Spending a late night watching random Yamaha DX7 videos.
The thing is iconic, the synth sound of the 1980s. Arguably the early 90s, too; if you had a SEGA Mega Drive or Genesis, that thing’s FM sound chip (YM2612) was also designed by Yamaha. Sounded a bit similar. In fact, a lot of early arcade machines had those Yamaha chips inside.
Tears For Fears. Depeche Mode. Mr. Mister. Laura Branigan’s “Self Control” (one of my favorite bumpers from old episodes of Coast to Coast AM) featured a patch from the DX7, Tub Bells.
These days, you can get pretty close to a DX7 with the plugin Dexed. Close. Not perfect. I use it with FL Studio sometimes.
The Korg Volca FM, a neat (and comparatively cheap) little FM synthesizer, can also use DX patches.
Video is a wicked DX7 demo song uploaded on June 1, 2013 by PROJECT DX.