MATRIXSYNTH: Yamaha CS70M


Friday, May 26, 2006

Yamaha CS70M

It's interesting that Yamaha had three distinct CS lines of synths. There's the CS5, CS10, CS15, and CS30 mono synths, the CS20M, CS40M, and CS70M, the CS50, CS60 and CS80 and of course the grand daddy of them all... The kick ass CS1X! - well, it actually is a fun little synth for the money. If you ever wondered what the CS70M sounded like, title link takes you there. There are a couple more shots as well. So why did Yamaha do this?

10 comments:

  1. A CS70M discography would probably be a short one. I'm pretty sure Vangelis used one. Toto presumably used one on Toto IV, aka the album with "Roseanna" and "Africa" on it, as they gigged with them at the time. Other than that?

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  2. You left out CS-01 and CS-5.

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  3. Thanks. I missed the CS5. I almost put in the CS-01, but it's not really part of a series, or is it? I guess I always assumed it was different than the 5, 10, 15 and 30 considering it's size.

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  4. I guess CS-01 could be in the series of CS-01 and CS-01 II.
    But they are different from the other older CSes.

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  5. I agree with you, for me, the kick ass only could be the GX1, not the budget CS1X.

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  6. Yeah, I never thought of the CS1x as a "grand daddy" of anything. He must have ment GX-1.

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  7. Just kidding with the CS1X. : ) I have one actually. It's definitely not any grand daddy of anything, but it is fun.

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  8. oh! yeah! it's a kind of vintage humour :).

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  9. My mate had a CS20M (bought it after I bought my Moog 'cos the Yamaha was bigger and more impressive looking).

    I thought it was pretty crap really. It looked impressive, and had a nice keyboard, could store memories and had S&H, but it just sounded so wimpy and bland compared to my Prodigy.

    They had a CS01 and a Mk2 at my old school and I thought they were wicked little things - I'd quite like one for nostalgia's sake but people still want silly money for them...

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  10. No, it's never been seen in any photos of Vangelis or any lists of his gear. Toto played a GS-1 in their "Africa" video and it sounds like a GS-1 (early preset expensive digital FM synth). For what it's worth Vangelis used a GS-2 (roadcased shorter version of the GS-1 apparently on loan to him). I hear some on the end titles to Blade Runner - the mallet and possibly harp-like sounds.

    As for discography, Bill Nelson is usually cited for using one a lot.

    One does get the impression with the CS-70M that Yamaha was so happy to have more "modern" memory that they simplified stuff and weren't focusing on expression.

    You can see a brochure photo of the never manufactured Yamaha CS50M in Peter Forrest's "Analogue Synthesizers vol. 2 N-Z" book

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