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owl [soylentnews.org] writes:

The sound of the Yamaha DX7 synthesizer defined 1980s popular music. While the DX7 could, in principle, produce a limitless range of sound textures, few musicians used more than the 32 built-in present sounds. As a result, the sound of the DX7 is immediately recognizable. For me, the theme from the TV show Twin Peaks typifies the DX7 sound but, frankly, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a successful album from the mid-80s where you don’t hear it. It would be pointless to list the bands and artists that used the DX7 – it would be easier to make a list of the ones that didn’t. I’m told that the ‘Electric Piano 1’ preset alone appeared in over 60% of album releases of 1986.

The original, Mark I DX7 was a huge, uncompromising lump of ironwork, made to be thrown in the back of a van. Its membrane keypad controls were horrible to use, but were good at resisting beer spills. When you turned up for practice with a DX7, everybody knew you meant business.

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