Synth: Yamaha CS-80
Review by: Stefan Gruhl, sngruhl@cip-informatik.uni-erlangen.de

Polyphony: 8 times two patches
Other inputs/external control: 
    Other CV: LFO in for audio modulation.

Patch storage: 4 momories my minisliders under a cover.
Keyboard/rack: 
Known problems:
    All discrete. Hard to fix. It's said to behard to tune all 16 voice boards.

Price range: around 1000$ US (1995)

Comments:

 cool - huge - 220 lbs

 the back of the fron panel rises and covers a big row of at least 24 PCB 
boards. The Panel behind the keyboard features 3 rows of knobs and sliders. 
The first one is for general assignement and voice setup, the upper two rows 
are each one patch. Each of those rows gives you control over a one VCO,
filter,VCA patch.

   VCO: saw,square,sine wave, noise. PW manual and PWM with own dedicated 
LFO switch in saw and square and mix in noise. mix in sine after the VCF 
section. Sine is never affected by any VCF setting.

    

    VCF: HP,res,LP,res, filter ADR envelope and amount setting. I like the HP 
a lot which is MUCH nicer than most other I know. Very musical and still 
doing a lot but only making the signal more "quiet". Same for the LP. 12 db 
gives you a charming character, different than the use moog one, but still 
capable of doing rich bass sounds. though the res is doing only a bit of 
change to the sound. No self res at all. foolproof :-)

     VCA: mix in for the VCF out and the sine, which makes sense and gives 
you a rich sound with attenuated basic carrier sound. Makes you sometimes 
think  you work on a 24db Synth, as you can lighten overtones quite a bit if 
necessary. Plus standart ADSR.

      Velocity and After touch section: For each sound you can adjust the 
abount that your playing affects VCA level and filter. Makes 4 additional 
sliders, two times for each row. Main reason why you can tune the CS80 to 
react lively to your playing.

       The VCF and VCA Env's have short Attack times of 1 ms up to 1 s, decay 
and release 10 ms to 10 sec.

	

	Contoll:
	========
	The third row gives you access to all the "live" parameters.

	general tune,detune Ch 2, mix of both voices, an additional general 
VCF cutoff and res slider which affects both voices simoultaniously.

	This is not only a quick controll, but very useful on the PRESETS:

	There are 2 times 14 buttons to give you quick access to 11 preset 
sounds for each voice. There are therefore a total of 22 preset sounds 
instead of the panel settings and aditional 2 cool memory patches for each 
voice. This four patches are "stored" by minisliders under a cover on the 
left of the two main patch rows. You are just able to adjust filter and res 
ofthe patches and add various modulation onto it.

	These are: foot range, velocity affecting initial pitch, aftertouch 
affecting general LFO speed,VCO pitch and VCF. You can adjust filter cutoff 
realting to the keyboard. stress VCA and VCF ralated to the keys. Either 
more or less. Means: Setup the CS to play higher keys quieter but with more 
open filter. Middle normal and lower keys with also a more open filter but 
also louder. clever!

	LFO: only one general LFO wich always affects both voices. Sine,saw,
square,noise, external audio signal. Knobs for speed, amount to VCO,VCF,VCA. 
No sophisticated routing to only one voice, detune vco 2 etc. very limited
 and the first thing to get modded imho.

	Ringmod: on general output. Amount and speed of the rinmod's own LFO. 
You also have a dedicated AR envelope wich can control the ringmods LFO's 
speed.

	The famous Ribbon Controller is nice to touch and has a wide range. 

	Chorus and Tremolo with speed and depth controll. Done by a bucket 
chain with a noisy, but nice and analog sound. Not that you need to warm the 
basic sound up though, like on a Juno :-)

	 

	 Impression:

	 ===========

	 I like it best. It is more analog sounding and has the most 
characteristic sound I can think of. 

	 The limited layout is capable of doing such a lot, as every setting 
gives you a worthy patch to play. Just like a 303 for a lot of people. The 
filter and its dynamic setttings form such a lot of paramters makes it to a 
REAL instument.

	  They Keyboard is a joy to play and tuning is a pain to pay :-)

	  I heard such a lot things about it's stability, but haven't any 
problems myself, nor do I know a sick CS80 of my friends. I conclude it is 
not so bad as always said.

	  Installing Midi is possible from Kenton UK, but expensive.