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 SY85. 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 SY85 was a powerful workstation keyboard capable of some great sounds and full arrangements.

It's a 16-part multitimbral MIDI synth with a nice 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 SY85's modes. In addition to pitch & modulation wheels and dual output level controls, the SY85 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.

Gary

February 15, 2013 @ 5:05 pm

Would I like a Roland JW-50 for $100 better than my SY85? I noticed both boards came out the same year - 1992 Does a Roland (JW-50) sound better? I noticed it has a 16-track sequencer instead of 8, but less polyphony 24? How does that workout? Talk about voice-stealing. Or I can get a Korg Karma (2001) for $400. I know that would be cool right? Thanks for all the input everyone! I appreciate your help!
Gary.

Daniel

February 15, 2013 @ 12:08 pm

I'd say so. The SY77 is a powerful FM synth with built-in samples, and you can mix the 2 engines together.

Some people may prefer the 85, but I can't think of any reasons & don't feel like looking for any on someone else's behalf. I /guess/ 85 would appeal to people who don't want to do even a slight bit of work with FM & want more samples. Don't know. If SY85 were GM-compatible, I might understand the fuss.

But why take my uneducated word for it? You can compare them yourself, you know. They both have pages here, & there's plenty info on Google. Checking for yourself isn't difficult

gary

February 14, 2013 @ 4:59 pm

is a SY 77 better than an SY85?

Daniel

February 8, 2013 @ 6:39 am

I'm aware a lot of people have a fondness for it, perhaps due to nostalgia in many cases, but I'd be very surprised if there is a convincing reason to get this over the SY99, which also has the Advanced FM engine and interaction between it and AWM that the SY85 totally lacks.

Trying to think of positives of the SY85, it can take SIMMs and has those multi-EQ type controls. Possibly a few more effects than the SY99's already excellent SPX900 (or is it 990?), maybe? Different samples in the factory ROM, sure, but the SY99 could load most of them in if you fitted the 3 MB memory upgrade

ronnyG

February 3, 2013 @ 7:21 pm

I couldn't stand the SY-85, Just couldn't get in to it at all. Bought one in 1993 and quickly moved onto the far superior Roland JD-800 which blew me away.

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