Yamaha CS-30L

I told a lie in that last review.
Apparently Melbourne Music Centre do not repair synths. I know they USED to, but now they don't.
Someone told me another good place to get your synths fixed is Logitronics in Northcote (Melbourne, Australia). Haven't dealt with them personally, but have heard they're pretty good.

There are a lot of people out there that say this is an extremely difficult machine to master. It's true that you wouldn't want to buy this as your first synth, but if you genrally know you're way around the methods of subtractive (analogue) synthesis, it's not that hard. It is confusing at first because some of the controls are not where you would expect them to be. Also there are various options for the three envelope generators, including a rather unconventional 5 stage E.G., and the switches for these are located in all the other sections!
I already own a couple of other analogue synths and it took me about a day to come to grips with it.

This synth is practically the same as the CS-30 except that it doesn't have the on-board sequencer. This could seem like a bit of a downer, but it's still a bloody good synth so it doesn't really matter.
It's only monophonic (single or multi triggering), but the sound creating possibilities are extremely comprehensive and flexible.
There's two VCO's with sawtooth and square waves: VCO 1 can be de-tuned against VCO 2. VCO 1 can also modulate VCO 2. VCO 1 has a range of 2' to 64' and VCO 2 goes from 4' to 128'. Each VCO has controls for pulse width and pulse width modulation. The pitch can also be governed by an envelope generator.
There are two multi-mode VCF's (lo-pass, band-pass and hi-pass) with cut-off, resonance and keyboard follow controls. Each VCF can be controlled by a separate envelope generator. VCF 1 can filter noise or external sound sources.
There are 2 VCA's. VCA 1 has amount controls for VCF 1 and VCF 2 plus it also has a control for mixing in a sine wave that orinates from VCO 1 which has bypassed the filters. This sine wave really helps to give added depth to the overall sound. VCA 2 features a ring modulator. Both VCA's have 'hold' switches so that if you wish, the sound can continue after you've taken you finger off a note.
There is only one LFO/modulator, but it must be about the most flexible LFO/mod. on any analogue synth with the exception of other high-end Yamaha synths from this period. The wave and mod types are: sine, saw down, saw up, square, sample and hold (random) and EXT (external sounds can be used as modulation sources). But that's by no means the end of it! Each VCO, each VCF and each VCA can have it's own LFO waveform or modulation source (but all set to the same speed). The LFO will also oscillate into the audio frequencies (entire range: 0.1 - 100Hz) and the speed can be governed by an envelope generator! There's also an LFO trigger (repeated note set to LFO speed).
There are three envelope generators and they are completely assignable and each section assigned an E.G. can have that E.G. either normal or inverted. Infact every section is assigned an E.G. (2 sections per E.G.), but whether an E.G. has an effect on a particular section depends on whether the E.G. amount knob is turned up for that section and which E.G. the section is switched to. One of the E.G's. is rather strange and I still haven't completely worked it out yet. It is 5 stage and has controls for 'initial level', 'attack level', 'attack time', 'decay' and 'release'. The other two are normal ADSR's. There are also switches on each for either triggering the E.G's. from the keyboard or from an external sound source. There's another switch for each E.G. to choose between 'normal' or 'time x 5'. I don't really know what that does - I think it might let you extend the time of the envelopes, which would be cool. I should try that out later, I thought they were a bit too quick!
Performance controls include: Portamento, sustain (a VCA 'release' that overrides the E.G. release if set to a higher amount), 'brilliance' (global filter cut-off) and pitch-bend.
The back panel has various outputs as well as inputs for sustain and portamento foot switches, brilliance and volume pedals and an external sound input. There are also inputs/outputs for triggering and keyboard voltage (same as CV?).

How these things don't cost more is beyond me! It's so damn flexible and the sound is great! It's not the same wet and squelchy sound a lot of people think of as the 'classic' analogue sound, but by golly, this is one powerful sounding beast and it has a charater all it's own!
If you want to create truly bizarre synth noises, this is definitely the synth for you. At the same time, it can do 'normal' synth sounds and it does them with a force of power that not many other mono synths can match. The sounds it will make are so damn unpredictable because it's just so flexible and powerful. You could never possibly get bored with it!
The filters are not particularly warm or wet and they don't self-oscillate, but they add a character that's quite distinct from anything else without cutting out the lower end. The unfiltered sine wave from VCO 1 adds real depth to the sound.
The only real drawback is that the keyboard is monophonic. Obviously it's not touch sensitive or anything like that either.

For future readers, I bought mine at the beginning of 2004. It works fine even though the guy I bought it off told me it hadn't been serviced for years - he said he never needed to. I should take it in to be serviced though. The oscillators quite obviously need callibration. The manual - which Yamaha still supplies for free on-line - suggests that you let it warm up for 30 minutes before attempting to tune it! Even then, mine's still out of whack, but I just tune my other instruments around it.
Everything else seems to work perfectly.

As I mentioned, Yamaha have manuals for all their old analogues synths on-line and for free (www.yamahasynth.com). I also heard that the Japanese division still supplies some old parts.
If you live in Melbourne, Australia, a great place to get your old analogue synths serviced is Melbourne Music Centre in Ormond (on North Road, near the train station). But going into this shop makes me sad now. It was only a few years ago that they used to have an entire room filled with old synths for sale. It was practically a museum! But one where you could buy the exhibits! Now they have virtually nothing in terms of old keyboards. Sad. Still, they'll do their best to help fix your old synths and they're quite efficient. Can't ask much more that I suppose.

I'd be very upset if something happened to this - they are quite rare so it would be almost impossible to replace, or at the very least I'd be waiting a long time to find another one. The last one I saw for sale was about five years ago. I've never seen the normal CS-30. I just don't think anything else could substitute it's sounds.
If you see one, get it. They are not cheap, but given that I've seen Moog Rogues and Prodigies going for the same price as I what I paid for this and given that those synths don't even come close to this in terms of flexibility and power, you be insane to pass one up!