Yamaha CS-60

Yamaha CS-60 Image
VSE Rating
User Rating

The CS-60 is a very scaled down light version of the CS-80. It's a classic and old polyphonic programmable analog synthesizer that has some potential. It does not sound as great as the CS-80 nor is it as programmable. You get a few preset sounds which are pretty useless and a mere 1 user patch. But there are just enough sliders, edit parameters and even an excellent Ring Modulator to get some interesting pads, drones, basses and other analog synth sounds. Oddly, sitting between the keyboard and those large Preset Switches is a long velvet ribbon controller which is pretty cool for doing wild pitch bends.

Yamaha CS-60 Image

Due to its old age most CS-60s are in battered shape these days, difficult to service but in need of some. And they suffer common ailments of the analog domain - overheating, unstable tuning, it weighs a lot, etc... However the CS-60 is the cheapest way to get into some genuine CS-80 sounds of analog heaven with basic entry-level programming! It has been used by Air, Jean-Michel Jarre, Oshe and Bob Marley and the Wailers.

Lookup Prices for CS-60

Demos & Media

Yamaha CS-60 Synthesizer Demo
by
zibbybone
Audio Clip 1 A series of sample sounds from Future Music CD, issue 97.
ManualDownload the original owner's manual from SoundProgramming.net.

Specifications

Polyphony - 8 voices
Oscillators - 1 VCO per voice (square and saw plus PWM; 1 sub-osc with 4 wave types; noise gen)
Memory - 12 presets, 1 user patch
Filter - High- and low-pass with resonance and ADSR envelope
Arpeg/Seq - None
Keyboard - 61 keys (aftertouch)
Effects - Ring Modulator
Control - CV / Gate
Date Produced - 1977

Resources

Images from Zikinf.

Info from Rory McDonald.