I missed this along the way – Behringer put out this video, a little over a year ago, of them restoring a Yamaha DX1. The DX1 is from 1983 to 85 and has two of the same DX7 chipsets for synthesis. It’s quite rare and originally cost 14 grand.! The DX1 that Behringer acquired also came from Tears For Fears, and it took a lot of repair to get it running again.
I also didn’t know what a nice user interface this synth has. Quite astounding the effort that Yamaha took back in the early 1980s to lay the controls right there in front of you – like having the various op algorithms interactively displayed on a pyramid of seven segment LED displays. This makes the notorious FM patch creation far easier to do. Take a look at this excellent video from Cuckoo where he puts together a DX1 patch from scratch – no manual – he just sits down at this synth that he’s never used and makes a patch! This video is just out.
I don’t know if Behringer is signalling that they are really going to be doing their own DX1, as was hinted about up thread. Now knowing a little more about it, i kind of consider the DX1 as being in a position similar in a way to the Arp 2600, only for FM synthesis. If Behringer does do a DX1 kind of thing count me in.
I’m guessing to do this right, or at least one way, would be to recreate something that resembles the original Yamaha DX chips, specifically the YM21280 – something that Behringer is entirely capable of doing. (Alternatively is to do the YM21280 chip is to do it in software simulation.) Once Behringer did that, there is an awful lot of territory available for them to explore.
