I often do a search on google for this but never got a result. Is this vintage keyboard really forgotten about (apart from Vangelis of course, but theres no use asking him because no-one can ever find him!)

There are a few floating around, usually they can be found in unexpected places. I have a friend who has one, but he's afriad to power it up. I don't blame him, really. I have a cs-70m that is made out of the same stuff. recordings of it that i have heard peg it to be not too far off. Of course, It doesn't work either. One interesting factoid is that the CS-80 was designed here in america, to be built in japan of course
But when yamaha switched to the DX-7 type stuff, they discontinued the maintenence on the old stuff and the Yamaha repair dealers THREW AWAY bucket upon bucket of filter and oscillator chips that make the CS-series so special.
But make no mistake-Yamaha is and has always been in it for the money. They have absolutley no passion when it comes to sound.

Hi,

I'm slightly seasick but still got enough time away from watch to check my mail. Could I suggest the following link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamaha_CS-80

Rachael
'Excalibur' - 1392 n.m. from New York(!)

The CS80 was always one of my "dream" synths... In that the reality has been that only in my "dreams" would I ever get one.. then back then because I couldn't afford it, now because they are becoming scarce and even if I did find one, I too would be afraid to turn it on.

So.. I bought the virtual one from Arturia instead. It's supposed to be a fairly close emulation, but as I've never owned or played on one, I can't say for sure. It's as close as I want to get these days, anyway. In my mind at least, the CS80 lives on through it.

From the boards I have owned or have played, some of these software emulations are very close, others not so close at all. An example of almost dead on, is the Korg Legacy collection. I owned both a Polysix and an M1. The software versions are so close that if I closed my eyes I could never tell the difference. The poly 6 in particular kinda gives me the chills, since the hardware version was my first true analog board.

AJ

[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 09-01-2006).]