Vintage Synth Explorer

Yamaha • SY-85

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.

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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.

 

Protector

Posted 193 days ago

This machine produce valuables numeric pads.

Sass

Posted 208 days ago

Replying to the guy 2 posts below, I still disagree with you. i didn't say the 85 is not usable, actually it has some good sounds, But still the SY99 has better ones, Strings, Organs and Pianos, not mentioning the great Glassy and still usable bell Rhodes from the DX7 era. It has 2 really great organs, called "Deep" and "Purple" (you can imagine the type of organs), and the the semi-weighted keys are really great in the 99. The 99 was produced about a year earlier than this one, is/was quite more expensive, and weights a ton, but it has a larger screen, a better sequencer ( I remember carrying my whole live shows sequenced on those, running a T3, EPS, and Proteus), and I insist, better quality sounds. I still recommend the 99 over any other SY.

Glyn Jones

Posted 208 days ago

I just brought a immaculate SY85 from ebay for £133 and I got to grips with the editing side, once I worked out how to use the sequencer I be estatic lol. Im almost 43yrs old, started playing at the age of 3. i been wanting this Synth for years, Im amazed at the sounds.

max

Posted 209 days ago

Replying to the guy 2 posts below, i'll say no, the SY85 IS as good as they say, for the year 1992 and for under $ 2000. The SY99 was older (at least 3 years older!), WAY more difficult to program, with no realtime controls and based prominently on FM sounds, which means a lot of useless bell-and-whistles that were only used in late 1980's funky crap. It didn't have neither as many nor as good acoustic/classic sounds.
Also, the 2 instruments are geared toward totally different target customers: the SY85 serves someone who need a good amount of READILY USABLE piano, organ, strings sounds, a very good keybed with semiweighted action, and some realtime live interaction possibilities. The SY99 is geared toward the studio engineer who has a lot of time in his hands to dig up sounds and has no need to carry the gear around. While the 85 is not a feather, the SY99, incidentally, weights a ton , plus tax.

vincent mccormack

Posted 242 days ago

I got mine in '92 and it's still part of my set up. To me it sounded streets better than the Korg 01Wfd at the time and still sounds decent today.

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