The Yamaha DX7: The Most Influential Synthesizer Ever Made
TL;DR The 1983 Yamaha DX7 sold over 200,000 units by 1989 and remains arguably the most influential synthesizer in history - it did not just change synth design, it changed how modern music sounds It was built on FM synthesis, invented by John Chowning at Stanford in the 1970s and licensed by Yamaha - six operators producing timbres subtractive synths could not touch The glassy electric pianos, basses, and bells of mid-80s pop are DX7 presets; a huge share of the era’s hits used the factory sounds unchanged It was notoriously hard to program, which nobody cared about - and which accidentally created the preset culture that still defines synth use today Its influence runs to the present: FM engines sit inside most modern workstations and software synths The Yamaha DX7 wasn’t the first synthesizer. It wasn’t the most powerful. It wasn’t the cheapest. But in 1983, it became the most important instrument released that decade - and arguably the most influential synthesizer in history. By 1989, over 200,000 units had been sold. Today, it remains the second-best-selling synthesizer of all time (after the Casio VL-Tone, which was technically a calculator with a synth). ...