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Showing posts from October, 2018

Yamaha PortaSound PSS-480

As I’ve said before , I’m not the biggest fan of FM synthesis. It’s not that I dislike it. I believe it has its uses, and there are some sounds it does better than anything else. But I never went through an FM phase like a lot of other people seem to have. I grew up in the ‘70s and ‘80s so I love analog synthesis. I consider a two-oscillator monosynth solo with plenty of portamento to be one of the finer things in life. Recently, I have come to appreciate what FM synthesis can do. And while I’m still not a huge fan of six-operator synths like the DX7, take me down to four and watch me come alive. My TX81Z can do things no analog synth can do, and while I didn’t have it for very long, the DX100 was more than capable when it came to bass. Solid, even. If four operators are better than six, imagine how good two operators must be. Sadly, this is not the case but two-op machines are capable of some pretty incredible sounds. From bells to falling cooking pan-like noise, it’s hard to b