On Wed, 1 Aug 2001, Brousseau, Paul E (Paul) wrote:
> My ever haphazardly-cast interest-of-the-week has settled upon FM-- and the
> kind thereof, the DX-7. Does anyone have or know of a DX-7 architecture
> diagram or description? Among other things, I'm wondering about / hoping
> for basic block architecture, the potential oscillator interoperability
> (i.e., FM routing), modulation, and EG functionality.
Go to Dave Benson's DX7 site:
ftp://byrd.math.uga.edu/pub/html/dx7.html
All sorts of goodies there. I should scan and send Dave the "DX7
Technical Analysis" guide. It is filled with ridiculous little comic
strip characters that are illustrating things like the EG chip handing off
envelope data to the operator chip.
> Anyone have any insight as to why greater-than-2-operator FM synthesis
> never left Yamaha, aside from Clavia's peek in the Nord Lead 3? Or
> are there synths aside from the DX family and the recent FS1R and
> DX200 that do intensive FM?
I think the Yamaha patent on the technology was granted in 1976 or
thereabouts. Anyone could use it, they just had to pay Yamaha a royalty.
This patent expired 17 years later.
The first commercial FM synth was the Synclavier, actually, predating
the Yamaha GS1 by a few years. The Synclavier was 8-bit FM, whereas the
GS and DX engines were 12-bit plus 4-bit compander.
Crow
/∗∗/