Yamaha TX-802

Late in 1986 Yamaha discontinued their best selling keyboard, the DX-7. The DX-7 was replaced by two keyboards the DX-7IIFD and DX-7IID. The only difference between the two models was the FD came with a 3.5 inch floppy drive. The new DX-7II’s offered the ability to split and layer the keyboard.

In 1988, Yamaha released the TX802. The TX802 is a rackmount unit part of Yamaha second generation DX line. It follows the DX-7’s 6 operator FM synthesis architecture that first debuted on the DX-7 along with some additional enhancements. The TX-802 weights 10 lbs 2 oz. and has dimensions of 17-7/8" X 3-3/4" X 11-1/4". Yamaha also made sure that the unit was backward compatible which means you can use old DX-7 voice data on the TX802 but not the other way around. The fronts panel has a 40 character X 2 lines illuminated display, head phone jack, power switch and cartridge slot. The display offers some crude graphical editing which provides very little useful information. Numeric data is also offered for all parameters and the unit is fully programmable from the front panel. I would definitely recommend getting an editor for the unit if you plan to program it on a regular basis. FM programming is complex and it helps to be able to see as many parameter as possible at one time. Navigating is performed through 8 mode select keys, 8 parameter select keys, and 10 key pads (0-9), cursor keys, +1 (yes), -1 (no) keys and enter key. Navigating though the various menus, while not obvious on first try, is relatively easy once you are familiar with the menu and key layout.

The rear panel offers midi in, out and thru, mixed outputs 1 and 2 (which can function as a L&R output) and then 8 individual outputs.

The TX802 is 16 note polyphonic and may play 8 different voices/timbres at a time (voices is what Yamaha calls a timbre where other manufacturers commonly refer to it as a patch). This is the first 8 part multitambral 6 operator FM unit. The unit has a two level architecture - voices and performances. A performance is where you select what voices will be used and up to 8 may be selected at a time. Each voice may be assigned to a different midi channel for multi-tambral sequencing use.

The unit stores 192 voices, 128 are stored in ROM and 64 are stored in RAM (which means you may only have 64 sots to store your own voices). Another 64 voices may be accessed from a cartridge. The unit has 64 performances stored in RAM. The unit can read Yamaha’s RAM 1 cartridge (4 bytes -32 voices) or RAM 4 cartridge (16 bytes).

Performance Mode

Performance mode is where you edit parameters relating to the performance set up. The parameters available are as follows:

MIDI Receive Channel. This identifies which channel each of the instruments will respond to.

MIDI mode allows you to select between omni on and omni off.

Alternating Assignment allows you to allow you to have the TX802 assign which selected voice will respond to incoming notes.

EG Forced Damping - on/off deals with the way a voice behaves when you exceed the polyphony of the TX802. When forced damping is set to on and note stealing occurs, the note that is dropped envelope, goes to zero, and the new note’s envelope starts at zero. When forced damping is set to off and note stealing occurs, the new note that steals the voice starts at the particular point of the envelope that the old notes was at.

Instrument Volume selects the volume for each particular instrument (0-99). When sending midi volume controller #7 all instruments volume are adjusted so that the performance stays in balance within itself. I would have preferred to been able to adjust each channels volume separately.

Output assignment allows you to choose each voices output (output 1, output 2, both or neither)

Note Limits High and Low allow you set a note regions that the voice will respond to. Notes played outside that region will not trigger the voice.

Midi Note Shift allows for incoming note numbers to be transposed by a separate amount of semitones for each voice for each voice. The maximum amount of transposition is +/-24 semitones (or 2 octaves).

Select mircotuning allows you to use different tuning scales for each performance.

Performance Detune allows each voices to be independently detuned.

Performance Name as implied allows you to name the performance

System Set-up Mode

System Set up is where you edit global system parameters. They primarily affect how the TX-802 responds to incoming data.

Midi Receive Parameters: Control Change data, program change, pitch bend and after touch receive options allow for the data to be ignored, to be received individually by each voice on the applicable midi channels or to be received on a global channel that will affect each voice selected in the preset. You can set the machine to only respond to odd, even or all notes received via midi. While the unit can receive program changes over midi it can not be instructed to change banks over midi. So for example if you have midi channel 1 set to a particular voice from bank A, there is no way to change the from a voice from bank A to bank B, internal or cartridge via midi. On the plus side the unit can be set to receive both performance program and voice changes.

Control Number assignment allows to adjust what destination responds to continuos controller data. For example you could set volume to be controlled by another controller # besides 7.

System Exclusive Channel and Block select. System Exclusive channel allows you to select which channel or all channels for system exclusive to be transmitted or received. The TX802 received voices in blocks of 32. Block select allow you to choose where the voices will be stored upon a voice sys-ex receipt. The options are 1-32 or 33-64.

Microtuning allows you to individually tune each individual note. Yamaha has supplied 11 preset scales and offers two memory slots for user scales. The RAM4 cartridge may store 63 scales at a time.

Utility Mode

Utility Mode is where you perform various functions from data exchanges to formatting as follows:

The TX802 can transmit various system exclusive data such as the current voice, current performance, current microtunings, voices 1-32, voices 33-64, performance data 1-64, system set up data, current micro tuning data, and microtuning data.

Save and Load Data to cartridge. The unit can use various cartridge formats such as TX802, DX7II and DX-7 cartridges. With TX802 RAM 4 cartridges you can load voices and performances only or all the data on the cartridges which would also include the system set up and the two microtuning scales. With DX7II formatted ROM and RAM cartridges the TX802 will only read voices only that were stored for Bank 1. DX-7 cartridges can also be read with a Yamaha ADP1 adapter. I do not have one of these but they allow you load the 32 voices stored on the cartridge.

Utility mode is also used to format cartridges and initialize edit buffers and controller assignment tables back to their default value. Additionally utility allows you to toggle between the active edit buffer and the original data it held prior to edit. And finally one of the most important feature is operator copy which allows you to copy data from operator to another.

Improvements / Enhancements for the old DX-7

In my opinion one of the most important improvements on the TX802 which was also made to the DX7II keyboards is the use of 16 bit Digital to Analog converters. The old DX-7 has 12 bit which made the machine somewhat noisy. I have heard people comment that they like the old DX-7 series better since it has a rougher sound but I definitely prefer the cleaner sound for FM. Microtuning which has been mentioned above. Fractional scaling which is somewhat similar to key follow on an subtractive synthesizer yet it is taken to the next level by allowing you to set different rates for groups of three notes. Finally pitch bias allows you to control the pitch by after touch pressure which can allow you to make some really interesting sounds.

The Voice / How does it sound / Conclusions

The TX-802 offers 6 operator FM which offers much more possibilities than 4 operator FM and in my opinion sounds significantly better. Even if I make a sound that only required 4 operators I will usually use the extra two operators to fatten up the sound with some slight detuning. Each of the operators only generate sine waves but by modulating sine waves you can construct some very complex waveforms. The unit offers 32 different algorithm which select how the operators will be set up and routed. Each operator has its own envelope.

The TX802 sounds like it supposed to sound - a digital FM synth. This sound is all over records from the mid 80s. The unit excels at making bell like and metallic tones. However with some programming effort a massive array of sound can be made. One of the biggest problems with FM, it is has been used to death producing Rhodes, electric pianos, bells and etc. Today we are seeing people produce much more interesting sounds from them - really pushing the envelope of the instrument’s abilities.

I am pretty big fan of this unit mainly because of it’s sound and the additionally flexibility it offers compared to the other very similar FM synths Yamaha offered (DX-7, DX7IID and FD). The unit should not be compared to the third generation of FM synths that Yamaha introduced as the SY and TG-77 and the SY99, especially since these units offer samples and these samples can be used in the frequency modulation process.

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