In 1964, computer music pioneer Max Matthews from the Bell Laboratory helped the burgeoning composer John Chowning set up a computer music program using the computer in the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. The long answer starts with Stanford University.

Yamaha likely knew it couldn’t make an interface as intuitive as the Minimoog’s or the Juno-60’s for its FM synths, so it gave the DX7 some buttons that programming diehards could use to navigate menus and called it a day.Ĭouldn’t some other company have come along and devised that perfect interface for the FM synth that made programming as accessible as an analog synth filthy with knobs? The short answer is no. The early and enduring appeal of those huge Moog and Buchla modular systems is that players could conjure any imaginable sound by learning how to tweak a big system with immediate visual and sonic feedback.īut what’s sauce for the subtractive goose is not sauce for the FM gander. Analog subtractive synthesis operates on similar principles as an EQ or guitar effects, with twists of knobs shaping the produced sound in a straightforward way.

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