Yamaha CS-01 Analog Synthesizer 1982

video upload by Jonasan

"The CS-01 is an interesting synth. It came out around a time when analog monosynths were mostly being phased out for DCO based polysynths and digital synthesizers. After a little under a decade of compact synthesizers for musicians being available from japanese companies an analog monophonic synthesizer was cheaper to produce for a novice level musician at the time. Synths like the CS-01 and SH-101 from roland as well as the M-500sp from korg were all offerings that basically were these companies slapping tried and true designs into plastic boxes for affordable prices. These days all synths from this time are equally as pricey but the CS01 is still fairly affordable and has some good tones to offer. Its actually not really a VCO synth but a digital oscillator with analog filters and low resolution envelopes. This was the trend of the early 80s budget synths. The Saw and Square waves are pretty standard stuff but sound very good and the the weird 12db filter with switchable high and low resonance while groaned about online by losers is perfectly functional as i demonstrate here. The ADSR is very sensitive and okay? Its my least favorite part of this synth. The real special part of this synth is its PWM. Its FAT, set to a low footing and its insanely deep and set higher and it does soaring singing leads very well. These things seem to have largely been passed up by the reverb scalpers and the youtube influencer reddit effect. I see some going for $400+ which is hilarious. You should try to snag one as if you wait any longer there might not be any vintage analog synthesizers left you can buy under $800+. Also this little thing while looking like a toy actually is a wonderful instrument! Excuse the sloppy noodling i was not myself while recording this one. I try to show a variety of tones! They were apart of a producer series that yamaha offered with a drum machine, mixer, 4 track cassette recorder and some other items intended to get a musician off to the races! I own the drum machine of that series and will make a follow up video on it soon. A mkii version was made with a 24db filter with the resonance switch changed for a slider in 1984 but i havent had a chance to try one.

Specs:
1 VCO - triangle / saw / square / pulse / PWM
Sine waveform
1 ADSR envelope gen"

Roland SH-2 Analog Synthesizer Demo

video upload by Jonasan

"This synthesizer is really special to me. When i got into all this stuff 6 years back it mostly came from listening to music such as YMO and related acts and albums and the sounds of mid to late 70s synthesizers had infected my brain! The roland SH-2 appears to recently have had been given the knod by a few popular synth youtube personalities which i was happy to see. 6 years back when i was researching instruments to take me to these sounds it was much more common to see SH-09s and SH-101s and you rarely ran into the SH-2. Now they appear to be for sale everyday although prices on everything have exploded. I am of the opinion having played all three that the SH-2 is the king of the smaller SH synthesizers. while not a must for excellent mono synth tones the dual VCO's change the entire feel beyond what a simple sub osc can provide with a single VCO. It seems roland did not manufacture these for more than a few years but they are everywhere online. You really should grab one! The filter is very wet and self oscillates in such a pleasing way, The sine wave provides deep basses and the PWM with dual VCO is very lush. This synthesizer is very powerful on all fronts except maybe modulation potential. Here are some of the specs below


2 VCO's + 1 Sub oscillator (waveforms: pulse, square, sawtooth, sine, noise)
LFO with sine, square and Sample & Hold; Auto-Bend
Resonant, self-oscillating 24dB lowpass filter(four OTA-stages with selected BA662 with FET transistors as Buffers), mod by EG, lfo and kybd tracking. External audio input
CV / Gate
This video is my first attempt to offer an audio demonstration of some of the different sounds you can get out of these synthesizers. Apologies for my arm in the shot and the watermark. I was testing software and am still getting used to making videos!"