6 thoughts on “Yamaha CS-80 – The Synthesizer That You Deserve”

1. A synth that plays as well as you do?

   1. The adverb vs. adjective problem is making my eyes bleed.

      I also vote for more analog SoC synths! Transistors are cheap these days and you could integrate tons of analog goodness on a single die.

      1. Sorry, what’s SoC? Couldn’t really find anything enlightening on the subject with Google.

         On another note, that advert looks like it’s straight from the pages of a naughty magazine.

         1. SOC is system on chip. They could reproduce this synth on one or several more dies as a chipset. Been thinking about this. The 16 oscillators themselves need to be separated (separate dies) as their temperature imperfection is part of the soul of this instrument. Slight detuning.

2. Why can’t this be produced today? A modern CS80 taking advantage of today’s analog integrated electronics would be lighter, cheaper, more stable and it would sell like crazy.

   1. You will only rarely see these old beasts re-appear as hardware because what made them legendary was, in fact, the aggregate effect of what also made them insane to maintain. A real Jupiter-8 was about $4-5k in its day. You can easily triple that in today-dollars due to the intense manufacturing expense. It would be just another boutique item bought by Rudess and about 16 other people in a world where $4k can net you an entire digital studio. Besides, you don’t want a CS-80 to be so light that you can’t DIG IN and really engage it. That responsive keyboard and pitch strip were its real charm, not merely detuned sawtooth waves. In a world dominated by software and semi-inexpensive “fun’ boxes, an actual player’s instrument has, sadly, slid down the list of desirability for many. There will always be good Nord-type ‘boards for that, but for better AND worse, controllers have the edge more all the time.