Saturday, June 7, 2014

From the God Father of the Yahama DX-7....and other synthesisers


I have visited Stanford's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics,  CCRMA, pronouced karma, and met John Chowning several times. During the Tokyo ICMC I was even a bit of a translator at a restaurant with him and a few other attendees.

He invented FM Synthesis, which Yamaha then went off to refine and eventually produce the Yahama DX-7. The biggest selling synthesiser until the Korg M1 hit.

John of course is a composer, and has been in the Academic Computer Music world for a long time, and the CD he gave me was of his works.....  this isn't pop music.....

I spent years in Music Technology R&D and attended the International Computer Music Conferences and AES trade shows, and a few others.....

You probably didn't notice me as I kept a very low profile. One of those that did know who I was was Dave Smith, of Sequential Circuits fame, even though he was at Korg R&D at that time.

This is a really interesting talk on Dave Smith's history and what he has been involved with.



I have some parallels with some of that in my own career..... details here

I can be contacted at Art & Technology



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