With my DX21 I was frequently a percussionist, slinging these oddball rhythmic, filthy, metallic noises.Ĥ years or so passed, and I thanks to 'Keyboard' magazine I learned that the sounds I had made were completely dependent on the precise specifications of the DX21 hardware platform. These crazy electronic patches became my signature.
many of them sounded like robotic male voices pronouncing vowels. And as I slowly swept through those pitches I got the most insane inharmonic effects. Why, you ask? Well, at the time I didn't really understand WHY it made such a cool sound, but now I can tell you: I was scraping the very upper edge of the D/A converters, just teetering into aliasing. but here's where I'm going with this: I started making patches that would play VERY high frequency-modulated waves, with slow-moving pitch envelopes. I created a lot of percussive sounds, including some shockingly convincing bongos.
I got pretty experimental with the thing. As a young teenager, the remarkably affordable DX21 would be the second synth I would buy, for a thousand Canadian 1984 dollars. The DX11 is a much better instrument than the DX100/27/21 range in other ways, notably much nicer top end, less aliasing and other digital grunge.The DX21/27/100 all emerged on the market at the same time, when the keyboard world was all 'DX-Mania' and the existing DX7/DX9 were too pricey.
