Comment by bigiain
15 hours ago
The amusing thing (to me at least) is that while the DX7 gave users almost infinite options as to how they could create and shape sounds, if you know what to listen for you'll hear the E PIANO 1 and BASS 1 presets an about half of all mid 80s hits. Turns out when they gave musicians a tool with immense flexibility, many of them still chose to use two of the (admittedly great) preset sounds.
To be fair, a lot of that is because the DX7 (or rather, FM synthesis in general) is just absolutely arcane when it comes to programming.
Yup. FM Synthesis is challenging enough to implement, but doing so on the DX7's interface is a whole other level of frustrating. It's far from the hands-on interfaces of most subtractive or modular synthesizers.
Apparently this happens every time. A sample disk included with tracker software was used in hundreds if not thousands of modules and pretty much defined the sound of the Amiga.
https://youtu.be/roBkg-iPrbw
Few program synthesizers. Most just use presets. Infinite freedom is paralyzing. Building blocks are comfortable.