PICTURE THE SOUND of 1980’s electronic music for a minute. Think about that whole aesthetic. Think about the sound of the keys at the beginning of just about any ballad by the band Chicago… Or that electronic-harmonica-sounding thing that rips through Tina Turner’s ‘What’s Love Got To Do With It?’… Or the bass-y thing in the ‘Take My Breath Away’ song from Top Gun… Or the synth bass riff in Kenny Loggins’ ‘Danger Zone…’
Got it? Cool. Now, meet Dave Bristow.
Dave is originally from London. He’s a charming guy to talk to. He’s a retired guy, living on Bainbridge for the past 20 years. He’s giving a talk this month at the Bainbridge Artisan Resource Network on the history of electronic music. It’s important to note that all those parts of the aforementioned songs–and many others like them that defined the iconic 80’s sound–were recorded using a Yamaha DX7 synthesizer.
Dave is one-half of the two-man team that programmed nearly all the sounds and voices that would go into that synthesizer… which, upon its release, would go on to revolutionize the world of electronic music.
The DX7 turned 40 last year.
“It was huge,” Dave thinks back, searching for the scale of the instrument’s impact, four decades later. “It was vast… It was… Let me give you some little details…”
The big launch of the DX7, Dave says, was at the Chicago NAMM Show in 1983. They had released a prototype earlier in the year in Paris. Dave had already been working in synth development for years before then, and, as an instrument, the DX7 had also already been in development for many years, he said. It utilized a relatively new technology at the time called FM synthesis. Yamaha had been working on other bigger FM synth-instruments prior, but, with the DX7, they were looking to create a portable model that would outsell the competition.
At that time, worldwide sales for synthesizers were around 14-to-15,000 units, Dave recalls, not a large market. Yamaha was aiming for maybe 16-or-17,000 units, just to beat the competition. In the first year of its release, they had 150,000 orders. It would go on to top 200,000 sales and become one of the highest selling synthesizers in history.
“So the literal commercial success was huge,” Dave said. “I was traveling around the world and selling the DX7, I remember being at a place like Tommy Lee’s in Hong Kong and there’s all these people around listening to the demonstration, but then, to the other side of the shop and all the way out the door, there was a line. I mean, it was enormous…
“Needless to say, there have been many, many discussions as to why the DX7 was so popular,” Dave says. “And, of course, it was a perfect storm really. It was many things.”
First… There was really nothing like it at that time. It was portable, and less cumbersome than other portable keyboards at the time. And affordable. It sold for around $1800 in the states, Dave said. It had four-and-a-half-to-five octaves so you could play it like a regular piano. It also had more than 100 other pre-programmed sounds and voices that Dave and Gary had created.
The sounds were also customizable and programmable by the user. You can still find Dave’s instruction manual for the machine from 1983 out there on the internet. Most synthesizers were essentially monophonic at the time, Dave says. Some synths played maybe five or eight voices, the DX7 played 16. Not only did the DX7 have more than 100 factory sounds, it was touch sensitive, which was a new keyboard technology at the time. It also introduced another new technology in sound…
It came with two extra system compatible memory banks that could hold another 32 sounds each. “All of a sudden…” Dave says, “Sound content was a thing. It was a new thing. And at that time, the burden was essentially put on myself and Gary Leuenberger. We were the two guys. We made more than 90 percent of all the factory voices for the DX7, the DTX816, you name it, right through to the DSY99. We were making the lion’s share of the factory voices. We lived and breathed FM.”
Well into retirement, Dave’s still fascinated by sounds. He still makes digital music, mostly to soundtrack his newest creative leaning into graphic design and video game development. He’s been making ‘silly little video games’ for his grandkids. He’s also been getting into 3D printing. But after five decades spent developing electronic music, Dave’s gonna let you in on a little secret… About a year-and-a-half-ago, he bought an accordion.
“See… you’re laughing,” Dave chuckles. “I knew you’d be laughing.” // BILL MAN
CHECK OUT DAVE’S Tech Talk: ‘Electronic Music from Barrel Organ to Garage Band,’ 1-2 p.m., free, all ages, Feb. 11 in the Great Room at BARN, Bainbridge. More at bainbridgebarn.org
