In the early 1990's most synth manufacturer's quest to use digital forms of synthesis to re-create acoustic sounds (as well as analog sounds) led to an onslaught of rather boring instruments. Among the mob of digital synths some stood out such as Korg's M1, Roland's D-50, and Yamaha's SY-85. Fading away were the days of Yamaha's FM-synthesis, replaced by Advanced Wave Memory (AWM2). Throughout the 1990's Yamaha used AWM2 in many of their successful products because of its high sonic quality and advanced synth-like editing features. The SY-85 was a powerful workstation keyboard capable of some great sounds and full arrangements.

It's a 16-part multitimbral MIDI synth with a nicely weighted 61-note keyboard designed to be the main keyboard in your MIDI studio, with tons of sounds and sequencing features built-in. It has a long but narrow 40 character x 2 line LCD display and a 5x5 mode selection matrix which enhances operation by allowing fast easy access to any of the SY-85's modes. In addition to pitch & modulation wheels and dual output level controls, the SY-85 has eight slide controls that can be used to control a range of parameters while performing for expressive real-time power. Best of all it's got multi-mode filters and a dual-effects processor with chorus, flange, reverb, delay, exciter, parametric EQ, echo, ring modulation, leslie, distortion, etc. The effects can be used in series or parallel, and there are 4 busses to route sounds through them. Other features include a 3.5" floppy disk drive, external memory card slots and two assignable stereo outputs.

29 VISITOR COMMENTS

Ulli Bartel

January 19, 2012 @ 2:10 pm

My SY85 is doing a great job - but a since couple of days it refuses to give sounds by playing the keys - it just gives sounds from older productions of the sequenzer... what could it be? Ulli

Kenny

November 21, 2011 @ 12:58 pm

Lawrence from School of Rock played this keyboard. Serious cool points right there.

Johnny T

November 10, 2011 @ 12:58 pm

I have an SY-85 I bought circa 1993/4 I think, brand new. It is in perfect condition and used almost daily. I think that says a great deal about the build quality. The sounds are still excellent. I will be hanging on to this classic beauty for good.

gridsleep

November 8, 2011 @ 10:28 pm

I got a perfectly functional NEW replacement floppy from a nice lady in Italy named Andrea. Her eBay name is BIGUTZ. Check out her wares and drop her a line if you need a floppy drive with a 24-pin ribbon connection. She makes the connection conversion that is outlined in the Yamaha.uk BBS, and does it perfectly. Now with the single broken key replaced and a fully function floppy (yay!) my SY85 is as good as new. Boy, is it a sweetie. It seems like the perfect accompaniment to my also newly acquired Korg DS-8 digital. Just...fabulous. MMMM-mmmm-mmmMMMM!

Prevalence

October 1, 2011 @ 5:55 am

Picked up an SY85 in great condition a few weeks ago (Sept 2011). It came with several disks and a RAM card.... WOW this is really impressive!! Ive sold a couple of other synths as a result. This machine can do almost anything! Stacks up very well against newer synths - it's my #1 digital synth for sure!

Great key action and looks - just makes you want to play it! BUY IT!

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