Yamaha SY-2, Contemporary Keyboard 1976

Yamaha SY-2 synthesizer advertisement from the back outside cover of Contemporary Keyboard Magazine May/June 1976.

Man, I hate address labels on old magazine covers. Seriously.

The number one rule about presentations is never to apologize for a bad image. Everyone already knows the image sucks because they are looking at it too. But those address label marks stand out like a sore thumb. I was even hoping that the heals on that dude's shoes would help draw attention away from the ripped address label.

No luck. Oh well, down to business.

This SY-2 advertisement appeared twice in Contemporary Keyboard (CK) - the May/June and July/August issues.

I knew next to nothing about the SY-2 when I came across this ad. But I dig all portable synths. Especially ones that have their own carrying handle. So, both of those reasons were kinda the kick-in-the-butt I needed to do some research (and report in a blog post :o)

Basically, the SY-2 is a preset synthesizer with more than a few extra controls to modify many of the sound parameters. The SY-2 replaced the wooden case of it's older sibling (the SY-1) with a tolex wrapping and gave it a hinged cover, making it much easier for a musician to take on the road.

The SY-2's biggest claim to fame is that it showed up in the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Unfortunately, not in that final scene where the aliens come down to earth (you can thank ARP for that), but in an earlier scene that takes place in a studio or lab somewhere. A post on SynthWire includes a great screen shot from the film. (As pointed out on the page by MATRIXSYNTH, one of the best things about this picture (besides the SY-2) *is* the blurry poster of Farrah Fawcett in the background).

If you happened to be a regular reader of CK back then, then you might have seen the good reference information that showed up in the Spec Sheet section of CK the previous month (in cool 1976-tech-speak :o):

"Yamaha SY-2 synthesizer: Preset sounds of 28 different timbres ranging from piano to "trumute" serve as the SY-2's building blocks, which the performer can use to construct his own sonorities. High- and low-pass filters, each with variable frequency and resonance controls, shape the harmonic structure of the sound being produced while attack, sustain, decay, and release sliders handle transient generation. The SY-2's 37-note keyboard actually covers a range of four octaves, depending upon the "natural range" of the selected preset instrument, reports the manufacturer. Also supplied are transposition levelers, a variable pitch control, a pitch-bending switch, and variable vibrato speed and depth. The keyboard is touch sensitive, permitting the pressure on the key to control volume, vibrato, and wah-wah intensities. The unit is completely solid-state in design, is housed in a reinforced road case, and weights 49 lbs. List price is $995.00. Yamaha Musical Instruments, Box 6600, Buena Park, CA 90620."

Although you can find a lot of good basic reference information online on both Vintage Synth Explorer and Synthmuseum.com, I find that you can pull some of the best information about the SY-2 from the photos and comments in blog posts.

For example, some excellent close-up photos and comments can be found in MATRIXSYNTH.

An August 2009 MATRIXSYNTH post has great photos of the control sections of the synth and the legs that would unscrew from the bottom of the case and get stored in the lid cover. It also included a great comment from Joshua concerning the synth's aftertouch:

"This was one of the first synthesizers with aftertouch, and it's rather strange how the aftertouch works: the keyboard sits on top of a floating rack which contains a potentiometer. Applying pressure on one of the keys causes the whole thing to sink, operating the potentiometer."

A December 2009 post has a few more photos, but its the comment from the always informative Micke that gives us details on the synth's use at the BBC.

"This synth was used quite alot in the '70s and early '80s by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop composers, especially Paddy Kingsland. Listen for example to the the clarinet and flute parts on Kingsland's Whisper from Space, Brighton Pier and Whale (from the TV version of "Hitch Hikers Guide"),and some of the music from the Doctor Who episodes Meglos and Full Circle etc. That's the SY-2."

An even older post from 2007 links us to MATRIXSYNTH's Flickr SY-2 photo stream for some great photos of the cover of the manual and the tolex case. But it is one of the details quoted from the auction copy that gets my attention:

"This is the only alternative to gets the classic GX-1 filters without paying 50000$. I'm telling you, you'll never heard something like that. The sound is unique, personnal and organic. It looks like a preset synth, but it's definately not! Think of the presets as your waveforms..."

Whaaaaat? If you are not familiar with the GX-1, its the grandfather to the CS80. Much like the recently blogged GS-1 ads are the grandfather to the DX-7.

I had to get a listen to one of these.

A quick YouTube search for the SY-2 pulled up a couple of videos, but in particular by StephenTeller included a description that also claims the filter's lineage goes back to the GX-1.

"Some vintage tones from the Yamaha SY-2. This synth features the same filter as the legendary GX-1 which was the pre-cursor to the mighty CS-80. You'll hear the similarity instantly. This keyboard also features aftertouch."

I can hear some resemblance, but I don't think I'm familiar enough with the CS80 or GX-1 to make a professional judgment call.

If you want to hear more SY-2, check out this ten-minute YouTube video from 2006. The sound is missing a bit of bass, but it covers off a lot more of the sounds.

Do you hear any of that Vangelis sound?

You can compare the sound of the SY-2 to some YouTube video queries for the GX-1 and CS-80.

What do ya think?

Wersi Bassie (bass/mini synthesizer), Contemporary Keyboard 1977

Wersi Bassie (bass/mini synthesizer) advertisement from page 48 of Contemporary Keyboard Magazine December 1977.

This small 1/4 page advertisement appeared religiously in back half of CK from September 1977 to February 1978. And I got to tell you, it pulls me in every time I see it. One reason is the cute logo with the circle surrounding the C to E keys creating a stylized 'W', along with the logo-text font with the 'W' that also emulates the same C to E keys in reverse colours.

But its the photo of the machine itself, and not the ad's design, that does most of the pulling.

You see, as I mentioned at the end of a Moog Sonic Six blog post last January, I love portable synthesizers - especially the ones with suitcase handles. Seriously. The Sonic Six, the EML 101, all of them. Mini-synths like the DX100, Prophecy, CZ101, CS01 also fall into this category - although they don't have built-in handles :o( .

And the Wersi Bassie is just enough of a different beast to make me look twice and then pull out my credit card.

Just look at the description in the ad:

"Advanced electronics delivers pure bass guitar sounds with a full range of flute stops-plus synthesized woodwinds and brass."

Now, I have to admit I don't know enough about organs to understand a flute stop, but put the text 'bass guitar sounds' and 'flute stops' so close to each other in the same sentence, and you can count me in.

The Bassie was a German import from the late 70s, and its name in German was even cooler than the English import - Baß Synth.

According to Till Kopper's awesomely cool Web site page for the Wersi synthesizer, that crazy ß is "...more or less the equivalent to a double "s". And to make things more complicated: the german speaking parts of Swiss don't use this letter officially." Nice.

Till's page contains a lot of great reference information on the Wersi Bassie, including a great photo of the front of the machine. There are also photos of the inside of the machine and some audio samples. Definitely check out the page.

MATRIXSYNTH, as always, is also a great source of good photos. A quick click on the 'wersi' label brings up quite a few posts, a lot of which are posts about this synth.

Interestingly, a quick Google search didn't bring up any photos of the Wersi Bassie that actually has the 'Bassie' name beside the logo (lower front left, under the keyboard and horizontal sliders). All the photos have the German name. But, if you look closely at the photo in the ad, it definitely includes the word 'Bassie' beside the logo. And the ad-copy definitely refers to the synth as 'Bassie' as well.

I did find one image of a Bassie with the 'Bassie' logo-text, but its actually a photo of a brochure/manual cover (?) from a MATRIXSYNTH auction photo set on Flickr. And I think it is the exact same photo used in this ad. All the other photos of the front of the machine in the Flickr set have the German version of the name on it.

The one other difference I spotted was that in all the photos of the German version, the square wave button is gray, like the saw wave buttons to the left of it. But in the Bassie photo in the ad (and the brochure/manual cover photo), the square wave is very light in color - probably white like the WAH-WAH buttons.

I wonder if 'Bassie' actually ever appeared on a production model? Or were they all imported with the German version?

Anyways, you can view/hear a good demonstration of most, if not all, of the features of the Wersi Bassie in this YouTube video. I have to say, the bass guitar sound does sound kinda yummy to me:

Even cooler, it apparently came in kit form as well. Here is a great YouTube video of an admittedly not-fully-functional kit version of a Wersi bassie. Notice that the buttons have been replaced with switches in this kit. And there is no logo to be found on the front panel.

Well, time to go explore Till Kopper's Web site a bit more. It seriously has a lot to offer. And most of it has English translations of the German text. Till - much appreciated!

ARP Arpeggio newsletter, October 1976, Volume 5, #2

[PDF version]

ARP Arpeggio newsletter from October 1976, Volume 5, #2.

This is kind of an experiment for me. Scan a lot, blog a little. In this case very little, since I'm kinda in a time crunch at work at the moment. So I thought this twelve-page newsletter from ARP would be a good candidate for this experiment.

I will however, point out a few things about this particular newsletter that I find interesting.

First, and most importantly to me, is the gobs of historical information that can be found within these pages. I did scan one smaller 1974 ARP Arpeggio newsletter late last year that was about half the size, but it just doesn't compare to the amount of information in this one.

No matter if you are looking for technical/reference information, the synthesizers different bands used, interesting stories, or images from this time period - it's all there. Sure, it's all from ARP's perspective, but I would argue (and most would hopefully agree :o) its all valuable historical information.

Second. the Patchworks section on page 10. It contains "...Josef Zawinul's lead solo patch from the title cut of the group's latest album, BLACK MARKET". Maybe I don't look around the
InterWebz hard enough, but I think it would be cool if more musicians/bands included patches of some of their signature sounds on their Web sites - both hardware and software.

Third, and finally, it wouldn't be an ARP post if I didn't point out two of ARP's main marketing strategies. The awesomely fantastic amount of name-dropping that can be found in this newsletter is like machine-gun fire the way it's spread across the pages. And, of course, ARP's continued use of the term 'Human Engineering'. Both strategies were used effectively to sell a lot of ARP instruments for a number of years.

So, with that.... enjoy!

Yamaha GS1 (GS-1) and GS2 (GS-2), Keyboard 1982

Yamaha GS1 (GS-1) and GS2 (GS-2) synthesizer advertisement from page 36 and 37 of Keyboard Magazine January 1982.

Unlike the two previous introductory GS1 ads (the G. Leuenberger Company ad and Yamaha's own ad), this two pager appeared in Keyboard Magazine more than once in early 1982.

The advertisement does two things. First, it introduces the GS1's younger brother, the logically named GS2. Second, the ad builds on the previous ad's themes of simplicity and beauty by keeping the clean layout, as well as the dramatic lighting and shadows that were originally introduced.

In fact, Yamaha's themes are even spell out by 'the three key considerations' that make these keyboards different from every other keyboard:

1. a philosophy (keeping it simple for musicians)
   
2. advanced technology
3. stunning beauty

I think I gushed over the design of the GS1 as well as the ad itself in the last blog post. So, I'm not even gonna touch #3 above. So, lets concentrate on #1 and #2.

When introducing a new 'advanced' technology, it's sometimes a trade off between trying to keep the human interface simple enough to use while still allowing the user to access and wield the power of the technology itself. In other words, if you want the interface to be easy to use, then you often can't allow the user to do too much without it getting complicated. It just leads to a lot of button pushing and knob twisting - more time being a geek than a musician. And once you make the interface complicated, you scare away many of your potential users (ie: $$$).

In the case of Yamaha, they definitely chose to kept the GS1 interface simple - it was a preset instrument. Push button -> new sound. But the trade off was that a user couldn't do much to change or edit the sounds.

So, if you are not going to let users under the hood, then you may as well keep the explanation of the technology simple as well. Yamaha does just that in the ad-copy of this ad. They explain FM synthesis in under 30 seconds:

"Briefly, FM digital synthesis enables the GS1 and GS2 to precisely recreate the harmonic structure of acoustically produced sounds, as well as many other sounds, by generating a brilliant range of harmonics "all at once". And all without the tedious and expensive drawbacks of other digital synthesizers."

Now compare that to the way Sound On Sound magazine explained the technology behind the GS synthesizers in their August 2001 article 'Yamaha GS1 & DX1 - Part 1: The Birth, Rise and Further Rise of FM Synthesis (Retro)'.

"Named the GS1 and the GS2, these abandoned recognisable synth facilities such as oscillators and filters, in favour of frightening new things such as multi-operator equation generators, 30kHz data rates, and digital-to-analogue converters. What's more, despite offering just two-operator algorithms, the operation of these monstrously expensive machines (the GS1 retailed for £12,000) was a complete mystery to all but the most mathematically orientated."

I'll say it again - I think Yamaha was right to keep it simple in their ads (and in their synthesizers) until the concepts of FM synthesis trickled out through magazine articles. (If only bloggers were around back in 1981... :o)

So, how did someone like Gary Leuenbeger program those presets then? According to Search.com's synthesizer reference page:

"The GS1 and GS2 had their small memory strips "programmed" by a hardware-based machine that existed only in Hamamatsu (Yamaha Japan headquarters) and Buena Park (Yamaha's U.S. headquarters). It had four 7" monochrome video monitors, each displaying the parameters of one of the four operators within the GS1/2. At that time a single "operator" was a 14"-square circuit board -- this was of course long before Yamaha condensed the FM circuitry to a single ASIC. The GS1/GS2 programmer's envelope circuitry had well over 50 "break points"...but these proved quite ineffective in modifying sounds, hence the subsequent regress to the analog-synth type ADSR envelope generators in the design of the DX series instruments."

I found some images of a working programmer online on the Memories page of the Dave's Group Web site. Definitely hi-tech-cool looking. Any piece of gear that requires A KEY to turn on is cool.

A blog post on MATRIXSYNTH from two years ago also shows some images of a programmer, and two of the comments below the post stand out for me.

The first comment from Loscha tells us that allegedly only four programmers were ever made.

The second comment is from Carbon111 and he makes a very interesting observation:

"Its kind of interesting the GS1 is a beautiful piece of cabinetwork and its programmer is so "utilitarian"...kind of an odd couple when placed next to each other."

I agree.

And if you compare many of Yamaha's products during this time period, you might notice that some of them fell into the totally retro category while others looked totally contemporary. Even different products within the same company division had no real standard method to their design styles. Or did they?

But that will have to wait until a future blog post.

Yamaha GS1 (GS-1) advertisement #2, Keyboard 1981

Yamaha GS1 (GS-1) advertisement from page 77 of Keyboard Magazine December 1981.

I love it when new gear arrives in the mail. In this case, it was a midi->cv converter all the way from the UK. And it arrived in under 5 days. I think they may have actually pushed it out of a warehouse in Canada to get it here so quickly. Smart.

I love technology. And fast shipping.

But before I go play with my new toy, I just have to get all this GS1/FM synthesis stuff rattling in my head down in some kind of coherent blog post.

Remember how in my last blog post I mentioned that after the G. Leuenberger Company came out with their GS1 advertisement, it took Yamaha four months to come out with theirs?

Well. This is Yamaha's ad. And it's all about beauty.

The gorgeous photo of the GS1 is the centre piece, with dramatic lighting casting shadow giving the impression you are looking at a piano. The ad is well balanced with lots of breathing space. Minimalist to the point that some may even suggest it tips towards the down-right boring. But the ad simply reflects the GS1's minimalist front panel controls that hide the complicated technology required to produce its FM sounds.

And thankfully, Yamaha didn't spend a lot of time talking about FM synthesis during this introductory phase - I think it would have just confused and scared readers at this point. In my last blog post I pointed out that the technology was so new, so different and complicated, that I thought Yamaha wasn't too anxious to start educating readers on FM synthesis. Until there were programmable FM synthesizers (and that was a big 'if' at this point), there was no need for readers to look under the hood too deep.

So, on purpose or not, Yamaha got it right by not slapping technical jargon all over this ad, elaying any tech-talk until after readers started hearing FM sounds on records and reading articles on FM that started trickling out of magazines the following year.

And with the GS1 being so cost-prohibitive, I doubt this ad was meant to move much product. According to the synthesizer page on associatepublisher.com, this is exactly what happened.

"Yamaha reports indicated that only 16 GS-1's were ever produced, and they were all either showcase pieces or donated to Yamaha-sponsored artists, which included (in the U.S.) Stevie Wonder and Chick Corea. Despite the fact that it wasn't actually sold, the GS-1 bore a retail price of about $16,000..."

So, if the ad wasn't meant to sell the GS1, and it wasn't to introduce FM technology, what could have been the purpose?

One of my theories is that it was created to do one thing. To let readers, and most certainly other synthesizer companies, known that Yamaha was on to something different (the tag-line in the ad is: Its only similarity to other keyboards is that it has a keyboard). Something potentially BIG.

Unfortunately, this particular ad only ran once (as far as I can tell) on page 77 of the December '81 issue, and I'm not sure they made much of a splash. Plus, in this issue alone they were competing against some major players sporting proven technologies, including Roland's kick-ass two-page Jupiter 8 ad and E-mu's highly creative 'Play a Turkey' Emulator ad, as well as a highly descriptive two-page Synclavier ad and the great artwork of a Sequential Pro-One Ear-Force ad.

Yamaha definitely had their work cut out for 'em. But, if you recall, even though the GS1 didn't sell that well, I think in the end Yamaha's FM technology did alright. :o)