The Yamaha DX7 is an FM synthesis-based digital synthesizer and electronic keyboard manufactured by the Yamaha Corporation from 1983 to 1989. It was the first commercially successful digital synthesizer, and its distinctive sound can be heard on many recordings, especially pop music and dance music from the 1980s. Its preset sounds were particularly popular due to the difficulty of FM synthesis programming combined with the immediacy of the stock (preset) DX7 sounds, meaning that players tended to perform and record with the sounds they had at their fingertips. These stock sounds ultimately proliferated to the point that they were regarded as clichéd by the end of the 1980s.
