Yamaha YS200

The YS200 is a 4-operator digital FM synthesizer in a rather funky looking keyboard design released in 1988. It featured an 8-track on-board sequencer with many advanced edit functions and up to 8 song capacity. It has a 61-note velocity/aftertouch sensitive keyboard, can hold up to 300 patches, two LFO's, vibrato, and more. It tends to produce very deep dance/techno basses, eighties digital synth sounds, and new age sounds.It uses the same synthesis as the TX81Z, which means it has 8 waveforms to choose from rather than just sinewaves, which gives it a wide range of possible sounds.

The complexity of FM synthesis is somewhat relieved by the "Easy Edit" controls for basic editing operations, but this can also be limiting since not all parameters are accessible. Full editing of the patches requires a MIDI based patch editor, such as YSEditor, which is available for free but only for the Atari ST. Fortunately, it works on Atari ST emulators for the PC. It's worth the trouble because it allows you to load up your YS with original patches from the TX81Z and some of Yamaha's other classic 4-operator DX synths, making the YS a good way to get your hands on classic patches from several keyboards all in one box.

Yamaha EOS B200

The Yamaha B200 is essentially a YS200 with speakers and a more subdued appearance. The B200 uses rather powerful 2 x 20W speakers and also has a stereo line-in (for amplification only). The pitch and mod wheels on this version form two halves of a sphere, which looks modern but ends up being a bit awkward. In Japan, the B200 was called the "EOS B200".

lightman

April 16, 2013 @ 3:16 pm

Well, tastes are tastes, I for myself love the sonic possibilities FM gives me. It's a refreshing change from all that analog/virtual analog stuff.

David C

April 6, 2013 @ 9:17 pm

6-op FM is bad enuff without heavy effiects and layersinf (dx7 - 4 op like this (and dx100 etc) are BAD unless HEAVY processing and creative use. uggg. bad

lightman

March 5, 2013 @ 12:25 pm

Here's a little demo I made on and for the YS100, maybe some of you find it interesting or even inspiring:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rbm87wFQl8

Download-links for the mp3 of the track, as well as an archive with all patches can be found in the YT info text.

Enjoy! :)

Bert de Vries

January 5, 2013 @ 2:43 pm

I just purchased an old YS200 on a dutch marketplace site, but the synth doesn't give any sound. The midi settings are ok. When i turn up the dials at my mixer, you can hear the keyboard play, but only very, very soft. I think there is something wrong with the output-chematics of the synth.
Did anyone have the same problem and knows what could be wrong? Does anybody know where i can get hold of a copy of the chematics of this synth, so i can fix it?

lightman

October 28, 2012 @ 4:37 am

Martin Tarenskeen has just released an updated version (2.8) of his excellent patch editor YSEDITOR (public domain) for all Yamaha 4-op FM synths and two dedicated versions for the FB-01 and V50, check it out here:

http://yseditor.atari.org

YSEDITOR runs on Atari ST computers and also works very well with the Steem Atari emulator. IMO it's the best editor for Yamaha 4-op synths around, I use it a lot for my FB-01, YS100 and V50 and couldn't live without it.

The new version comes with a few bugfixes and a cool random patch/bank generator that leads to awesome resiults. Don't miss!!

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