Bad Gear - Yamaha CS1x - Not Exactly My Thing 

General Midi showed great bravery when he fought in the war.

i just can't bring myself to hate this thing. it was my first "real" synth, bought off ebay when i was 16 with the money i'd saved up over the summer. despite its limitations and datedness, i had so much fun messing around and writing songs on it back then. i still love my cs1x, can't imagine ever parting with it!

Gen-X: 90's Rompler PTSD Millenial: "SWEET, a 90s Rompler! Now I can sound like a public television station in 1996! And it's only $5 so I don't have to choose between gear, rent, and food this month!" Gen-Z: "What's a rompler? All gear made before 2010 sounds the same to me"

"Suffering from 90s Dance Rompler PTSD ..." must be the generation after "suffering from DX7 Electric Piano PTSD" ...:)

The broken case makes it sound more analog too by introducing non-linearities due to the altered air flow. VST's can never emulate that :)

"An unhealthy percentage of sellers on Reverb need to get a goddamn life" lol

"I thought using loops was cheating, so I programmed my own using samples. I then thought using samples was cheating, so I recorded real drums. I then thought that programming it was cheating, so I learned to play drums for real. I then thought using bought drums was cheating, so I learned to make my own. I then thought using premade skins was cheating, so I killed a goat and skinned it. I then thought that that was cheating too, so I grew my own goat from a baby goat. I also think that is cheating, but Im not sure where to go from here. I haven't made any music lately, what with the goat farming and all." -- AudioPilz

I like how you leave Ableton's crash notice up for the video. That's a vibe I can really relate to.

I've been saying this for almost 20 years now.. there is no bad gear.. just bad musicians.. 👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽

We use three CS1X synths on stage, the Stanglers ALSO use Three!! fantastic synths to use live, cant rate them enough +++++++++++

Fun fact: Many of the GM/XG voices on this keyboard (and by extension, Yamaha's AWM-powered gear at the time such as the MU/QY series) can still be heard on their low/mid-range keyboards today.

the amount of jokes and puns in this one is off the charts, made my day.

Thank you so much for giving us something to look forward to on lockdown friday nights. The humour is off the charts, as always!

Used this synth a lot for gigging: Lightweight, "decent" sampled piano, organ (for the nineties), and great sampled analog sounds. Great memories. Also has a deep MIDI implementation with real-time sysex. Thank you for the great tracks and entertaining video. Loved it.

Great review as usual. As an Australian, I found it heartwarming seeing the Austrian flag there.

"I'm sorry, Yamaha CS1x but we need to break up. It's not you....it's me. No, it's actually you" _"Whatever! If you can't me at my sharps and flats, you don't deserve me at my naturals!"_ Great work as always. Keep it up!

"And an unhealthy proportion of sellers on Reverb need to get a goddamn life." I fucking lost it. As a vintage PC enthusiast, I feel your pain. I just recently paid 'only 100 bucks' for an Awe64 Gold, and not too long ago balked at the idea of paying 80 bucks for a working Voodoo 2. (They're more than double that now)

i love my cs1x... to me it's all about how you use it..another youtuber made a video using the cs1x to the fullest..making a 90's trance track with it..i wouldn't call it bad gear myself.. it's a synth of the 90's..and sounds like a 90's synth

I'm in the mintority here cause I actually think it sounds great. Some of us like that old sound.

Still got mine, still easy to use and great sounds

I know you hate this synth but I absolutely loved the tracks you put together with it! Alone, it sounds tiny, fragile, weak. But when put together in your vid, it offered a sweetness and delicacy that helps me understand why some people swear by it. Despite all that, I appreciate your notes that it wasn't fun to work on. Your suffering brought us some lovely tunes :)

We first made music on an Amiga 500 with the program Protracker. Music was good but we had to go to a higher level. After that we wanted to be able to make more of our own sounds and effects. We were still in school and didn't have much money left. We eventually bought the CS1x new for 1295 guilders. Still a lot of money but we had a synthesizer :) The music started to sound more professional which resulted in a record deal. In short: For little money it turned out to be a good investment. We still have the synthesizer in our possession.

I'd personally like to see NI maschine 1 on here in future

All the people who were upset about me using Goldfinger dialogue to joke about the Blofeld are going to have a massive coronary over Princess Vespa. ;)

I managed to buy one of these a couple of months back for just $100, really loving it as a beginner synth just for the ease of use.

1:34 “At least here in Austria” = my favourite joke of this episode 😂 🇦🇹 🇦🇹 🇦🇹

"and I can still use the CS1x as an excuse when my music sucks" 😂😂😂😂

CS1x is a beast.

Hand grip turns SH-101 into LOL-HS at 0:34

"Chromatic Doorbell" - Best. Description. Of. Crap. Synths. EVER. Oh, that really did make me laugh, especially as it was a Roland SH-201 sliding past :) 100% RU-vid Gold.

Funny how this is so bad while the synth that shares the same housing is one the best digital synths ever: the AN1x

I'd love to imagine that the previous owner of the machine was a session keyboardist trying to nail a particularly tasty solo and messing up the bends on the pitchwheel take after take. Eventually he had enough and went nuclear on it. :^)

10 fingers and knowledge of music theory is the best arpeggiator.

The casual bangers you throw into this video are some humble FIRE. Love it. Such an awesome way to be reminded it's Friday. Happy weekend Bad Gear homies!

MIDI files always sounded awesome on Yamaha's XG sounds. Also, the An1x is the true CS successor of that era.

The yellow of the keys matches nicely with the blue livery.

It is the first time you pissed me off with a review, the first synth I ever got, and I think it is an absolute classic till this day

I owned the CS1x and the SU10 and used them in this way for my first two albums in the mid 90's as well as some other tracks I made then. Also used the CS1x when I was in a rock band in early 2000s and then sold it to my friend who had one like it but the whole synth melted in his car.

Florian, you're just killing it! You've easily become the top synth / gear reviewer on RU-vid. Bad Gear is a Great Channel! I can't wait to see you try the Alesis Fusion, maybe the V-Synth, the ESQ-1, the original Korg Waveststion, the Casio CZ series, the Yamaha SY-77, the Roland SH-32, and the Korg Microstation (I'm sure you've already done one or two of these and I just can't recall).

Did he just show the Australia Flag for Austria????!?!?! Why yes, he did! Check out between time: 1:33 and 1:35 and enjoy the giggle! Well played my freund, well played indeed.

I played this synth live with a TG33,Sr16 and a Brother Sequencer. Never had any complaints. :)

I swear this is the only RU-vid with a justified intro, by literally using sounds of the instrument you are going to review

I'm an AN1x owner, and that synth is for the good gear show for sure. It has basically the same case-design, and i often used the "sampler-holder" for a Volca or effects.

Wow, it's not often I get to hear Rise of the Triad just randomly brought up in non-gaming videos.

I remember that era when Nord was new and all the rage, Roland did the JP-8000, Korg the MS-2000 and Yamaha this one. This is actually the first time I hear it's sounds, and I always thought it was a modelling synth like the others and not a rompler. They sure marketed it as a old school revival of sorts, but I guess that was only in terms of the name and the control surface. Thank you for showcasing it 🙂

I had one for many years - I bought it because it had knobs so you could change things on the fly - a real novelty after ten years of programming synths through a letter box display and with little or no real time controls. But then I’m a keyboard player, so I fit the description you used towards the end of your video!

Bought one of these maybe 5(ish) years ago for 120 euros locally from a nice suburban dude, who sat in his dark house and smoked like 9823719 cigarettes in the 20 minutes we were chatting. I hoped for charmingly cheesy sounds, and it kind of delivers those, but I didn't enjoy the overall concept and guess were also too lazy to go deeper into editing. It felt like a preset machine to me and the sounds felt plasticy and fake, but in a somehow overproduced way I didn't connect with. I sold it a few months later for 100 euros to a kid who told me, that he wanted to make 90s techno with it. He also told me, the thing would be awesome, the prices would rise and I would be super stupid to sell it that cheap, which seemed like a weird thing to say to the guy, you want to buy the synth from. Seeing todays prices I guess he was right though. But well, I have no regrets selling gear cheap that I got cheap. Playing that thing made feel like the keyboard guy of some party band. I liked the blue colour though.

Enjoying the show every godam’ week. And I dig your library in the background more and more ^^

I've been waiting for this one! this was the first synth I ever had

I missed this video until a CS-1x came up locally. Thanks ...wait, I did watch this...when you said it was used for education in Austria, it all came back to me

I love my cs2x, for some projects it had all the right sounds for more... normal people ears. I feel like its a MoPhatt with a keyboard, and without the endless percussion. Navigating it and editing is a NIGHTMARE but for out of the box cheeze, it gets an A++

When I was a kid in high school I had a paper on my bulletin board with a thermometer showing how much I saved to get the CS1X. Never got the keyboard. 20 years later I finally got the Yamaha reface dx.

Oh man, a video about my first synth! Bought one of these on a whim a few years back (got it for $200 back during the beginnings of the analog revival) after hanging out with some friends who had a proper studio. It was a terrible introduction to the fundamentals of synthesis, but the amount of interesting sounds it let me make with no real knowledge definitely got me hooked, and now that I understand more about electronic music, it still sees use as a midi-controlled device.

I was looking at this synth and the An1x back then and made the right decision…I got the An1x using the money I earned the hard way during my vacation job - and still have it to this day and play on it basically every time i sit down with my synths.

The CS1x, along with the JP8000 is all over my 1st couple of albums. Sold it years ago but just re-bought it this weekend. Love this and it’s so versatile when you dig deep

Very fond memories of playing this in my music technology course in the late 90’s

This was my first synth - paid about 1200 DM for a brand new one. This was my biggest mistake, but I learned really alot about MIDI SysEx Messages... Hands up for this reminder that in the old days not everything was great (and will not become great again)

You add such excitement to my mornings with every video you put out!! You deserve many more fans!

Bough a second hand CS1x for £120 a few years ago. Love it! Perfect from drum n bass (try the B900 drums) and ambient house tracks. I agree that it takes a deep dive to really get to grips with the synthesis but compared to a DX7 this is almost a user friendly experience!

This channel just makes me so happy. I'll name my first born child Baddy McGeary if you take a crack at the Roland EF303 which i cannot for the life of me figure out.

Mein allererster "Synthesizer"... Und mein erster Fehlkauf. :D

I'm at the point where I can gauge how old the video is by how much you extend the "the woooorld's" in the intro

Out of all the hardware I ever bought, CS1X gave me the most bang for buck, in terms of being something that aided producing a track. The default sounds in performance mode are really excellent and very usable, being interesting but not overly cliched. My only real gripe with it was as you mentioned, the arpeggiator, which is otherwise also fantastic but does not send it's output to midi. Also have a mc303, had not realised they came out in the same year - it's a piece of junk imo, as far as music making.

You laugh at the CS1x now, but back in 1997 this thing was da bomb! (Yeah I owned one for a few years, it was pretty boring but was an all rounder type instrument). Ok I admit to bobbing my head during the arpeggiator part!!!

Best intro monologue in the history of the show

>get off work >new Bad Gear waiting for me Am I in heaven?

This was one of the first synths I played on.... it was life changing....

When I hear the intro tune I now know that I've already heard it in the intro tune.

The Arpeggiator does not output the notes via MIDI, but they changed it with the CS2x. This one is the same, but totally different and IMHO the best of the whole CSx range

My mate had the CS1X, I had the Roland XP-10, see, I told you I used to be a Roland fan boy...

you already had my like with the "sexy beast" clip but the rest of the vid was predictably great

My first synth was a Casio CZ1000, and the guy I bought it off in 1998 had just bought one of these. He said "you will probably want something with knobs after a while". This was over £500 back then, and the used Casio was £65. This Yamaha was a well out of my price range, I was quite jealous.. This is the problem looking back from 2021 it looks cheap, but tech is cheap now it wasnt then. Acounting for inflation this must be like £1000 in 2021? (1330USD, 1150EUR). It still sounds good to me, I'd be quite happy with one, for the current price which is like what the Casiowas back in '98 its got tons more features, could sequence a while song with this no problem, and unlike some modern gear it has FULL SIZE KEYS!

"and I can still use the CS1x as an excuse when my music sucks" lol, I will use it all the time then :) great video, keep up the great content!

I had one and loved it, but this is the one that was the reason for that famous phonecall to the Boss of Yamaha Norway, "why the hell did you paint it blue?" Angre owner where his wife saw there was something new in a home studio bathed in a world of black and white synths and pianos. And mine? Sold to a pianoplayer using this for bas, last time I saw it was a ugly sight, missing buttons, faders and whatnot and a big crack on the whole lenght of the backside...

I personally love and prefer 90's VA sounds. Its the sound that got me into synthesizers.

I've recently sold my CS1X, it had been in the loft for years, I bought it from new and used to sequence it to my Commodore Amiga, it was my first ever keyboard. Loved it at the time. But looking back, I wish I'd got the CS2x or the AN1X or even the CS6X, but for the time, I loved it.

I’m about to play some UT with the squad. Needless to say they gonna have to wait.

What an amazing synth. The users that know how to use this timeless product can still crank out some great music.

Such an underrated synth. Mine permanently sits next to my Juno 6 and DX7. It holds its own in its own way and will never be sold. 90s Dance Piano sounds are worth its weight in plastic 🤣

I keep seeing this on my local used market, along with Yamaha SY77 and SY99

Yes, nitty gritty is used a lot in England. Especially in the West Midlands, where we have our own language separate to English. No one knows what it means, but we like getting down to it.

Well, I'm more of a keyboard player and love every minute I own my CS6X. Sounds and effects where wonderful and It had just everything I you are not afraid of menus. Key touch was delightful. I miss it.

Everyone confuses this with the AN1X. Yamaha did BOTH boards a disservice by making them look the same and have similar names. The AN1X is still a great sounding virtual analog, and far less dated sounding today.

The CS1x may have been an option for my first synth when I was 17 in ‘97. If I had chosen it, it would’ve just as likely have been mine as the one I went with, the QS6 (since it was always going to be a gift). And today, 27 years later, I would have enjoyed the CS1x a whole lot more, even though it had less than half the polyphony. I easily would’ve enjoyed a stronger sound engine much more. I’m sorry the unit you demonstrated for us here had that gash at the bottom end of the keyboard. If I really wanted to push the boundaries of generosity on the part of the relative who bought me my first synthesizer, I could have chosen the Korg 01W Pro X. How about a bad gear review of that model, assuming you could find one in Austria, AP?

I was honestly expecting the QY10 to sequence the first jam, you got me with the slightly-too-large-but-made-it-work-anyway Digitakt. 😂 Update: Extra points for WINTAGE, never change Florian ✌

I used to have one of these, I was one of the people who suggested you feature it. The intro tune already had me LOLing

Which modern synths do you think will end up on this channel in a decade?

I remember the day it came out... (Ouch - getting old by the way...). And we all were very interested in this plastic piece of gear. 😀

The AN1x, however, is a complete and utter VA beast

Loved my CS1x, have still one.

I had a CS1x and quite enjoyed it. The sound was thin however I still found a good use for it, but my biggest bugbear was definitely the unstable arpeggiator timing. If I ever had a chance to get another one, I'd still buy it.

That piano sound fucking rules (imo)

"a proper keybed" *zooms to the complete mess that is the pitch and mod wheel section*

I believe the CS-80 took legal action at the use of its family name for this one.

Jump Jump The Mac Dad'll make ya Jump jump The Daddy Mac'll make ya Jump jump Kris Kross'll make ya Jump jump Uh huh, uh huh

BTW, did this one get dropped on its pitch bend wheel from a 10-story flat? That case *really* needs some love. There's probably a few RU-vidrs out there who are happy to accept donations and restore this one to its original glory.

"I do not know if it's a bug or a feature." Hahaha

I bought mine in 1999 (Yes, for the Prince sounds too) and a lot of synths came and went and still this CS1X does service here in the studio. The Yamaha's cs1x audio spectrum falls well into the mix for production, there are many synths that have to fat sounds (you dont need pads in 49-19500 hz) and suppress other instruments in the mix. So for a fast dance production I quickly grab the cs1x, my Yamaha SY and Waldorf STVC. When I use a bass for fusion or jazz, NordLead. When I play live light music, I use a Roland Uno DS

It really works for 90's Eurodance tho :)

Loved the Bad Gear “Vanilla Glass Galaxy Force 99” animated segment!