Here's a keyboardist who can make a claim for mental damage from having to use the DX7 "back in the day".

Arguably one of the most popular keyboards ever, judging from the sheer proliferation of 'em, they could only do what they could do.

Sitting here recalling BIAB running in W3.1 driving the DX7 brings chills. Could only use it for practicing, there was no way to do music production with those sounds IMHO.

Today we can buy (or possibly even get free) VSTi plugins that emulate the DX7 in entirety, BTW. But FM synthesis, even when you have full control of every parameter, can only do so much. And building your own sound is a job for a rocket scientist. On top of that, no matter how well you worked the internals, the most you'd end up with was a close approximation of any target instrument sound.

And silvertones is right about that one lonely Epiano default patch on the thing. It got way too much use at the time. And IMHO it generated way too much treble stuff. Nice for a minute, got very old by the third song of the first set.

This does serve as a reminder of just how far the technology has come, though. Between the sampling and the modeling, keyboardists have incredible options these days. I remember when the choices consisted of the B3 organ, the Wurlitzer piano, the Rhodes piano and the Hohner clavinet. Doggone it, I also remember lugging all four of them to the same gig. Today I'd just roll the Kurzweil deck in there and hand the soundman two Line Outs.


--Mac

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