Emulating the CS Sound

Here are the things I considered important for CSiness when developing the CS-80R:

• Voice Architecture The oscillator has pulse, saw waves and noise feeding into a dual high-pass/low-pass filters; the oscillator also provides a sine output noise that is mixed back in after the filters. What the CS-80R provides: Almost the same, but with no noise. Pulse and saw at the same time are not available, but there is saw+ wave which includes some square compenents.
• Oscillator Characteristics The saw wave has a characteristic bump at its start, which privides some extra higher harmonics. What the CS-80R provides: The same. The Smooth switch in the filter section removes this bump on high notes, for reduced aliasing noise.
• Filter Characteristics The filters are 12db/8ve, each having separate resonance and frequency controls. The filters do not self oscillate, and resonance decreases slightly at the top of the frequency range. The filters (especially in the GX-1, apparantly) supply distortion. Limited lower cutoff range. What the CS-80R provides: The same. Two different filter/distortion models are available, an enhancement.
• Envelope Interest The envelope generator for the filters has an initial level, so the attack phase need not start from the terminal level. As well, very sharp attack is possible. What the CS-80R provides: The same, but with a slightly different configuration as IAPDSR. The level envelope generator also is an IAPDSR, an enhancement.
• Sustain I & II The CS-80 provided two kinds of "Sustain", I & II, which actually relate to the release portions of notes: Sustain I is normal operation, Sustain II means that playing a new note will cut the envelope release of existing notes. So playing lines of single notes will have the clarity of mono synths, but still allow polyphony. What the CS-80R provides: The same. The Clear slider fully down is equivalent to Sustain I; fully up is equivalent to Sustain II. Intermediate settings are available, an enhancement. As well, the Busy slider decreases the release time when multiple notes are held down, an enhancement.
• Ring Modulation Unusually, a ring modulator is provided at the output, to allow various Leslie and scream effects. What the CS-80R provides: The same.
• Vocality A Keyboard Control section allows the brightness and level of sections at the top and bottom of the keyboard to be altered: this increases the musicality of the full span of the keyboard, allowing the filters to act more like formant filters. By vocality here I mean "reminiscant of a cat's miaow" not "produce Mellotron massed choirs"; the PPG Wave took the cat's miaow crown in the 80s. The sawtooth sound alters over the keyboard. On some CS-*, there is channel distortion on peaks.What the CS-80R provides: The same.
• Performability Lots of options for aftertouch and velocity modulation, especially for swelling sounds and pressure controlled vibrato. The concern for performability extended to the provision of foot pedals to select different release rates and to control brightness and level, and to the ribbon contoller for exact manipulation of pitch. Sustain II guarantees that dynamic performance changes effect the currently played notes, and not old ones hanging around. What the CS-80R provides: The same. MIDI aftertouch and note velocity on are handled. Most controls are available though MIDI or VST automation. Your keyboard must supply velocity, aftertouch, pitch bend, or foot controllers in the first place, of course.
• Movement Separate low-frequency oscillators for vibrato, pulse-width modulation and the ring modulator provide a good amount of movement. In some configurations, this movement is enhanced by stereo tremolo and the celeste-effect of slightly detuned voices in unison or by multiple voice cards. Pitch drift and calibration variations in voice cards also sometimes provided more interest. What the CS-80R provides: The same. As an enhancement, the pulse width modulation oscillators have been enhanced to also provide other movement such as vibrato, stereo tremelo. A separate stereo chorus effect is also provided.
• Pitch Interest The ribbon control, note bend, aftertouch controlled vibrato and note bend, glissando and portamento also increases the pitch variability and interest of the note, especially when used with reverb units. What the CS-80R provides: The same, except there is no glissando or virtual ribbon controller. The GX-1 allowed velocity-dependent note bend, which is also provided here.
• Wildness The aftertouch gives a kind of wildness to performing, because you can add musical interest in the middle of a held note, not just at the notes start and end. The various performance options and the band-pass nature of the filters also means that the volume of the synthesizer can suddenly lurch loud, causing distortion or requiring limiting. This kind of un-mildness is only emphasized by the presence of the ring modulator, the polyphonic portamento, and the ribbon controller. Sustain II allows much "larger" sounds, because unlike other synths a sound used for soloing does not need to have a short release. What the CS-80R provides: The same.
• Colour-coded Sliders The CS-80 had a row of slider for each layer of synths, and one for controllers. The sliders were color coded. The layout was not particularly easy to figure out, and the color coding was not as useful as might be expected, and direction of the sliders was aimed at organists rather than people used to mising desks. What the CS-80R provides: Screens are not long and thin: simulating the CS-80 panel design results in a too-crowded interface with too-small controls. In any case, the original panels were not necessarily optimally laid out. However, the CS-80R's function, grouping and naming of controls typically follows that of the CS-80, and the sliders are colour-coded: blue for level-related functions, dark blue for pan, green for filter frequency, red for resonance, yellow for level release ("Sustain"), white for oscillator pitch, orange for waveshape, and black for anything else.

Afficienados of Yamaha's CS range of polyphonic analog synthesizers might like to imagine the CS-80R as a CS-75: halfway between the CS-70m, which had one voice card per voice but two oscillators, and the CS-80, which had two complete single oscillator voice cards per voice. The CS-80R has two voice cards per voice but these share the same envelope generators.

10 New Sounds!

• Tang Tang: piratical clav
• Naive: auto-Leslie farfisa with emerging brassiness
• Shifting Basss: left and right panned basses with slow filters
• Fuzzy Log: kitchen sink
• KittyKopter: faster pussy cat!
• Moonlight: gentle pad
• Vantasia: pad
• Flanflare: brass
• Train: juicy!
• Ballcrusher: all filters are go
• Puncho: super compressed telstar

New Versions of the 22 Original CS-80 Presets!

These patches simulate the original presets closely enough to be used to play the same parts, but are not exact duplicates. These sounds are typically quite thin: CS-* presets benefit strongly from reverberation, equalization or choruses.

• Bass:
• Brass 1:
• Brass 2:
• Brass 3:
• Clavichord 1:
• Clavichord 2:
• Electric Piano:
• Flute:
• Funky 1:
• Funky 2:
• Funky 3:
• Funky 4:
• Guitar 1:
• Guitar 2:
• Harpsichord 1:
• Harpsichord 2:
• Organ 1:
• Organ 2:
• Strings 1:
• Strings 2:
• Strings 3:
• Strings 4: