Comment by TheOtherHobbes | Hacker News Reader

Comment by TheOtherHobbes | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Having made the impossibly un-portable CS80, Yamaha decided to try something different with the DX7 UI.

The DX7 was designed to be a gig-able synth that anyone could throw in a car and set up on their own. It was a brilliant success because you had good-enough epiano and other stock sounds in a package that was far more portable than a real epiano, clav, basic poly, etc.

This was purely a cost/weight issue. The hardware required for one-knob-per-function would have doubled the weight and probably tripled the cost.

E.g. a company called Jellinghaus made a full-sized analog-style programmer and it was bigger than the DX7.

https://www.matrixsynth.com/2008/01/jellinghaus-dx-programme...

People like analog synths because they have a very simple programming model that only makes a relatively small range of sounds, most of which sound good more or less by default. You trade immediacy against sophistication.

The DX7 etc went the other way, which infuriated musicians used to those analog sounds, but created an entire support industry of sound designers and libraries.

If you want a tactile UI now you can create one on an iPad. The surprising thing in 2019 is that synth designers still haven't fully explored touch screen interfaces, and are mostly just recycling ideas from 30 years ago.

>People like analog synths because they have a very simple programming model that only makes a relatively small range of sounds, most of which sound good more or less by default. You trade immediacy against sophistication.

Well and they sound completely different.

The UI differences don't come down to number of controls but the fact that most analog designs have a 1:1 relationship with the sound, every knob you turn has a very distinct impact on the sound and usually, applying that to any input generates more or less the same impact on the output. It's extremely intuitive to learn how changing a knob changes the sound.

FM is completely different, where altering simple things like the operator ratios and modulation index have massive changes on the sound and don't create the same effect on different sounds - it's naturally non-intuitive. Most FM wizards get there through tons of experimentation, not through established fundamentals.

Imagine playing a wind instrument and changing your embouchure alters the pitch of the differently depending on what note you finger. That's what programming an FM synth is like.

iPad synths are a dime a dozen these days. Lack of a physical interface is as big a problem on them as with larger synths. They are hardly tactile.

A corollary here is the success of wavetable synths compared to granular, additive, and FM in the softsynth space. Wavetables have the same subtractive model as traditional analogs, and incorporate many of the same features as semi-modular synths. But they are extremely versatile because of how their interface is intuitive even for first time users - it's stupid easy to change the sound, the only additional dimension is the wavetable but that's quick to pick up. Compared to say, granular synths which are possibly the most versatile paradigm, but whose controls are extremely divorced from the timbre of the sound you design.

The first version of Polychord for iPad had a fully-functioning FM synth under the hood, but I ended up disabling it because it didn’t fit with the simplicity of the product. Even providing a nice set of presets to choose from was turning into a time-suck — it really is an art.

Great comment in general but I certainly wouldn't call a piece of glass "tactile". I've been waiting, ever since the first iphone, for a tactile smartphone (one with buttons).

Obviously your meaning was toward "customisable UI", which tablets are. I use one as a daw.

> that anyone could throw in a car

I buy broken DX7's and restore them back to 'as good as possible', I've seen some DX7's that still worked but didn't have a lick of paint on them from all the throwing around. They're built like tanks.

Very much so, the build quality is amazing. I sold my late dad's 1983/4 DX7 MK1 in 2014 to someone who is now a pal - it was gigged for something like 20 year, more than once a week and all it needed was a new battery.

There's also an important distinction between electronic musicians that enjoy diving into sound design and keyboardists who just want a typical stock sound. Today, most synthesizers and keyboards usually clearly cater to one of these audiences, with analog synths created for the former and workstations like Korg Kronos for former.

However, DX7 works as both – it was both used as a source of very innovative sounds, as well as a simple preset-driven keyboard for many, many pop musicians who seemed to never have used anything but built-in presets.

>If you want a tactile UI ...

If you want a tactile UI, get a Yamaha Reface DX[1]!

It's amazing how much fun you can have with an FM synth with a couple of sliders that allow you to change the sound as you play it.

I can write love odes to that machine.

[1]https://usa.yamaha.com/products/music_production/synthesizer...

seconded. Love my reface dx

Reply on news.ycombinator.com