Yamaha EX5 Swell Strings

video upload by SynthMania

"When I was younger I rarely bought brand new gear. To get max. "bang for the buck", most of the times I bought used (remember local newspaper ad sections?). The Yamaha EX5R was one of the few pieces of gear that I bought brand new, on the spot, as soon as I tried it out in the store (Veneman in Springfield, VA, not existing anymore, it burned down) in 1998 or 1999 when it came out. I bought it right then and there because I was so impressed with its sounds and capabilities. It truly was a groundbreaking machine for the time, it was one of the first synths to have polyphonic arpeggiators, categories of sounds, multi-synthesis DSP, Virtual Analog, wind control, 128-voice polyphony, and I could go on and on with the whole kit and caboodle. It was the Yamaha flagship synth / workstation back in those days. Still kept it for all these twenty-five years. Of course, today it's been superseded by modern Yamaha synths, excellent propositions such as the Motif and Montage lines. But the EX5/R/7 still has a special sound that I like very much. I found an old file that contained a quick three-part string ditty that I made on it, utilizing three tracks of the awesome and hypnotic "Swell Strings" patch on it. In this video, I'm soloing the C pan, the L pan, the R pan, and then the ditty in full.

Happy Befana day to all.
0:00 CENTER PAN
0:57 LEFT PAN
1:31 RIGHT PAN
2:08 FULL MIX"