Roland SH-1000 "For those far-out sounds" brochure, 1975

Roland SH-1000 "For those far-out sounds" 2-sided brochure from 1975.

I'm "down" with the kids these days. Their music. Their hang-outs. Their lingo.

And back in 1975, Roland wanted readers to know they were "with it" too. The company made sure to give those potential customers lucky enough to get their hands on this brochure the real skinney on how the SH-1000 can create all "those far-out sounds". Bring this baby on stage and you'll be looooo-king good. A genuine Stone Fox. You will have all the bunnies getting down on the dance floor. It's total Ace.

Okay. I know... enough already.

So, what's all the buzz about this SH-1000 brochure? Well, for starters, it has the print date on the back!  I'm really digging that. Saves me time and effort trying to figure that out. Plus, I have a soft spot for that stylized "R" two-line logo.

I've come across the front half of the brochure online, but the back half seems to be a bit more difficult to find. A shame really - and one I'm hoping to fix with this post, since the second half has all the things I like in a retro synth brochure, including that great little diagram indicating the functions of each and every dial, switch, slider and tab. And it also includes a great little spec sheet underneath the diagram for those that would rather get their information in a more organized fashion.

According to many sources online, including Wikipedia, the SH-1000 was introduced to the world in 1973, and was not only Roland's first compact synthesizer, but the first to come out of Japan altogether. Sound On Sounds' April 2004 article on the history of Roland indicated that "it predated the Korg 700 by a handful of weeks". A pretty good start from a company that would expand on their SH-line for quite sometime after wards. And surprisingly, if online sources are correct, it continued production until 1981. 

Looking a little closer at it's specs, the SH-1000 had a pretty good feature set for such a young synth. VCO, Low pass filter with resonance, ADSR envelope generator, glide, white and pink noise... and the list goes on. It also included 10 presets, although the InterWebz jury still seems to be out on how useful they are on their own.

 It's brother, the SH-2000 came out a little later in 1973 with three times as many presets, but with less overall features and reduced sound editing capabilities. Some sites, such as Vintage Synth Explorer, speculate that the 2000 was possibly released because the SH-1000 turned out to be too confusing to many potential buyers such as church and home organists. That brochure photo of the SH-1000 sitting atop an organ backs the theory that the company originally was targeting those organists.

If you had any doubt about the capabilities of the SH-1000, look no further than to the YouTube video below created by AutomaticGainsay - aka Marc Doty. He hosts his own YouTube channel that is just shy of four million video views. He is also a recent Artist-In-Residence with the Bob Moog Foundation and a regular on VintageSynth.com's forums. You can be sure he knows a thing or two about synthesizers.

His description accompanying this SH-1000 video pretty much sums up his point of view on the beast.

"Do yourself a favour, and NEVER READ any review of the SH-1000 on the internet. ALL of them inaccurately portray the Roland SH-1000. Hopefully, this video will bring some accuracy and clarity.

Feel free to link to this video or post it on your page, but please give me credit by marking it "by Marc Doty." Thanks!"

Never read any review of the SH-1000? Now he tells me! Gah! *sound of hand hitting forhead*

Well better late than never.   :)

Yamaha GX-1 "The 'Most' Yamaha goes to Mickie" ad, International Musician and Recording World 1978

Yamaha GX-1 "The 'Most' Yamaha goes to Mickie" 1-page advertisement from page 17 in International Musician and Recording World January (UK) 1978.

I'm a little embarrassed - for two reasons.

The first is a simple mistake - I almost overlooked this GX-1 advertisement because my eye's wouldn't leave a certain ad that sat across from it on the opposite page.

I swear that thing was looking right at me, deep into the recesses of my mind, pondering and judging my darkest secrets. It's like I was hypnotized by that giant mouse.

Okay - obligatory Halloween content finished.

The second reason I'm embarrassed is that I really had no clue who "Mickie" was. Which meant that the whole title thing - "The 'Most' Yamaha goes to Mickie" - was also lost on me. Part of the problem was that extra space between "Mickie" and ""Most" in the first line of the ad-copy. My mind wouldn't put the two words together in my brain and I thought maybe there was a word missing somewhere. I had to ask my GF if maybe the ad was referring to Mick Jagger. Seriously. I had no clue.

But when I finally did figure it all out (thanks Wikipedia!) everything else fell into place. Big producer... Rak Studios in London... Herman's Hermits... I learned a lot this weekend   :)

If you recall from my last CS-80 blog post, Yamaha didn't seem to promote the CS-80 through advertisements in International Musician. And it looks like we now know part of the reason. They were spending at least a little of their advertising budget on this advertisement, while (intentionally or unintentionally) letting earned media promotion do it's thing for the CS-80.

Looking closer at this GX-1 ad, its kind of an anomaly. Yamaha usually wasn't one to "pull an ARP" by name-dropping so extensively in an ad. I'm not saying they never did it, but if I look at other Yamaha ads I've posted, usually they relied on throwing out a few technical terms and focusing on the reader as the musician.

But, in this case, Yamaha does the name-dropping job proud by using the Trifecta of "important music business stars" - Mickie Most, Stevie Wonder and, of course, Keith Emerson.

Although Stevie Wonder coined the term "Dream Machine" in reference to the GX-1, to me he will always be associated with samplers (probably just me showing my age group). I would thus argue that from my point of view, Keith Emerson was usually associated more closely with the GX-1 over on this side of the pond. And you don't have to look far for examples - like that awesome photo in the book Vintage Synthesizers of Keith playing a GX-1 while "ignoring" his Moog modular and Hammond C-3 in a Montreal stadium.

Keith also had a column in Keyboard Magazine called "Inside Tracks" where he answered readers' questions on keyboard technique, film scoring, recording projects and other musical topics. Unsurprisingly, a question about the GX-1 makes an appearance in the first run of the column found in the May 1983 issue.

Q: "Did you use the Yamaha GX-1 on 'Honky'"?
A: "No I couldn't get the GX-1 into Nassau, where the album was recorded. The island would hae sunk! It takes about eight people to lift the thing, and it was bad enough trying to get any other stuff into Nassau, let alone trying to get it out. So there's no GX-1 on Honky."

It is not just the name-dropping references that make this such a great ad to me. The instrument is gorgeous and even this classic crappy black and white photo proves it. A friend has used the term "rocket body" to describe two things in life - p0rn stars and synthesizers. And the GX-1 probably fits nicely into both of those categories.

But it is that third paragraph of ad-copy that really puts this ad into perspective.

"The Yamaha GXI is the test bed of Yamaha Technology. Spin offs from this project have been utilized in the new ranges of Yamaha home organs and professional musical instruments."

So, this isn't so much an ad for the Yamaha GX-1, but an ad for *all* Yamaha instruments. No one is expected to spend 40,000 pounds on an instrument after reading this ad. But I bet a few musicians thought about buying a few of the less expensive organs and synths, and maybe even a CS-80 or two, after reading about the trickle-down effect of GX-1 technology.

Lucky for me, I'm now in 2011and have friends of the blog like FlameTopFred and Micke to help guide me through synth-tech connections like those of the GX-1/CS-80/E-70. There is also that thing called the Internet - and a quick Google search (Web and images) brings up a wealth of information, including the well-written Wikipage article. Great tech information, as well as other fun facts such as finding out that Aphex Twin (Richard D James) acquired Mickie Most's GX-1.  Also check out Gordon Reid's two-part series on the GX-1 found in the February 2000 and March 2000 issues of Sound On Sound. You will learn more than you ever wanted - including info about those speakers behind the machine in the photo. Digging a little deeper into search results is well worth the effort.

Making a huge buying decision without the Internet seems frightening to me now. I'm guessing name-dropping ads like this one might have been the tipping point for many of my purchases back in 1978 - more so if I had known who Mickie Most was...   :)

But in the end, the biggest name-drop of all in this ad isn't Mickie - or Stevie or Keith

It is the GX-1 itself. Nice work Yamaha.

Yamaha CS-80 "Finally" advertisement, Contemporary Keyboard 1977

Yamaha CS-80 synthesizer "Finally" 1-page advertisement from page 9 in Contemporary Keyboard December 1977.

I had originally posted this ad way back in 2009 before I had a lot to say. But now, after posting that well-received CS-80/60/50 12-page brochure, I guess I have a little bit to say after all.  And most of what I have to say is related to advertising vs. earned media, and in some ways, the CS-80 would have been a good study to test the effects of each.

CS-80 information began to show up in a number of mags pretty much around the same time period during the winter of 1977. Here in North America, Contemporary Keyboard and Synapse both started to run this CS-80 advertisement in December (well... for Synapse it was the November/December issue). This was probably around the time the CS-80/60/50 brochure started to appear, and I'm kind of surprised that Yamaha didn't sync up the design or ad-copy a bit more between the two. Sure, you can say a lot more in a brochure, so you don't expect the well-written ad-copy of the brochure to be identical to the ad. But I would have thought Yamaha in America would have translated some of the design elements of the brochure over to the ad.

Speaking of the design elements - there isn't much in this ad. But that close-up photo is awesome! I love seeing those four rows miniature memory panels in the foreground with the two rows of programmable panels running off into the distance. It's a little romantic  :)

As far as ad-copy is concerned, Yamaha did keep the general theme of the brochure at play in the advertisement - focusing on the creativity that can be expressed live through the CS-80. And the ad does at least give the CS-50 and CS-60 a final thought at the end of the text.

So, Yamaha clearly chose to focus on advertising in North America. Meanwhile, across the pond, the company took a different approach - at least as far as International Musician and Recording World was concerned. Not sure if it was the company's intent, but somehow they got the magazine to review the instrument, not once - but TWICE within six months.

The first write-up showed up as a "KeyboardCheck" review in the January 1978 (UK) issue of IMRW. Rod Argent took the CS-80 out for a test drive on page 46, where he managed to haul the 4,350 pound/220lb synthesizer into the studio for the recording of Andrew Lloyd-Webber's "new set of 23 Paganini Variations". Not able to save the best for last, in the third paragraph, Rod writes:

"I must say at once that the Yamaha passed these tests with flying colours. In fact Mr. Lloyd-Webber was so impressed that he bought one after three days of recording and by all accounts is now threatening the time schedule of "Evita" by insisting on lengthy demonstrations to everyone who comes to his flat!"

Most of the rest of the review is your usual tour of controls and functions, and Rod concludes that it is a beautifully constructed instrument with a good layout with an "extremely satisfying" sound. Nothing we didn't know there. :)

The second IMRW review showed up exactly six months later in the July 1978 (UK) issue (with the same 4,350 pound price tag). And this time Dave Simmons gave the CS-80 true "synth" status by reviewing it in the "SynthCheck" section rather than "KeyboardCheck".

Dave's introduction made it clear he didn't get as much time in with the instrument as Rod did six months earlier, but was just as eager to praise the synth right out of the gate with this introduction:

"Since I have been doing synthesizer reviews for International Musician there have been two pieces of equipment that have particularly impressed me. One is the Roland Guitar Synthesizer and the second is the CS80 from Yamaha. As with the guitar synthesizer, I could easily have played for weeks with the CS80, but because of large demand for this instrument, the only one available for review belonged to someone else and so I was unable to take it out of the warehouse, or try it out in a band situation."

Later in the review he states that the CS-80 is the best synthesizer he has ever played, and suggests that you actually can "throw away your other synthesizers" if you buy one. He prefaces these remarks by noting that he is NOT on Yamaha's payroll. :)

Interestingly, I can't find a CK review for the CS-80. In fact, it looks like very little Yamaha gear got reviewed before 1980.

So, in the end, I have to wonder. Did Yamaha think they got a better deal out of spending cash on a year and a half worth of 1-page advertising in Contemporary Keyboard, or by taking the chance of getting TWO over-the-top complimentary reviews by lending out the instrument to IMRW?

I know I would have taken the chance on the two great reviews. But then again, with the awesomeness that is the CS80, it's not that big a chance to take.    :)

Yamaha "CS-Series Synthesizers" brochure featuring CS-50, CS-60 and CS-80, 1978

   

Yamaha "CS-Series Synthesizers" 12-page brochure featuring CS-50, CS-60 and CS-80 synthesizers from 1978.

[PDF version to be provided later once I figure out an alternative to SkyDrive]

Sometimes I just don't feel like writing. And this morning I also didn't feel like going outside to rake the rain-soaked leaves that continued to accumulate at an increasingly fast rate during last night's freakish thunder storm. Instead of trying to stubbornly pull myself in either of these directions, I turned on the coffee maker in the kitchen and then turned on the computer and scanner in the extra bedroom. Time to do some mindless scanning.

This time I managed to blindly pull a Yamaha CS-50/60/80 brochure out of the archive, figuring it would keep me busy for an hour or so. But I soon started spending more time reading through the brochure than actually scanning it.  Part of the problem was that I'd never actively researched the differences between these synths, so to have all this information packaged together so elegantly was a quick way to get acquainted with all of them at once.

(  Three hours later... )

And.... done.    :)

The brochure is divided into four sections:

1. Introduction: "A Fascinating New Way To Create Musical Sounds" - 1 page
2. CS-50 info - 4 pages including that awesome fold-out photo of the synthesizer
3. CS-60 info - 2 page
4. CS-80 info - 3 pages
5. Block diagrams of each synthesizer - 1 page
6. Specifications - 1 page

The odd shape of those first couple of scans is because that first page actually is a fold out - so scan 1 (the cover) and scan 2 (the introduction to the brochure) actually make up the first real page. Scan three is the other side of that long fold-out page which features the giiii-nomous large photo of the CS-50. Scan 4 (the first page of the CS-50 info) sits opposite of scan 3, and then you have the rest of the pages sitting opposite each other as laid out above... hope that all makes sense.

If you don't know much about these three synths, then I would recommend first flipping open the fold-out page to read the "Feature comparison of CS-50, CS-60 and CS-80" chart on that intro page. Then, flip directly to the inside of the last page to see the block diagrams. And finally check out the back cover of the brochure for side-by-side specs. Then go back and read about each synth in their respective sections. Awesome reference info all around.

Enjoy.... while I go out and finally rake leaves. Gah.

EML SynKey 2-sided brochure, approximately 1978

EML SynKey brochure from approximately 1978.

This brochure was sent to me, along with quite a few others pieces of  EML literature, by George Mattson. George was an independent factory sales rep for EML before he built the Syntar (drool).. and more recently, is the man behind Mattson Modulars (more drool).

Side note: Although my Doepfer obsession has reached new heights recently, I am about to decide whether to get a Mattson starter modular, or the six-pack - which looks too dang cute!

Sorry - got side-tracked for a sec. Can't... stop... looking...

Like this advertisement for the SynKey that I recently posted, this brochure is rather rare. Almost as rare as the 75 or so SynKeys that were produced (according to Mark Vail's book Vintage Synthesizers).

The front side of the brochure is one you may have come across on the Web, and includes ad-copy that builds on the text found in the SynKey's Contemporary Keyboard advertisement. It clearly carries the SynKey's message of simplicity and ease of use.

The back side of the brochure seem to be much more rare to find online, and includes ad-copy that focuses on the SynKey's three big promotional features - programming, second touch and pushbutton semitone select. Definitely take the time to read through it to get a good idea of how the SynKey operated. The back of the brochure also provides a list of the programmable parameters that are available on the SynKey. All in all, a very well-written piece.

My only peeve is my usual one - the document doesn't have a print date.  Gah.

When a document such as this doesn't have a date I usually rely on pricing info to get an idea of when exactly the piece was created during the life cycle of the instrument. In the case of the SynKey, I have one good price reference - the programmable SynKey was listed in Contemporary Keyboard's May/June 1976 Giveaway contest #5 at $2,195.00. I also have another price reference point - but it's a bit sketchy. Mark Vail's Vintage Synthesizers book lists the programmable SynKey price at a much lower $1,350.00 - but that includes a production start date of 1979. Considering the first ads for the SynKey were out in 1976, we know the actual production start date was much earlier. BUT, could that $1,350 price tag be the price that the unit cost in 1979? The huge price drop could have been on account of the card reader technology which would have quickly devalued the instrument as RAM memory costs went down in competitor's synths. But this is all just a hunch. And it all doesn't matter anyways because there is no pricing info on the brochure to cross reference with.

But, I do have one other theory to give this brochure a 1978 print date:

The brochure includes information on the non-programmable SynKey (model 1500) as well - but its kind of been added on as separate ad-copy underneath the main photo of the instrument in a *completely* different font.  Sites such as synthmuseum.com often include a scan of the front of this brochure - but the scan doesn't include the extra text about the non-programmable version. To me, this suggests that the scanned ad found on synthmuseum.com is probably the first version of the brochure. And this could possibly suggest that the non-programmable model 1500 SynKey came out later and was added to the brochure at that time.

The book Vintage Synthesizers lists a production start date for the non-programmable version at 1978 (and a cost of $925). I know - a long shot. I've asked a few people for more info on the two model's different start dates.

Note to readers: My theories have about a 20% success rate  :)  Will update when I learn more.

Changing topics, I've found a few good sources for photos and demos of the SynKey online.

MATRIXSYNTH posted a relatively recent April 2011 ebay auction that included some great photos of the programmable SynKey. That baby blue accent color found on the instrument is gorgeous. Another even more recent May 2011 auction post also has some good photos - and close up, you can see the baby blue bars are actually stylistic punch cards with hole punches! Nice design touch.

But, my favorite MATRIXSYNTH SynKey auction post is this one from MARCH 2009 because it includes photos of the colour punch cards as well (same blue colour!) as well as a few other pieces of literature.

The only place I've come across a colour photo of the orange non-programmable model 1500 SynKey is VintageSynth.com. Scroll down to the second photo to see the gorgeous orange accent colour of that machine.

As far as demos are concerned, I really enjoyed YouTube contributor "xgregcompositionx" vids. He's uploaded three SynKey video demos that show off it's great sound.

Check 'em out below. Time for me to watch Survivor  :D