Vintage Synth Explorer

Yamaha • GX-1

The GX-1 was Yamaha's first big polyphonic analog synth, and it was a beast! Considered the predecessor to the CS-80 (another huge poly-synth), the GX-1 featured a triple-tiered keyboard, pedalboard, ribbon controller, eight polyphonic voices, chromed pedestals and a $50,000+ price tag! OK, so it wasn't designed for your everyday musician - less than 10 were ever made and have been owned mostly by legendary synth/keyboard players including Keith Emmerson, John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin, Stevie Wonder, Rick Wright, George Fleury, Richard James of Aphex Twin, ABBA, and Hans Zimmer who bought Keith Emmerson's.

Although it may look like an organ at first glance, it's all analog heaven inside! The two main keyboards have 61 (velocity sensitive!) keys each, and are supplemented by a smaller (3/4 scale, pressure sensitive) 37-note keyboard and a 25-note pedalboard at your feet - 184 keys total! Eight voices of polyphony plus an additional monophonic are available and can be shared and layered or split up among the different keyboards. There are also organ-style drawbars and a ribbon controller for tweaking the sounds. Additional programming buttons are hidden away under drawers and panels on the front-panel.

The GX-1 used two analog oscillators per voice which are pretty much the same one's used later in the CS-80, along with a mild 2-pole VCF filter, standard LFO and some ADSR envelopes. The GX-1 also had two "swell" pedals and a spring-loaded knee controller. It was truly a lush synth for its time, and its frequent use by many rock-legends helped cement its place in history as well as pave the way for the legendary CS-80.

VISITOR COMMENTS

Comments page 3 of 3

Click here to add a comment

Your Name:

Email Address:

Image verification:

Message:

Posting Rules: Please keep your comments relevant! Do not post requests for help, do not use for sales, do not post unless you have something interesting to say about this instrument, or we may delete your post.

 

Jim

Posted 32 days ago

At the risk of being very unpopular, I think this synth was one of the worst wastes of money next to the Polymoog! What a 50,000 dollar piece of garbage that looked like a 70's era Hammond home organ. Every rich rock star ran out and bought one of these because it was the newest and most expensive synth on the market. So, they had to use it. I'm very amazed that people are still impressed with this.

Yames

Posted 88 days ago

Well, I've heard that only ten of these were ever made. I read in Vintage Sythesizers, by Mark Vail, that over 50 were made. Now, someone has mentioned less than 200 were made. I wonder who's right?

Alejandro Nova

Posted 104 days ago

I still remember when I played the only one of these beasts that resides in Chilean territory. It's amazing... the experience, the ribbon controller, the KNEE controller (yes, you can module your sound with your knee), the ribbon controller, the solo minisynth at top, the polysynths at bottom... The synth I played wasn't well programmed, but it was awesome to even live that experience. Those guys were asking 4 million chilean pesos (about $8.000 + s&h) for the keyboard. It's sad that one isn't a millionaire, but, if you have the cash and one of this beasts in front of you... it's one hell of an experience!

As far as I know, there are ~200 GX-1s made, EVER.

Kyle

Posted 130 days ago

Roth Handle has one in his studio in Sweden.

Micke

Posted 143 days ago

Also used by Cat Stevens on the album "Izitso" (1977).

<321>