Don Lewis - Programming The DX7

Hello and welcome to the Sound On Sound podcast channel about electronic music and all things synth. I'm Rob Puricelli. For this special episode, I dug into my archive to find something I'd been keeping for a rainy day and now seemed the right time to share it with you. Two and a half years ago, I had the great honor of interviewing Don Lewis, along with the director of the movie about his life, Ned Augustenborg. I'd not been long making podcasts for Sound On Sound, and when I got Wind of Ned's movie, then titled The Ballad of Don Lewis, I immediately contacted my editor at Sound On Sound to pitch the idea. Needless to say, it was an instant yes, and so I proceeded to set the interview up. On the day of the recording, Don and Ned joined the call. The system we use allows all participants to see each other over video, much like a Zoom call would, and the first thing I noticed was Don's beaming smile. You could see it in the numerous photos online, but I think it's fair to say that it is something that permanently graced his face. Throughout the interview, Don was passionate, enthusiastic, keen to share his memories, and gracious throughout. His joyful demeanor was infectious and the time flew by. The result of this interview can be heard on the Electronic Music Podcast channel as well as on YouTube, where my colleague Athene assembled many images to accompany the audio. However, during the interview, with Don's permission, I asked him if I could inquire about his time programming the DX7's factory sounds. As many of you might know, I have a particular passion and interest in the DX line of synthesizers and related tools. So I couldn't miss this opportunity. When it came to the final edit, I decided that this section might be a bit too nerdy, and b, might be used as part of a larger, DX specific piece I had in mind. As yet, that idea is still gestating, but after learning of Don's passing, I felt it might be a nice treat for his family, friends and fans to hear this little snippet that ended up on the proverbial cutting room floor. So please enjoy this little snippet of Don's tale about his involvement in one of the most successful and important synthesizers of all time. What you're about to hear is a milestone. We are proud to present the Yamaha DX7 and DX9 programmable digital synthesizers. Let the performance begin. Leo is predominantly an analog instrument, and along comes this, this new kid on the block that that sold more. Synthesizes of a single model than any other up to that point and probably beyond as well with a a programming paradigm that was unlike anything that had ever been seen before. How did you take to that new way of doing things? Okay. Well, it wasn't really new to me. The, the, the concept of FM wasn't new to me because in high school, we built FM radios. So I knew the phenomena. I didn't know at that time that, um, FM was no more than, um, than modulating, you know, two, well, two frequencies and then, uh, you know, In the radio days, it was the carrier, it was the radio frequency, and then the modulator was the audio. Well, nothing, there's nothing new about that. The only thing that was new is the way that was applied. We took two in FM synthesis. We just took two audio frequencies and modulated one with the other. And so to me that wasn't a real, it wasn't really new, but what I heard was new. The concept wasn't new, but what I heard was new and that, um. It was so different from subtractive synthesis, it's where you've got a waveform that basically is pretty static as far as movement is concerned, and you, you, you, you filter out the harmonics that you don't want. Well here, with FM, you were able to generate harmonics, and I met, at the same time that I started working with ARP, I met John Chowning because the Hammond engineering, uh, head at that time, Howie Moore, um, he had just been hired by, uh, Hammond to come in and start working on the new LSI, um, platform that Hammond was adopting at the time. And he and I just, we were just like, I wish I could find that guy right now. But he and I just, we just, just, just clicked right to begin with. And so he's, uh, asked me if I would go to, uh, Stanford. This was 1972 to go to Stanford and, and, uh, see what Dr. Chowning was doing. And when John gave his, uh, his demo, um, it was a four track Tiak playing back, uh, quadraphonically, um, Stuff that he had generated on on the mainframe that was in the AI room right next to us And I heard the sounds, well he had the sounds of the trumpet, some brass things and he had a few other things and they had the swirling Uh, sound that the, the, the frequency kept going up, but it never really went up. It's like the barber, barber shop sign that twirls around and was a sound like that. Oh man. And I heard all of these things. And I said, when I went back to him and I said, you guys, you gotta give me some money, you know, give me some grant money so that you can have right first refusal. Um, uh, You know, when this, when you're able to implement this technology, and they kind of looked at me and said, Yeah, no, no, you can't do that. So anyway, but I heard, what I heard was something I had not heard with additive synthesis or subtractive synthesis. And this, this life that was happening after you modulated those, those, Uh, those waves together, and I think it was a real blessing that Yamaha heard this because I think they took it to a degree that we probably would not have thought of. They thought of having multiple oscillators, operators it was called. and multiple algorithms, 32 if I remember correctly, uh, of the combinations of those operators to come up with sounds that we, uh, you know, these were just brand new sounds. These were sounds and they were, and they all sounded natural. Actually, they made the digital stuff. And the first, you know, remember the first, um, DX7 didn't have any reverb or anything like that or anything And so to make that instrument sound rich, if it had been an analog instrument, you would have to add a lot of reverb or this, that, and the other effects to make it sound like it was moving. But you didn't have to do that with the DX7. It was just, uh, it was just that way. And And so, uh, later on, um, when I moved to, uh, to, uh, Northern California, right after, uh, Julie and I were married, uh, Stanford was having a, uh, workshop on FM, uh, uh, not only FM, it was a bunch of other stuff too. And so I went down for that workshop, it was a summer workshop, I think it was six to eight weeks, and spent down there, and that's where I got my chops. And then, um, In 83, when, when Gary and I, uh, Gary, um, got me hooked up with, with Yamaha, and when we did the first demo, uh, record prior to the NAMM show, it was, man, we, we were having a good time of our lives. But it was, it was a time, it was like being in, when I, I look at when I, when I was a kid, being in a sandbox. and making up stuff. It didn't, you know, after we got past the, the, the traditional trying to emulate what traditional, uh, uh, instruments sounded like, then we started making up our own sounds. That to me was the most fun and still is one thing that's touched upon in the film is because of your personal association with Roland and Mr Kakahashi that you then go and start working on this new product for probably their biggest competitor. I mean, that must have been weird. Uh, it was, there, there's another book or a movie. There's a, there's a big, uh, side story to that. Uh, but, uh, for the most part, uh, Kakashi understood. Cause this happened, uh, uh, during the, the, uh, the time when, um, the hiatus, so to speak, uh, from 19, what was 1985, 86, when the union attacked me and, and on up to about 19, uh, 90, 93. Um, so what happened, I think, was the fact that we had, um, Had done so much to, to build this audience after the DX7 came out in 83. And when we did that, um, The very next, I think it was the year after that, we came out, the, uh, Yamaha came out with the, uh, QX1 and the TX8 16, which was eight DX7s in a rack, and I have one right here. And when we did our first demo with that, and the closing, it was a dealer show, international dealer show we did, uh, and then, um, The finale of that dealer show was the Saint Saens Organ Symphony, which Gary and I played, and QX1 played some of the string parts, we did some brass. I have my breath controller here. And if you notice, there's a swizzle stick in the top, because you'd blow your brains out if you didn't have that. to impede the, the, uh, air that was coming out. And when we did that, um, it just opened up a whole new world. Um, the FM was a solid, uh, solid instrument, uh, solid sounds. Everybody wanted to have that sound on, on their, on their album. Um, and so I, I really, um, Look at, um, John Chowning as being the key, um, ingredient, because I met John before I met Gary, um, and I understood what he was doing, and I, I was, you know, Totally on board with FM back in 72. Thank you for listening and be sure to check out the show notes page for this episode where you'll find further information along with web links and details of all the other episodes. Before you go, make sure you visit the Sound On Sound podcast page at soundonsound. com forward slash podcasts. where you can explore all the other great content playing across the other channels. I'm Rob Puricelli and this has been a Failed Muso production for Sound On Sound.