Yes Worsel,

I'd like to upload, but the file size is too big. I can't even email them
yet, until I break them down into smaller chunks. Also, it looks like the
filze section of the group has a 100 meg limit. I believe these two cd's
worth of demo will be well over that. Does anyone have a suggestion or cost
free ftp site we could use for this purpose?

Thanks,

J

Hi all!

I'd like this group to be a place for all things CS-80 (and
relations). I'm starting by putting links I know about into the
Links section.

I'd also like to get any manuals and literature (with proper
permission) in the Files section. Other usefull things could be a
discography of recordings/artist using the CS-80, mp3s of sound
samples.

I think a registry of known units, with serial number, condition, and
accesories, would be great to have too.

So, start posting, and let other people know about it!

Thanks,

David

I guess I should start things here:

Back in 1979 I used to hang out lots at LaSalle Music in West
Hartford CT. They had a CS-80 that I would drool over. One time,
they were having a demo at my high school (I was a senior) and let me
bring stuff over to the school. I had the CS-80 and a large
Polyfusion modular in my '67 Dodge Dart. I was really tempting to
just head for Canada!

The summer after my first year of college, I was fixing keyboards at
Alex Music in NYC (next to Sam Ash and Manny's) and saving up. I
found a used CS-60 down in Greenwich Village. I picked it up for $1k
and carried it home on the subway. I did a few mods to it: First I
painted the wood and all non-white knobs black, so the whole thing
was in black and white. Got that from an interview with Eddie
Jobson. I put casters on the back, like the CS-80. And, I rewired the
filter EGs on all 8 voice cards so that Initial Level was fixed at
zero and the slider controlled Sustain, so it worked like a normal
ADSR. This also changed the sound of most of the presets. I had
this for a couple of year and then sold it. My plan was to get two
CS-60s and wire them together, for much lower cost than a CS-80.
Didn't happen!

Around 1986 a good friend of mine found a CS-80 for sale in Boston
(where he lived). He not only fronted the money, but delivered it to
me in Albany, NY! It was in pretty good shape, with all the pedals
and stand. Apparently it had been owned by Stevie Wonder. I had to
get the service manual and replace a couple of blown op-amps that
were messing up modulation on a couple of voices. I sold this a few
years later (along with a Clavinet, Polymoog (bought for $300 from a
mall music store in great shape with poly pedals, and a Prophet 10)
to strip down to a digital piano and before moving to L.A. The CS-80
made a great pipe organ: I had a full pedalboard under it driving a
Micromoog.

L.A. in the early '90s was great for cheap analog. Only a couple of
months after moving here I found The Recycler, a great weekly paper
of ads for used stuff. I bought an Oberheim 4-voice, with
programmer, for $200! It didn't turn on, but a $3 voltage regulator
fixed it in about an hour.

I bought my last CS-80 back in 1995 in L.A. It was also in pretty
good shape with all the parts. I didn't have that one long. I was
trying to reduce mass and be more portable (bought a Chapman Stick)
going into a divorce. Back in 1995 I had a hard time getting $1300
for it! Times have changed...

Anyway, I've been in withdrawl for almost ten years now. I mostly
complain on Analog Heaven and rec.music.makers.synth about the lack
of polyphonic aftertouch keyboards. I'm sure this is way more than
most people want to know, but with CS-80 fanatics, maybe not!

David

Hi all.

Please look at the Links page and send me any I've missed!
Also, I'm working on putting little (30 second?) bits of songs
featuring CS80s to put in the Files page. I've got the usual
Vangelis, Jobson, Emerson (GX1), and even Doctor Who! Please send
other ideas/songs for inclusion.

David

Hello,

This email message is a notification to let you know that
a file has been uploaded to the Files area of the yamahacs80
group.

File : /Eddie Jobson - Green Album - Resident.mp3
Uploaded by : unfrostedpoptart <david@...>
Description : Great, hard to find album. Tons of CS80.

You can access this file at the URL:


To learn more about file sharing for your group, please visit:


Regards,

unfrostedpoptart <david@...>

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I'm figuring out what you can do in a Yahoo Group. I created a table
on the Database Page. Anyone should be able to add records to put in
info about CS80s (and related) they own.

It would be great to build up a good list of what's out there! From
what I've read, there were maybe a few thousand CS80s built. Anyone
have a better idea? Any guesses as to how many are still alive?

David

David,

I've long been under the impression that only 2000 of these were made (like the Jupiter 8). I can no longer remember where I came by this info, sorry. For whatever reason, it seems like Yamaha is determinedly mum on the subject of their obsolete lines.

From some of the comments I've seen over the years, I'm betting a few hundred of them have fallen victim to 'dumpster' syndrome (too old/too heavy/too expensive/acting too flakey to be worth moving and repairing). I once read that Vangelis bought an additional half dozen for spare parts. I think this is somewhat exaggerated - he may have had residences/studios in a few cities/countries, far apart, and wanted access to the -80 in each. Maybe one or two were for spares. Maybe this is completely apocryphal. Would be great if someone who actually knew would speak up.

Concerning the 'spares' issue, comments along these lines I've ever seen has specified a dodgy -50 or -60 as 'organ donor'.

Pat

Hi Pat,

I think it was Vintage Synthesizers by Mark Vail where you came across that
number. Im quite sure most of them still exist one form or the other,
but -- alas -- some might in fact have been taken to the dumpsters (my
former tech took loads of Farfisas to a local dumpster, and one day he even
threw away a small synthesizer in a suitcase).

As for Vangelis, he had nine CS-80s, if I remember correctly what Raphael
Preston told me. Vangelis used to have studios in London (which was later
defunc(that Glass House on top of his house which some neighbours disliked),
Rome (Hotel), Athens and New York. If you take into considethat Vangelis got
himself one of the first production models and shipped from JApan through
Russia (Transsib) you can be sure that he at least one, if not more CS-80s
that were in no way temperature-stabilized. He sure replaced them with more
reliable ones later on as soon as those were available. Somewhere on the
net, theres a nice picture with Vangelis playing two CS-80s stacked on top
of each other.

I sure wouldnt hesitate to gut a 50 or 60 for spares.

Stephen

"Human beings are a disease, the cancer of this planet, youre a plague. And
we are the cure." (Agent Smith / Matrix)

Visit the official [ramp] website at www.doombient.com

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On Sat, Aug 14, 2004 at 09:15:40AM +0200, wavecomputer360 wrote:

I sure wouldnt hesitate to gut a 50 or 60 for spares.

You should get one anyway. The -50 in particular is a wodnerful
synth with a different "feel" to the -80. Not to slag the -60; I've
just not used one much.

--
David Evans dfevans@...
Ph.D. Candidate, Computer/Synth Junkie
University of Waterloo "Default is the value selected by the composer
Ontario, Canada overridden by your command." - Roland TR-707 Manual

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Hi Gang.

I'm relatively new here, but we all are really aren't we?
My names Tom, from the UK.

I own CS-80 #1585. Bought it around 1986 for ?250 UKP....;^)
It is pure sex on chrome legs. It stays in my bedroom and has been in
tune ever since I went through the procedure shortly after getting
it... was it really 18 years ago? (Managed to get hold of the service
manual from Japan as well)

I've only ever had the one problem with it. About a year after
getting this baby, it just blew a fuse and went silent ever now and
then. A strange fault that was quite hard to track down. Eventually,
(after a few hundred fuses) I found that whenever I pressed the
highest Bb - POOF - off it went.

There is a cct board right underneath the keyboard assembly, and it
has a row of those little blue 'tantalum' capacitors - one associated
with every key. Well, the top Bb one was short circuit. If ever yours
has a similar fault, and it's quite un-nerving I can tell you, you'll
know where to look.

Cheers for now.

TOM

Hi all,
It has come to my attention that in the last year or so I have found
that no one in the U.K. is restoring CS80's. Only two other people
in the world at the moment will even look at an 80 one being Kevin
Lightner although he told me that he don't like working on them
much, the other being The Old Crow how is very good at doing 80's
But I can say with hand on heart that no one in the world does more
to an 80 than me. With all the new upgrades comming soon from KSR to
make these baby's even better than they were plus the full
restoration work that I do already. For example how many of you have
got unison on your 80. Yep all 16 osc playing together, it will
fracture a cows pelvis from 800 yards away I can tell you.

I love the CS80 with all my being, always did and always will,
I love comming up with new ways to make them sound better and play
like they should. Yes it true you can get one for a couple of grand
but every time it will be almost unplayable and I shuld know I've
seen 18 cs80's this year alone that cost about that much and all of
them needed exstensive repairs so that there new owners could use
them. There is alot of people going around saying that 80's go out
of tune very easily and that is a common problem with them. Well
they are talking out of there arse because every 80 will say in tune
once done, only the one's that were not tuned correctly go out of
tune every three days.

Till next time
KSR

--- In yamahacs80@..., "kent_spong" <kent_spong@h...>
wrote:

It has come to my attention that in the last year or so I have

found

that no one in the U.K. is restoring CS80's.

Kent - welcome to the group. I know you'll be a very valuable
member!

With all the new upgrades comming soon from KSR to
make these baby's even better than they were plus the full
restoration work that I do already. For example how many of you

have

got unison on your 80. Yep all 16 osc playing together,

This sounds great! What is KSR? Wild guess: Kent Spong Research?
Is there a website? When will this be out? I thought of doing
something similar, but like some other polysynths (A6? Mono/Poly?)
have: hit one key, all 8 voices in unison, hit 2, get 4 & 4, etc.
It would be nice to have a mode locking it in mono, maybe with
choices of priority (high note, low note, last note).

There is alot of people going around saying that 80's go out
of tune very easily and that is a common problem with them. Well
they are talking out of there arse because every 80 will say in

tune

once done, only the one's that were not tuned correctly go out of
tune every three days.

I totally agree. I drives me nuts reading all the articles about
how unstable it is. One of the big advantages of using linear VCO,
instead of exponential, is better stability, since the exponential
convertor is where most of the error pops in. Of course, it also
lets you bend notes down to DC!!

David

I have CS-80 serial #1650. Purchased about a year and
a half ago. This CS has a full MIDI (in)
implementation - it responds to poly aftertouch and
everything. Pretty neat.

I've tuned it a couple of times, using the strobe mode
of a Korg digital tuner. Basically the tuning is
stable, but I wouldn't say it's perfect. I moved it
from one end of the house to the other (on a rolling
rack... I didn't have anyone else around at the time
to help) and it's been in need of a minor tuning tweak
since then... it's still quite playable but off enough
to annoy me a little. However, anyone who's tuned one
of these knows why I've been putting it off...

Cosmetically this CS is very good. Some of the tolex
on the bottom is scratched up, but everything topside
is in great shape. And the pitch ribbon works just
fine. I need to get it to my tech to fix a minor
problem with the MIDI implementation, but again those
who have moved a CS know why I've been putting that
off too.

Since I've had it I've used it on a number of
projects, including a remix for Sophie B. Hawkins
(track #13 on her new album 'Wilderness' in case
anyone's interested).

Every once in a while I think about selling it - after
all, it does take up a ton of space, is hard to move,
etc. etc. But when I play the ol' bastard, I usually
forget about all of that. The CS sound is definitely
in a class of its own. I've A/B'd it with the Arturia
CS-80V and found that while the software emulation
does do a pretty decent job of capturing the overall
flavor of the CS filters, there's just nowhere near
enough depth/low end/balls/whatever to call it a CS
"equivalent". So I'll just have to stick with the real
thing.

Mike







__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - 100MB free storage!

Mike & Tom & others,

thanks for the input. I'd appreciate it if you clicked on the
Database page, clicked on 'CS80s in the world', clicked on 'Add
Record', and put in your info. I think it's set up that anyone can
add records. Please let me know if you have a problem or if you
have any suggestions for changes to the fields.

David

--- In yamahacs80@..., Mike Fisher <hciassociates@y...>
wrote:

I have CS-80 serial #1650. Purchased about a year and
a half ago. This CS has a full MIDI (in)
implementation - it responds to poly aftertouch and
everything. Pretty neat.

This reminds me of something I learned when speaking to Gerd Drogemuller,
formerly the head honcho of Yamaha CS-80 distribution in Germany: Some power
supllies on the CS-80 tend to create odd voltages that can fry the entire
machine. Something to check out, I think, even though he pointed out that
this bug occured only with the earliest machines and actually is no issue to
get worried about.

Stephen
"Human beings are a disease, the cancer of this planet, youre a plague. And
we are the cure." (Agent Smith / Matrix)

Visit the official [ramp] website at www.doombient.com

A bunch of new members in the group this morning, including
Christopher Rider/Oldcrow! Welcome!

For those who deal with the group via email, don't forget to hit the
web version at ,
where you can see the archives (all 16 messages!), the Link page,
the Files page (right now just one Eddie Jobson/Zinc tune), and fill
out the exciting Database list of your gear.

David