BlahBlahCafe - Jean-Michel Jarre forum

What exactly makes people think they're horrible to program and such? I mean, it's just push a button, move a slider, hit a key, and repeat until you have something nice... I have a DX-100 and I absolutely love it!

You've just said it yourself. It's programming by luck. I don't HATE my DX11, I'll keep it for the rest of my life for it's pads and stuff. But it's just the programming side I find difficult.

jarrekid wrote:It's programming by luck.

Erm... Patching cords into a Moog or ARP isn't? Playing Battleship with a VCS3 doesn't have some element of luck to it? Trying to figure out voltage control diagrams isn't just as hard as figuring out a program path?

Subtractive analog synthesis is like knowing what you are doing. When I want a certain sound, I know how to get it. But with this FM synthesis - "it's like... let's see what I can get out of it today"...

I don't dislike it, I would buy such a racked DX7II

Don't particularly like the sounds on the DX - I had a DX100 which had a sound called Propheteer I used a bit, and a DX7 in the band, just don't like them that much.

Analogue purist doesn't like DX-7 because of its bad interface and sound is poor without FX.
However DX-7 give very good sound when you handle well the beast :

100% DX-7 track by PUSH

i own modded dx 7. i was talking with ItsMeOnly and i know, that it's not e! version. it has 2(!) banks [i don't know how to switch them], some chips are removed. take a look:



for me fm synthesis is pretty hard to underestand. i'll post my opinion when i'll know this synth a little bit more

btw i heard dx7colorsdemo on jarrography how did he created such a sounds?

You need to be very experienced with audio theory to realize how playing with sine waves source and modulation will end up sounding in the end.

An example would be trying to program a square wave (a base sine with complex harmonics) or a saw or whatever with a DX7, which can be daunting... or making it filter trough, and so on, due to the lack of tactile knobs and a minimal display.

Ironically, and because of the nature of sound generation, in computers, it should be the most warm and easy to implement sounding modelling method of audio-generation since it aproaches nature in the way things "vibrate" without becoming "colder" for it's, by nature, mathematically without the gross rounding errors the "virtual analog" (some) have doing the modelling.

Casio went near this "sine wave interaction" synth method aproach with the phase distortion, with preset "normal" waves, easier to program, as far as electronic sounds go and standard parameters, and equally warm, strangely, not a huge hit because Korg made Romplers a reality, and they seemed more realistic by then.

Kind Regards,
AMR
http://www.alvaromrocha.com

AMR wrote:You need to be very experienced with audio theory to realize how playing with sine waves source and modulation will end up sounding in the end.

An example would be trying to program a square wave (a base sine with complex harmonics) or a saw or whatever with a DX7, which can be daunting... or making it filter trough, and so on, due to the lack of tactile knobs and a minimal display.

Ironically, and because of the nature of sound generation, in computers, it should be the most warm and easy to implement sounding modelling method of audio-generation since it aproaches nature in the way things "vibrate" without becoming "colder" for it's, by nature, mathematically without the gross rounding errors the "virtual analog" (some) have doing the modelling.

Casio went near this "sine wave interaction" synth method aproach with the phase distortion, with preset "normal" waves, easier to program, as far as electronic sounds go and standard parameters, and equally warm, strangely, not a huge hit because Korg made Romplers a reality, and they seemed more realistic by then.

Kind Regards,
AMR
http://www.alvaromrocha.com

I agree - I had thegood experience to have played a PPG Wave and Waveterm, which I liked even though it's FM based. trying to understand wavetables is difficult, but you can get some great sounds out of a beast like a PPG

I could see myself try to get a DX-7 in the future, I like the FM pads and basses, they can sound pretty evil.

Well, the bad fame about DX is really only about the way it's programmed, but that's a myth- as Feffeli said, it's a complex "modular like" synthesis, and when you know interaction of waves, it starts to be intuitive - which is both a blessing and a curse, cause you already know if something's reproducable using FM.

Just got myself VZ-10m, btw.

Feffeli wrote:

jarrekid wrote:It's programming by luck.

Erm... Patching cords into a Moog or ARP isn't? Playing Battleship with a VCS3 doesn't have some element of luck to it? Trying to figure out voltage control diagrams isn't just as hard as figuring out a program path?

mmm, I don't think patchine analog's involves as much luck as FM does. For me anyways.

re - replying 'cause they're Yamaha and they make motorbikes and organs

just joking

SHARPBLUE wrote:re - replying 'cause they're Yamaha and they make motorbikes and organs

just joking

Another reason why I don't like Yamaha...
They seem to try absolutlely everything, but in doing so, they don't do a very good job of anything. They may aswell stick to, say, motorbikes, and do a proper job of them!

They do have very good professional audio products though...