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 Emerson'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.

26 VISITOR COMMENTS

Ed

January 22, 2012 @ 2:14 pm

@magnus You don't know how many people would love to filet you like a flounder, you lucky son of a gun!

Senor V

January 12, 2012 @ 6:23 am

@magnus Pfft... Quite the cheeky one, aren't you? ;)

magnus

September 4, 2011 @ 9:18 am

$50,000? I've got one of these babies and it cost me nothing! I saw it sticking out my neighbour's dustbin! When I asked him if he was really throwing it out, he said he didn't need it because he could get all the sounds he needed from Fruityloops

The Old Crow

September 2, 2011 @ 8:44 pm

The spec table isn't quite accurate. There is one VCO per voice; two voices pair to a channel. There are two channels. This is 32 VCOs. You are able to select any two voicing presets per channel. There are four filters per voice: one HPF hardwired to variable pulse waveform, one BPF hardwired to the ramp output, and the sum of all selected waveforms passes through a VCHPF (2-pole) followed by VCLPF (2-pole). All filters are Sallen-Key diode ring-based. One EG is a fixed-positive ADSR (VCA) and the other EG is a bipolar ADR with sustain fixed at zero, and initial and peak attack levels.

emEx1

July 30, 2011 @ 5:58 am

Sorry guys, here is the link to the EX-1 again - last one didn't work:

http://www.vintagesynth.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9& ;t=63440

<654321>

 

Post Comment!

Your Name: (required)

Email Address: (required)

Image verification: (required)

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.

I have read and understand the posting rules.