| ▲ | Oral history of John Chowning, inventor of FM synthesis [video](youtube.com) |
| 59 points by Rochus 10 hours ago | 13 comments |
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Chowning |
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| ▲ | bradishungry an hour ago | parent | next [-] |
| I had a few brief conversations with John a few years back when I was helping a friend out at a synthesizer convention. What was extremely interesting to me is that he seemed relatively uninterested in FM synthesis from a musical point of view, at least he made it sound like at the time that was not his interest, and he was just very interested in a computer science point of view. The musicians I was with were very surprised about that. I could kind of understand it as a computer science student at the time and a musician, but it was still really surprising that such a monumental contribution to music was created by someone who wasn’t really focused on that at all! |
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| ▲ | 8bitsrule an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Good to see & hear Chowning talk about the origins! The DX-7's lack of patch-cord 'programming' ...replaced by 32 instantly-selectable, well-conceived preset patches in RAM ... was essential in 'democratizing' synthesis. Because it wasn't easy to make new patches, it also jump-started the patch-creation business. The 16-note polyphony also didn't hurt. " in 1986, it was used in 40% of the number-one singles on the US Billboard Hot 100." -- Wikipedia |
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| ▲ | franky47 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I was lucky to be given a lecture on FM synthesis by John Chowning himself during his visit of my home town about 20 years ago. As a kid that grew up playing a Yamaha DX11, that was a great moment. |
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| ▲ | ahartmetz 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The first surprise for me is that it wasn't invented in Japan, which I just assumed because all the best-known FM chips and synthesizers are from Japan. |
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| ▲ | wildzzz 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Many of the early synths came from America. John Chowning actually first licensed his FM synthesis patent to Yamaha so that's probably what gave them a tech boost they needed to grow in the market. Early electronics from Japan were often seen as inferior products compared to the American and European products (RCA, Westinghouse, Philips, Telefunken, etc). Japan of yesteryear was the China of the 1990s and early 2000s, some decent stuff but a lot of cheap clones. Now, China makes everything so that analogy falls apart today. The 1970s oil crisis was one of the major events that helped bring Japanese goods into a better light, Japanese cars were absolutely killing the domestic automakers on fuel efficiency and price and rather than engage protectionist tariffs (Chinese EVs today, hmm?), they forced the domestic automakers to try harder. This change in public perception helped give a real sales boost to other manufacturing sectors, like consumer electronics which in turn helped drive innovation in a very short time period. That's not to say Japanese product was junk in the 50s and 60s, there were a few dominant players of quality products (Sony) but like Chinese manufacturing today, there was still a lot of cheap junk. | | |
| ▲ | Rochus 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > John Chowning actually first licensed his FM synthesis patent to Yamaha Did he? Wasn't there New England Digital (NED) with the Synclavier which had FM on the market before Yamaha? Are you sure Chowning gave licenses? I would rather expect that this was the Standford administration's business, not Chowning's. | | |
| ▲ | earthnail 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | They offered the patent to all the American synth companies, and they all declined. Multiplying sounds just sounded too ridiculous. Then came Yamaha, who saw its potential, and made a fortune with it. So did Stanford. That patent became the second most successful patent Stanford ever had until it expired in 1996 (by now obv the university has had way more financially successful patents). It secured Chowning his tenure; the university probably wouldn’t have prolonged it otherwise. Quite an incredible story the whole thing. | | |
| ▲ | Rochus 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Quite an incredible story the whole thing. Even more with Chowning's background as a musician, not an engineer. > Multiplying sounds just sounded too ridiculous Is this really the "official" reason, or your interpretation? |
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| ▲ | JKCalhoun 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Fun to watch the old Kurosawa film, High and Low to see "old", scrappy, Japan. |
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| ▲ | wmf 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| This guy should have invented file permissions. |
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