If you’re all familiar with any music from the 1980s, you might have wondered why so many of the keyboard sounds sound the same. That’s because so many acts used the Yamaha DX7 synthesizer.
It came with a ton of presets, making it unnecessary to spend hours programming sounds and worrying if you could get the exact same sound time after time. It’s estimated that one preset—“Electric Piano 1”—appeared on over 60% of all the albums released in 1986.
But it didn’t stop there. The tone-generated components used in the DX7 created standard sounds ranging from smooth organ sounds to heavy, distorted industrial dance settings. And the theme from Seinfeld? Not someone slapping a bass guitar. That’s a DX7. It was so popular, that it outsold its nearest competitor by a factor of 10.
No wonder so much 80s music sounds similar.
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