" on a gig. The DX7 was the first synth you could play any kind of a piano sound on - even though today we look back on that EP sound as cheezy. That's only because it was used to death - but at the time the DX came out that hadn't happened yet! The other sounds were also completely different from what you could get from analog subtractive synthesis. I remember where I was when I first heard "SUPERBASS" (and I remember its name too!). I had an original DX7, later expanded with the E! card, a TX7, TX81Z, and TX802. I also got to use plenty of TX816s at various studios back then. IMO Yamaha commercializing John Chowning's work at Stanford University is a very important part of the story of electronic music, regardless of how anyone might look back with 21st-century ears at its sounds. Do I pine to own one of these synths today (all of mine are gone - by theft or fire)? No - I have NI's FM8 to give me any of those sounds!

[Bill H.]

Wow 40 years huh? It seems like several lifetimes ago to me. 

 

Back in 1983 I was playing several nights a week. Bandstand East had the DX7's predecessor GS1 in it's main showroom, and I'd go in there whenever I could to play it. When they were taking pre orders for the DX7, I immediately put my deposit down - thinking I'd get one of the first ones in the area. 

 

Nope. The band Heart swooped in and grabbed the entire first shipment. Then because of unprecedented demand... nothing. But somehow American Music had connections, and I got one from them a few weeks later - plus a 10% discount! 

 

It may sound lame today, but it's impossible to describe how hot the DX EP sound was back then. I never had to worry about being buried in the mix.  And from a keyboard player's perspective, that thing was so expressive. Unlike many of the analog synths of the time (OB8, P600) the DX7 had a great keybed, and velocity sensitivity made all the difference in the world. It always felt like taking a step backwards playing an analog synth without it. 

 

Sometime around 10 years later I turned it off, and then never turned it on again. I do not miss it at all today. 

[eric]

2 minutes ago, Bill H. said:

It may sound lame today, but it's impossible to describe how hot the DX EP sound was back then. I never had to worry about being buried in the mix.  And from a keyboard player's perspective, that thing was so expressive. Unlike many of the analog synths of the time (OB8, P600) the DX7 had a great keybed, and velocity sensitivity made all the difference in the world. It always felt like taking a step backwards playing an analog synth without it. 

 

 

I'm with you on that hot DX EP sound...it was really a thing and felt so weird to play so expressively on an electronic slab that had mostly been lacking velocity sensitivity. It was really something to behold at the time.

[RABid]

2 hours ago, Reezekeys said:

If you were a gigging keyboard player in the early 1980s you lugged around a rhodes, wurly or CP-70. When it came to synths it was SC Prophets and OBXes - neither of which could cover any kind of "piano" on a gig.

I had actually programmed a pretty good piano on the Rhodes Chroma. It also came with a good organ patch. It also came with velocity sensitive weighted keys. It also came with a road case and felt like it weighed a ton. Sound wise the DX7 could not compete with the Chroma, Prophet 5, MemoryMoog or Jupiter 8, but it did well against the next generation of DCO chip based polyphonics. I had the breath controller to use with the sax sound but never bothered to use it on stage. 

 

One thing I remember was the memory card cassettes that could be locked to only work with your DX7. Someone could steal the card but they could not access your sounds. In the early days people were very protective of their DX7 patch creations. 

[Bosendorphen]

I never owned a DX7 but did play one in a friend's studio on a demo recording. Instead of the usual electric piano imitation I used it for (GASP) an acoustic piano type sound. It was okay except in the very lower registers.

 

I bought a Korg DW8000 instead in 1985 as it could do those bell and tine like sounds as well but also very good at analog sounds. Plus it was easier to program and had a built-in digital delay. It did great brass and sax sounds as well.

[JohnH]

The DX7 ( as well as MIDI) was announced at winter namm in Jan 1983 so it is now almost 41 years.   I just got through this chapter in the Dave Smith book. Very interesting. 

[TommyBoy]

Played one in a music store when they first came out. Loved it.  Opted to purchase an Ensoniq Mirage instead and always regretted it.

 

So that was 40 years ago? Ouch.

[Bill H.]

7 minutes ago, JohnH said:

The DX7 ( as well as MIDI) was announced at winter namm in Jan 1983 so it is now almost 41 years.   I just got through this chapter in the Dave Smith book. Very interesting. 

 

 Yamaha didn't start shipping until late summer/early fall 1983, so this is pretty close to 40 years. I felt very fortunate to get mine in the fall of 1983. 

[JoJoB3]

However, in 2023 the Ensoniq Mirage (a sampler btw) is 1000x more interesting today than anything the DX puts out.
Super special tones can be had with the Mirage in the right hands (vs mostly nostalgic forgettables with the DX).

 

[Konnector]

I was an early adopter of the DX7 when it first hit the street and immediately bought one. Used it a ton. (except for that dreaded tine piano patch which I hated from day one.) Used a lot of my own patches and ran it thru an fx pedal to give it more life and girth.

 

The DX7 is long gone now, but along the way I also had a DX7-IID, TX-81z, TX802 and a TX7. All gone now except the TX7. Only paid $70 for the TX7, and it works like new, so it's there if I ever get the urge to use it for something....although these days there's many other options available for that. I had a midi rack synth or two slaved to the DX7 as an additional layer when I was using it live. FM and analog makes for a nice combo. Smallest live rig I ever had. 

[Reezekeys]

18 minutes ago, JoJoB3 said:

However, in 2023 the Ensoniq Mirage (a sampler btw) is 1000x more interesting today than anything the DX puts out.
Super special tones can be had with the Mirage in the right hands (vs mostly nostalgic forgettables with the DX).

 

 

Special to you, I'm sure - but that grungy 8-bit sound is gonna color anything you do with it. Not saying it can't work for some stuff - but I never heard of anybody ditching their DX7 for a Mirage. I speak as someone who still owns an original Mirage, along with the "advanced sampling cartridge", and spent many hours programming this beast - and anyone who knows it knows the user interface I dealt with!

[Reezekeys]

1 hour ago, RABid said:

One thing I remember was the memory card cassettes that could be locked to only work with your DX7. Someone could steal the card but they could not access your sounds. In the early days people were very protective of their DX7 patch creations. 

 

I was a heavy DX7 user back in the day and I never heard of this. Any sources you can point to? I'm genuinely curious. I know the RAM cartridges had a memory protect switch so you couldn't overwrite anything. Having a cartridge only work with your own DX? That's new to me.

[JoJoB3]

35 minutes ago, Reezekeys said:

 

Special to you, I'm sure - but that grungy 8-bit sound is gonna color anything you do with it. Not saying it can't work for some stuff - but I never heard of anybody ditching their DX7 for a Mirage. I speak as someone who still owns an original Mirage, along with the "advanced sampling cartridge", and spent many hours programming this beast - and anyone who knows it knows the user interface I dealt with!

Well first, the two are completely different boards (Who knows why a sampler was chosen when a synth was desired?)
The Mirage is the more interesting item in 2023.

* But, the Mirage can be the DX whereas the DX can never be the Mirage. A 2 fer!

[Brad Kaenel]

5 hours ago, CEB said:

Never had the DX7 but did use the TX7...
 

Yep, me too. A TX7 *AND* a KX5 keytar to play it from -- which I still have, and still works!  (Forty years, however, have not reduced my eternal dorkiness when attempting to rock a keytar.  Didn't work for me in the '80s; still doesn't...   )

 

I may be wrong, but I believe I was at NAMM that year when they introduced the DX7 (and, I think, the Roland JX-3P, too -- which is what I ended up buying.)

[Ivan May]

Happy 40th birthday to Yamaha's most iconic keyboard, the DX7!!!

[Anderton]

Missed out on the DX7, but made up for it with the TX81Z and TX802. They would have been impossible for me to program had it not been for the computer-based editors. Larry Fast was doing a lot of studio work at the time because he was one of the few in the NYC studio scene who could edit FM synth patches.

 

I saw Bill Nelson in concert back then, and his stage setup with basically nothing but DX7s. Don't remember the exact number, but it was probably at least five.

 

...and Yamaha fixed the velocity on the DX7 MK II 

[CEB]

1 hour ago, JoJoB3 said:

However, in 2023 the Ensoniq Mirage (a sampler btw) is 1000x more interesting today than anything the DX puts out.
Super special tones can be had with the Mirage in the right hands (vs mostly nostalgic forgettables with the DX).

 

This is probably a popular opinion here.  Jam and Lewis and others got some heavy mileage out of those dirty grungy 8-but samples.   
 

I’m from a different planet than most of the forum.  I find the DX engine way more interesting.  However I don’t consider any synth in isolation but as part of the whole rig.  Even in isolation two DX sources with one detuned 4 cents can create some killer basses and leads.  
 

But I also like Motif organs. There clean higher fidelity nature makes them excellent in synth pad layers.  Again it is how they work within the rig.  

[dazzjazz]

As a 16 year old, I went to the launch of the DX7 in Sydney. It was demoed by an American guy whose name I cannot remember. There were a lot of professional musicians in the audience, and everyone’s jaw hit the floor. Still feels historic. 
 

I couldn’t afford one, ended up with the hobbled DX9 for some of my first gigs, alongside my much loved JX8P. 

 

I now have a very beat up DX7 that belonged to the famous organist Col Nolan. It looks like it’s been in a war zone. It has some kind of special upgrade kit in it - Col used two DX7s to replace his Hammond C3. I haven’t spent much time on it, and would like to get it totally refurbished if at all possible. I will try to post a photo of it.