Yamaha TX81Z
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Yamaha Yamaha may refer to: * Yamaha Corporation, a Japanese company with a wide range of products and services, established in 1887. The company is the largest shareholder of Yamaha Motor Company (below). ** Yamaha Music Foundation, an organization estab ...
TX81Z is a rack version of Yamaha DX11 and rack-mounted (
keyboard Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Musi ...
-less)
frequency modulation Frequency modulation (FM) is the encoding of information in a carrier wave by varying the instantaneous frequency of the wave. The technology is used in telecommunications, radio broadcasting, signal processing, and Run-length limited#FM: .280. ...
music
synthesizer A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...
, which was released in 1987. Unlike previous FM synthesizers of the era, the TX81Z was the first to offer a range of
oscillator Oscillation is the repetitive or periodic variation, typically in time, of some measure about a central value (often a point of equilibrium) or between two or more different states. Familiar examples of oscillation include a swinging pendulum ...
waveform In electronics, acoustics, and related fields, the waveform of a signal is the shape of its graph as a function of time, independent of its time and magnitude scales and of any displacement in time.David Crecraft, David Gorham, ''Electronic ...
s other than just
sine wave A sine wave, sinusoidal wave, or just sinusoid is a curve, mathematical curve defined in terms of the ''sine'' trigonometric function, of which it is the graph of a function, graph. It is a type of continuous wave and also a Smoothness, smooth p ...
s, conferring the new
timbre In music, timbre ( ), also known as tone color or tone quality (from psychoacoustics), is the perceived sound quality of a musical note, sound or musical tone, tone. Timbre distinguishes different types of sound production, such as choir voice ...
s of some of its patches when compared to older, sine-only FM synths. The TX81Z has developed a famous reputation, largely based on some of its preset bass sounds. A keyboard version with more onboard editing abilities was released the following year as the Yamaha DX11.


Features

The unit is
multitimbral Monotimbral (from the root prefix ''mono'' meaning one, and ''timbre'' meaning a specific tone of a sound independent of its pitch) is usually used in reference to electronic synthesizers which can produce a single timbre at a given pitch when pre ...
, and has 128
ROM Rom, or ROM may refer to: Biomechanics and medicine * Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient * Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac * R ...
voices, 32 editable voice slots, and 24 editable Performance memories. The RAM slots were rarely utilized due to the perceived high quality and usability of the original patches and the difficulty of programming new sounds with the limited front-panel interface. Among the presets is the famous ''LatelyBass'', one of the most popular presets in synthesizer history. The TX81Z is backwards-compatible with sound patches developed for Yamaha's DX21, DX27, and DX100 synthesizers. It is also very similar, and almost completely patch-compatible, to the DX11 synthesizer, which is essentially a TX81Z with a velocity and pressure-sensing keyboard, and a pitch envelope.


Usage

Some say the prevalence of the TX81Z's presets was also because of the difficulty in creating new patches. Creating new sounds from the unit's front panel is possible, but numerous nested parameters must be navigated by way of 11 buttons and a backlit 16 character, 2-line
LCD A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat-panel display or other electronically modulated optical device that uses the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals combined with polarizers. Liquid crystals do not emit light directly but in ...
. However, several personal computer-based editing applications have been developed since its release. The Dutch company KissBox released in 2013 a TX81Z editor based on RTP-MIDI communication, which makes the hardware synth appear as a VST plugin, while being controlled over a network link in real-time. The TX81Z was designed as a low-cost FM machine and has always been relatively inexpensive compared to most other FM synthesizers. The TX81Z is built around a single FM chip, the Yamaha YM2414B aka OPZ, while 6-op machines like the
DX7 The Yamaha DX7 is a synthesizer manufactured by the Yamaha Corporation from 1983 to 1989. It was the first successful digital synthesizer and is one of the best-selling synthesizers in history, selling more than 200,000 units. In the early 19 ...
have separate envelope/frequency and algorithm/wave chips and created LFOs in software; this large workload in the OPZ is probably why it has fewer operators and notes. A 63B03 CPU allocates voices and generates auxiliary LFOs, in parallel with MIDI and user interface, which might be why e.g. a pitch EG was omitted; the later DX11 splits responsibilities between 2 CPUs and adds a PEG. The low price made the TX81Z popular with many producers on a tight budget, and is still used by part-time
house A house is a single-unit residential building. It may range in complexity from a rudimentary hut to a complex structure of wood, masonry, concrete or other material, outfitted with plumbing, electrical, and heating, ventilation, and air condi ...
and
acid house Acid house (also simply known as just "acid") is a subgenre of house music developed around the mid-1980s by DJs from Chicago. The style is defined primarily by the squelching sounds and basslines of the Roland TB-303 electronic bass synthesiz ...
producers.
Eliot Kennedy Eliot Kennedy (born 29 March 1969) is an English songwriter and record producer based in Sheffield. He has worked with artists such as Billie Piper, The Spice Girls, Mary J. Blige, Donny Osmond, Bryan Adams, Lulu (singer), Lulu, S Club 7, Five ( ...
uses it for one purpose, a "classic dancefloor bass sound.". Producer
Babyface Babyface or Baby Face can refer to: Nicknames * Lester Joseph Gillis a.k.a. Baby Face Nelson, an infamous 1930s bank robber * Roosevelt "Baby Face" Willette (1933–1971), an American hard bop and soul-jazz musician * "Baby Face", Jimmy McLarnin ...
at one point had two units in his studio, both of which he kept set to the preset "LatelyBass", one detuned from the other; this expanded version of the preset became a part of his signature sound . TXz is very suitable for accordion use. It can be programmed to give Four Notes Right, Three notes Chord and One Note Bass. The machine can replicate the sounds of the old style Cordovox as well as add some further interesting sounds.


References


Yamaha TX81Z Owner's Manual
(
PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...
, in English, from Yamaha Japan)


Further reading

* * *


External links


Unofficial Yamaha TX81Z Homepage

Amiteque TX81ZT FM module homepage

Complete standalone and VST editor


{{Yamaha Sound modules TX81Z Digital synthesizers Polyphonic synthesizers