The CS01 is a very old but classic analog monosynth from Yamaha. Although originally designed for use by novice musicians or first time synth-buyers, the CS01 has been recognized by today's electronic musicians as one fat little bass machine with simple controls. In a nutshell, the CS01 is simple to use and edit but still has some great features for any situation. It's tiny and portable, it has baby-sized keys and it can run on batteries, and there is a built-in amplifier and speaker which is quite fun.

As for sounds and synthesizing, the CS01 is the perfect monosynth for bubbly and growling bass! It features a very nice 12dB resonant voltage-controlled filter. In addition to the oscillators' sine and square type waveforms there is PWM and noise. There are also LFO controls, glissando (like portamento), a typical ADSR envelope generator, pitch & mod wheels and even a breath controller input. A CS01 mkII (pictured below) was later released by Yamaha soon after the original. It featured an improved 24dB resonant VCF (filter) with adjustable slider control over resonance instead of switchable on/off resonance as found on the original. The CS01 mkII is also identifiable by its black case with green letters.

Yamaha CS01 II

The CS01 may look simple or toy-like but it is still able to create cool little analog bass blips, bass lines and bass bubbles that are just perfect for today's electronic musicians. It has been used by the Dust Brothers, Underworld, OMD, Richard Barbieri and Chick Corea.

AGL

March 4, 2010 @ 6:42 pm

To answer the PWM question again: PWM is easy to emulate digitally, it's not a wavetable.

Hilarious little synth, loved it except for the resonance switch on the original. A switch? Come on...

tim jones

November 13, 2009 @ 6:44 pm

I've just been to see Azymuth in Bristol UK, Jose uses one of these and it sounds soooooooo good. On a par with any of the Roland mono synths

pony

October 9, 2009 @ 10:00 pm

to answer
plikestechno question ,it's a digitally controlled analouge synth so it's an odd mix of the two !

JOE

September 22, 2009 @ 7:31 pm

great little bass synth but its no cs 5 and thats for sure.

de raaf

September 6, 2009 @ 8:05 pm

despite being very limited i love my cso1, the sound is great (especially pwm) powerful for being so little, but the major greatness comes from the sliders, you can change parameters very quickly, up to 3 with one hand if you want to, its great for improvising, and adding feeling to the whole thing. pitty that the lfo is so limited. sometimes dream that yamaha had made a bigger brother of the cso1 (2 or 3 ocs, more lfo, filter...) but still having mostly sliders. would be a player synth i think.

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