Yamaha CS-10

Very easy synth to use - also a very good synth for learning subtractive synthesis.

3 octave mono synth - oscillator can be tuned to cover 8 octaves.
Keyboard action is good - still strong after nearly 30 years.
No midi, but does have Yamaha's HZ/Octave CV. Midi can be added via 3rd party converter (Synhouse, Kenton, etc.)

Single oscillator, 12db VCF, very clean, very strong sound. This is the punchiest single VCO synth I've ever used. It also has wonderfully rich and powerful bass. Plug this synth into a bass amplifier and look out!

No effects, but as one previous reviewer noted, does very well with just about any outboard effects. I almost always use an analog delay with it and sometimes add an analog phase shifter (both are guitar pedals.) If you add a chorus pedal and use the PWM, it sounds very close to a Roland SH-101.

Mine is coming up on 30 years and is still trucking - so reliability isn't an issue. Yamaha made these simple and strong.

No warranty of course, but user manual is available on Yamaha's website.

Excellent synth for fast attack playing, light breezy sounds, strong bass, or for sending through effects for thousands of other sounds.
I've sampled this synth both clean and while turning the freq cut off and reso knobs. Clean samples make great poly sounds, and wilder samples can be modified to make almost anything.

Its such a simple synth. Everything is there in front of you and nothing is hidden.

This is a Monophonic Synth from 1977 so don't expect to find stuff like MIDI. The keyboard does not have velocity or aftertouch but it feels great.

No Memory here. It does not need it though because its such a simple synth. Write stuff down or remember settings.

Has a wonderfull external input whic allows you to patch synths, drum machines and guitars through the CS-10's filter. Great fun.

Very light and Portable.

This has to be the best sounding 1 VCO synth ever made! It sounds nice and fat. Lots of people think it has 2 VCO's! It sounds better than a lot of 2 VCO synths (which cost more). I had a Roland Promars a while back and the little CS-10 beats that for sounds. The filter is awsome. Switchable LPF, BPF and HPF. Powerfull. The envelopes are very punchy.

It has never let me down and im always playing it live. I gig it with out a backup.

Had no problems with mine so not sure.

I would definatly buy it again if it anything happened to it. Its such a small and compact unit but has a striking powerfull sound. Cutting leads and fat Basslines are definatly the CS-10's strong points.

Its such good value for the money. It honestly sounds better and is more usable than lots of bigger synths. If you ever see one, whip it up.

Easy to use? You bet! One oscillator and it's all there in front of you. It takes less than a minute to get the sound you want.

The keyboard is decent, it's not the best but it always works (no double-trigger or anything like that).

The features are very few to be honest: 1VCO->1VCF->1VCA, 2 envelopes and 1 LFO. Just the basics.
The "external in" is a great feature though. Routing the output of the synth back into the external in can result in crazy noises. It may even fatten up the sound a bit.

First of all, this is NOT for recreating "real" instruments. It's for analogue synth sounds and it does it really good considering it's pretty limited. It has one of the fattest PWM's I've ever heard. It's perfect for bass sounds.

The filter is great. Even though it can't selfoscillate and act as a sine wave generator it's very flexible. At low resonance levels it's very gentle, and at high resonance levels it can be really nasty. Feedback can really make it squeal (output->external in).

The seller told me it plays in perfect tune one second after power-up and keeps its tune for as long as it's on. I didn't believe him, but I was wrong. I've never needed to tune this synth and the case seems to be pretty tough. The labels have been scraped off a little, but it's okay. Some pots are pretty noisy, but that's easily fixed.

I'd totally gig with it if I were to play live some time. I don't have to keep it powered up for half an hour before the gig to get it stabilized and I don't need to tune it before I play, which is great! It's really a gig-friendly.

Haven't dealt with them, but I guess they're not really interested in supporting 20 year-old gear.

If I lost mine I'd buy another one or another CS synth anyway. This is one of the best synths I've played. REALLY stable and reliable and makes a great bass synth. I really recommend it! It can really turn into a well sounding work horse for your studio. It does all the basics, but gives it an extra "edge" and makes it sound like was more than it was.

Very easy to use.

Most of the features have been mentioned already, but one that's worth another mention is the fact it can handle external signals.

External signals can be passed through the multimode filter and also be used to trigger the OSC too.
Some great results can be had by sampling the CS, then running that same sample back in to trigger the OSC. Doing this will not only give you another pass of the filter, but it will also give you a thicker sound.

Even just running drums through the filter can yeild quite nice results.

But, as it's basicly just a basic analogue mono, features aren't a huge part of this machine .

The sound is what you're after.

The sound is great.

The multimode filter can get very angry, and the envelopes are fast.

I really feel this is an analogue that deserves a lot of praise (specially in the Bass side of things).

At the price these things are selling for, you'd be mad not to have one in my opinion.

I've had mine for a while now. It never goes out of tune. I don't have any noisey pots or sliders. Keys are still solid. Infact the thing is in better working order than much of my other newer gear!
Very reliable.

Never have had anything to do with Yamaha, but considering the age of the CS series now, I doubt Yamaha would be the people to talk to if it did have trouble.

I would buy another in an instant if something happened to mine.
Infact I often have to hold myself back from buying more when I see them sale. They are just so damn cheap!

I would pay more just for an analogue filter box that sounded this good.

It's been over 5 years since a review has been posted on this synth, so I'm guessing that they're becoming rare. I found it in a second hand store in near perfect condition. It's a very basic but solid analog synth. LFO VCO VCF VCA controls are all in straight foward order on control panel. VCF controls most of the sounds.

Monophonic - nice keyboard. Input jack allows use as filter for other keyboards or guitars. No memory, no MIDI, it was built in 1979 after all.

Basic square and saw tones. Filter and amp stages open many other sounds. This synth generates a very solid signal and is therefore most usefull in conjunction with guitar or rack effects. I've placed a Zoom 506II Bass multi effect between the CS10 and amp and Wow!.. big and bad. You can also split the output signal, run one into the amp with the other through a chorus or octave and back into the synth via the input jack. Done this way it sounds close to a Moog or an Arp.

Rock solid even after 26 years. Metal casing, thick aluminum chasis, plastic side panels, and solid keyboard with great action(not even the Motifs are built this strong.) I would not use to gig due to the nature of oscillators.

None expected after 26 years. However, service manuals are still available online.

There are still many analog synths around, and a few companies are manufacturing them again. However, the older (Moog) style, like this Yamaha CS10, are getting harder to find, especially ones in good shape. I bought this primarily to make samples with, and in 6 months to a year, I'll likely sell it. If I really fall in love with it, I'll add a midi controller.

easy as pie. nothing can go wrong really

monophonic 2 oscillators (saw and square)+Noise/external input
ok keyboard action
1 LFO which you can adress to vco, vca + pulsewidth
external input
keyvolt + s-trig in/out (moogtype external controlling) as opposite of
cv/gate

this is probably the best-sounding piece of gear in my studio.
very basic, but always reliable.
the best thing is the filter which is very suited for processing external signals

solid as a.. volvo!

it rocks.

Very easy and logical to use. Its monophonic!

Two oscilators, switchable from square or sawtooth, with PWM or PW plus a noise generator One LFO, nice sounding filters, inluding high, low and band pass. It also features a external device in so you can route other devices through the filters. Trigger in/out and pitch contorl in/out.

Good for those analogue squelches, basses. Good filters. Good for high pitched buzzing earsplitting. Useful for cheesy pop and any techno. Great for most analogue sounds including snares. I run my guitar through the filters to get huge resonating guitar pads.

Safe as houses. I found it at a school, so it must have survived abnoxious students for at least fifteen years (probably more?).

Definately worth more than we paid. Could do with more LFO's. I would definately buy it again.

This is monophonic knob & switch controlled synthesizer similar to the equipment from the early days. If you understand analog synths it is easy to use. If you don't then it's a good teaching tool. All the functions are clear and labeled (if you understand that VCO means voltage controlled oscillator etc) The signal flow basically can be followed from left to right across the controll panel starting at the VCO's until your reach the Envelope generators on the right side of the panel.

Monophonic (1 key at a time only) no chords It has 2 voltage controlled oscillators each with 3 waveforms one of which is PWM (pulse width modulation), 2 voltage controlled filters, 2 voltage controlled amplifiers and 2 envelope generators and LFO. Also a noise source. Pitch bend,

My opinion is this unit is too perfect. It would better serve as a laboratory grade waveform generator. It lacks the charater of sounds formed by slight deviations in tuning, interesting filters curves and so forth that you get out of a mini moog. One can make some interesting sounds but they are very techical sounding, good for sci-fi movies from the 50's & 60's

It will probalbly last forever. It is a Yamaha. You could drive a tank over it, leave out in the weather for 5 years and it would still function perfectly

It's nice to have one real synthesier in the studio. This would be my last choice for music. Great for teaching theory in a classroom (seriously)

I have never seen the manual for this, and I would really like to. After owning it almost a year, I still don't know what some of the switches do. Nicely labelled diagrams help you figure out which knobs to turn... The pitch bender is a slider which goes all the way up or down an octave and stays there if you want it to.

Monophonic...(OUCH)...i'm sorry, but I'm a jazz pianist, and monophony really bugs me. The keys are very sensitive, and super-easy to press down which is a plus...sometimes. It has a nice, yet annoying LFO (that's just my opinion...when I first got it, I didn't know how to turn the LFO off, and it drove me insane) also has VCO, VCF, VCA; saw and square waveforms; noise (ooh...), external and internal trigger thing; nice portamento; LOTS of octaves, goes from inaudibly high to blubbering low. No MIDI, no sequencer...just a whole lotta...stuff. NO modulation...well, nothing laballed modulation, but you can make it sort of warbly though...i don't know what the PW/PWM knob does yet.

No presets...all knobs...so you configure your own sound. FAT bass...can produce a whole range of sounds, from 303-sounding bass, to mellotron-like strings (but flatter and duller). A problem is that when you change octaves you have to tune it again...another bad thing is that it doesn't shut up...there is this switch that says HOLD and EG...either mine is broken, or this synth is meant so that once you press one key, you have continuous sound until you turn it off again.

One HUGE problem is that it may go out of tune unexpectedly. I thought it would be fun to bring it to a gig, to play weather report's "birdland" on it (they used a minimoog in that song)while playing piano at the same time (stack one on the other)... BAD IDEA... in the middle of the song, it jumped down a semitone and a bit, and i had to transpose everything i was playing, though it was still out of tune. Another problem is when you change octaves, they are out of tune with eachother, so you have to tune it again.

Yamaha pretty much denies that they have ever made anything that wasn't a PSR-whatever...so don't count on them for anything.

I would not buy this again...i just picked it up from a friend, because he said it was a moog clone... It's the only analog thing I own...(unless you count guitar gear), but I think it was a good introduction to the analog world. The best part is the sound...it's a bit duller than a minimoog, but worth whatever you can pick it up for...(which won't be over $200) The worst part is that it's really unpredictable. Good for studio stuff, but not live.