Synths that Time Forgot: The Yamaha SY-77 | Last FM Flagship Synth 

I got a little bit of history for you regarding the SY 99. I bought it new when it first came out. I ended up using it a lot when I was working on the show “friends “I was the music producer for the whole run and you can hear the SY 99 clearly on the first season. The episode where Chandler is sneaking a cigarette there’s a lot of those patches in there. Anyway just a little bit of history of one notable place the synthesizer was used

A story I once read told about when the Yamaha engineers brought a prototype SY99 to Chick Corea to test out and run through it's paces before mass production. The story went on to say that he loved the SY99 so much, that when the engineers were ready to pack it up, Chick wouldn't give it back! They were begging with him, telling him that was their only working model, but he absolutely refused to give it up! That would be like giving a kid a toy see if he liked it, and then trying to take it back over he did.

The SY77/TG77 uses a significantly improved and more flexible FM synthesis than the DX7 II. A larger choice of algorithms, custom-routed algorithm and 15 additional waves besides the standard sine.

The SY77 is a good example of improving on an already robust synthesis legacy. This is thing is super powerful once you have the patience to dive in .

I played this synth when I was a teen. In 1990, the SY77 was for Yamaha what the 01W was for Korg. Roland was a bit lost between the D70 and the JV80 at that time. I had a JV80, but the SY77, I felt in love with it. I don't know why, it had something more than the others, more advanced, lacked of. The SY77 is not forgotten for me, it's one of the legendary synths of all time with the JD800. It has a soul.

A very underrated synth. I love FM, one of the few ones I haven´t had yet. Luckily I own a FS1R

Owner of both boards since they came out in 1989/1990 and 1991/1992. The SY99's biggest upgrade was the FX. I used it to control my SY77 and RY30 at gigs when I did not have the full band in tow. It was an awesome workstation. It made programming slightly easier than on the DX. Still own both keyboards and still use them! Just upgraded to USB drives and new screens because the old ones fade. Keep that in mind when purchasing. Also, the battery will need to be replaced. Be sure when you do this you replace the soldered battery with one you can just slip in and out more easily.

When the SY77 came out the world was moving on from FM. Sample based keyboards were the thing. Every keyboard had to offer more wave ROM, more polyphony, more multi-timbral parts than the last. Neither the SY77 or the 99 were big sellers, despite being powerhouse synths. Yamaha released a lot of really well developed gear in the 90's, but it wasn't until they simplified and released the Motif that they saw their sales pick up again.

The sy99 and sy77 are really Amazing synth, i love them.

I bought my SY77 for 170$ last year. All it needed was a new battery and spring in the last key. Super flexible and power synth that’s only overshadowed by my Opsix units sound design possibilities. Not to mention how great it plays! You can also get a third party Wave-blade ROM card and load your own samples which totally takes this synth to the next level!

i bought a beat up one for peanuts a few years ago and fixed it up with new screen. it's an absolute monster synth, you can stack 2 (poly) or 4 (mono) full 6OP FM synths for a crazy amount of possibilities without even touching the ROMpler side, and it sounds so meaty. the onboard reverb and chorus, while not exactly strymon effects, have a lot of charm and very useable too.

V50 and SY77 were both 1989, followed by the SY99 (1991), SY85 (1992), W5/W7 (1994), EX5/EX7 (1998), and Motif series (2001). While the Montage and MODX both have pattern sequencers, I wouldn't classify them as workstations, as they lack a realtime multi-track sequencer. They are more performance oriented.

I still use this beast and it is glorious. Likely next year I shall be very close to releasing a 2hour album based on work from 92 and it's thanks to this delightful machine. All written using the very excellent internal sequencer

I'm happy to have my SY-77 unit, it's so esoteric/experimental and musical at the same time, I've fallen in love with this keyboard for a long time and I still use it with Logic and Mainstage to play and record things live and then create my electronic songs. It's a beast of AFM synthesis

I guess the Yamaha V50 was the first workstation. I still have mine from the late 80s.

I bought one for 300€ in 2007. imo the best semi-weighted keybed ever on a synthesizer! And if you're looking for the 80's ep sounds... this is the one!

I owned the SY77 for quite a few years. The thing that makes the SY77 really special is the fact the samples that are in it eg the AWM memory can be inserted into the AFM oscillators. So now the FM oscillators instead of being just a sine wave or 15 other waveforms like the 8 with the TX81Z, (which in itself will create some very complex sounds) it now includes a third option which is all the AWM memory! So you have hundreds of oscillator waveforms available to you. This is NOT the same as layering AFM and AWM sounds. (Although yes you could also do that) It is something very different. I think there were more FM algorithms as well. (45 compared to 32 so it was more advanced than the DX7 ever was.) It meant you could make FM sounds only but the complexity of those FM sounds took on a whole new level. The results are deep massive super complex soundscape textures like no other. It really shines in the complex ambient texture department. (not demonstrated here) They never made a machine that could do this after I am pretty sure. The MODX cannot do it either as far as I know. Chick Corea's keyboard tech uploaded all his SY sounds a while back only for a short time and I was lucky enough to be able to get them. The sounds were ridiculous to say the least. I had the TG77 for a while too and was convinced it sounded a little better than the SY77 as well. I suspect they improved it a bit but did not tell anybody.

Nice synth, i got the tg77 but i also have the sy99 and thats imho the last flagship synth

Sorry to say but sometimes I wish you'd do a little bit more preparation for your intros when it comes to digital synthesizers like you do with the analogs. But your conclusions why this Synth is kinda forgotten is pretty spot on. The SY wasn't the first workstation. First there were the YS200 which offered sequencer and effects moving towards that genre and then came the V50. That was the first real workstation debuting early 89. It had the sound engine from the DX11, so 4-op FM with 16 voices (no AWM!), a Sequencer like the QX5, Effects, a Drumcomputer with the PCM-Samples of the RX7 and a Floppy Drive - don't forget Diskdrives were what made Synths professional at that time - the M1 didn't have one. But the V50 wasn't good enough and there were rumors they would bring out a V80 but that didn't happen. Almost funny: If you read what's written under the label "SY77", it is called "Music Synthesizer"! It's said to have come out 89 but actually deliveries were 1990. At that time, the term "Workstation" already was not tooo beloved. Korg was doing its thing and already offered a better workstation with the T-Series. Roland had the D-20 as workstation (the D-50 never was one!) and in 1990 the W-30 which was a sampler Workstation. But they didn't offer a new workstation and their top model was the D-70 which didn't have a sequencer purposely. Reason: It was believed workstations were sort of like a compact hifisytem - every item in it but in poor quality. So that's why Yamaha did the "music Synthesizer" - which almost like an afterthought had the ingredients of a workstation just along the way. First of all, the SY77 was the long awaited top model, the Yamaha Fans waited for. Don't forget the last one was the DX7 II from 1987 - and 3 years were a looong time back then. Still this DX7 was considered a top synth but then the D-50 and later the M1 came up, Yamaha just did not react on these levels because they were still selling. After that they only brought out minor products such as the DX11, DS55, YS-Series and this V50 which still didn't have even 6OP-FM. So the Keyboard magazines were full of articles and news about the SY77 as if it was the next hot thing. Maybe compared to these expectations, the result was rather disappointing. And the most concerning fact were the Presets. Because they were the deciding sellers in the shops as there was no youtube. Both the D-50 and the M1 had fantastic presets which are iconic to this day, as well as the DX7. But if you look at the SY's Presets, they're rather meh and nothing special at all. Which is even more annoying as the Presets can't be overwritten; you have to live with them even today and they are often hardly scratching the surface of what this machine is capable of. So it was kind of a hype that couldn't live up to the current needs. What were the inventive things of the SY77? - The Advanced FM. A major stepup from the DX7IIs engine with now 45 algorithms (and even a free algorithm in the TG77/SY99), up to 3 feedback loops, 16 waveforms instead of just sine wave for the 6 Operators, the ability to use AWM-Samples as Modulators (RCM) and Filtering. - The Filters theirselves, the SY77 indeed is one of the very first synthesizers with a good sounding digital filter (multimode, so high- and bandpass possible) with resonance. And this even could be applied on both FM and AWM-Samples. The D-50 couldn't filter samples at all, Korg and Ensoniq didn't have resonance. Only Kawai had it in the K4 and Emu in the EmaxII. - The abilty to have 4 Elements in one Voice, 2 AFM and 2 AWMs) and mixing the AWM into the AFM-Section as Realtime Convolution and Modulation - Very complex envelopes that can even loop - Stereopanning - The audio quality was much improved and cleaner with - At least for Yamaha it was the first 16 part multitimbral Synth. - Three wheels zoned aftertouch and that alpha dial, also for Yamaha the first with a big LCD-Screen. - The really good keyboard, which is one of the best synth action keybeds. So most of the plus items really were based on the synth engine and something for hardcore programmers. I have the SY99 and - it is really tedious even if someone understands FM-Principles to get something special out of it. Another problem was, since the Algorithms and the parameter resolution were so different, you couldn't directly load DX7 sounds, they had to be converted with a computer program. So it wasn't that easy to have the classic DX7-Sounds on board, but that may not even have been so important: In 1990 People already tended to get sick of FM because it was so heavily overused. The Choir and athmospheric sounds of Fairlight ->D-50 ->M1 were the next shit. The SY could do these quite properly but often, the FM parts in the rather natural sounds rather sucked. And the AWM-Section today is another reason why the SY is a bit forgotten. Technically it was on par with the M1 which also had a 4 MB ROM. BUT, in the SY it's been 16-bit waveforms at paritally 44,1 khz. So each sample had to be shorter and there just were not much in the ROM. 112 Samples to chose from in the AWM2-Section. The Piano e.g. was a bit more realistic than on the M1 - but not as cool for house. All the Noise- and Artifact samples the M1 and the D-50 were famous for, were lacking on the SY77. You could update the Wave Rom by cards but Yamaha didn't really feature great samples on these cards as much as Korg and Roland did. Plus, by the time Korg already had the M1REX with 8 MB and the T-Series with the same amount. Today, the SY77 becomes interesting for Pads and Noise FX, also more like phantasy sounds if you switch off the AWM or only use it for some specific sounds like choir or "itopia". As soon as the natural sounds come into play it sounds heavily outdated, more even than the M1. Because these samples were bad enough to produce their own signature style.

Yamaha had already done a great workstation. The V50. Amazing keyboard!

Amazing video as usual, one popped up near me and i was on the fence but i guess il go buy it now :)

Nice to see some love for the awesome SY77. For what you can get them for, they are really hard to beat. I paid $50 for mine because the owner thought it was broken. Just needed the battery changed out.

7:32 that patch is amazing

I bought a new SY-77 in 1990, has somer great bass sounds, acoustic guitars and nice brass, also bought a wave card to extend the drum sounds. Nice multi track sequencer though i mostly hooked it up to atari 520 stfm (extended to 1 mb) and hollis research trackman 32 for sequencing.

The Yamaha V50 was it's little brother , if you coupled that with the tg55 you had the fm/ rompler combo

The SY77 was my first synth/workstation. Bought it new in 1989. I had sold it to a friend who had it for years and then he was downsizing and gave it back to me for free a couple years ago. I cleaned it, replaced the battery and gave it to my brother. Just purchased the new Montage M8x. While so much more in many ways the SY77 at the time was equally phenomenal.

I love the SY77, I found making my own sounds pretty intuitive even despite never having any experience creating sounds. And the 77 had a great sequencer on it, that I maxed out before long!😂

TG77 was used on almost every record I made in the 90s~^^

TG77 stays in my rack. Its sound engine was very unique and unlike anything out there at the time. If you dig into it, you can still come up with some nice sounding pads. Glad that it has stayed cheap, but after this video they may go up in price.

I have a lot of synths. I have this one, but my pride and joy is, a 'Casio VL tone. Great demo.

I have used sy99 a lot, and really liked it!

SY77 is amazing synth.

They had the SY99 that had the 6 Op synth, the later the 8 operator FS1 rack. The Plug Board DX for the Motif and Motif ES family.

Great video. I own the TG77 with the same engine built in. I find myself wondering whether I should sell it but I keep coming back to it, because it is - as you said -one of the kind

And It absolutely Looks great too...

El papá de los Motif !

A very impressive synth at it's time. I never owned one but preferred the Roland LA. This range were quite big in size. Nice key action from it too.

You hit the nail with the programmability Vs workstation ease of use. I have an sy99 and if you're prepared to properly geek out it does some clever stuff. For example I can down load a looped sample of a Moog bass then use that as a Fm modulater along with an FM stack to give it movement But it takes a while ..

This the only video the algorithm ever shows me from you guys and I'm here for team Zach lol

Bought mine in 1991 or 92, cant remember. Because of movie "Le grand bleu" and Eric Serra score. Still have it.

the sy99 and 77 are great synth-i had the sy99 but moved it on,more than happy with my dx5 for fm

Bought mine (sold as seen but excellent cosmetic condition) with no proper sounds for £80 about 10 years ago. Performed a successful Factory Reset and came back to life. Added a Plug & Play Floppy Emulator and so much easier to load sounds now. SY77 is an amazing synth.

That keyboard is absolutely phenomenal. I saved up every penny to go buy that thing brand new off the showroom floor it was $2500 and that thing is absolutely built beautifully to this day. That thing is still built. It’s got the FS bed and key the keys on that thing or like no other keyboard it’s a gem highly underrated. That was a full-blown studio when it came out you could literally produce a song right on that keyboard have it demoed out onto a dad or a CD it was a dream come true it’s still a phenomenal machine the buttons on that thing or butter

great video man. it was the end erra of fm synthesis .... this model sy 77 | 99 and ensoniq vfx sd was the flag ship back then. followed by the ys 200 or the v50..... i think the sy 55 also was cool synth also on 2000 yamaha came with the motif and set a very high bar the next generations of two engines came out 0n 2017 when they released the montage

I had one, and loved it, but had to move really far , so I sold it. It has features that are nowhere else. a real pain to program, but the results are epic. I think about getting one again all the time.

2:20 - FS1r - Actually a very cool sounding machine. It had all of this, plus a very good VA filter. The issue was it was only rack, and extremely difficult and time consuming to program.

The SY77 is definitely a synthesist's synth =o] One for the programmers for sure, especially if you're into more atmospheric and dangerous sounds rather than bread and butter sounds. You can create some pretty hellish sounds with these.

I had a TG77 rack. It was so much fun.

Forgotten? I still use my TG77 and EX5 and love their powerful sounds. Instead of being annoyed of their few weak spots I rather use my other synths. Greetings from Germany🇩🇪🤝

The SY55 was also launched at same time as SY77. I consider it more a direct competitor to M1 as it was also a workstation, but only had AWM synthesis.

love mine, with upgraded display :)

Please make more of these videos on obscure keyboards that may or may not be commonly available. I happen to find an Electone EL-500 with general midi from around 1999. From what I’ve seen there is a very deep FM engine within it as well. I believe it’s an 8 operator per voice. It may even be 16 or more operators due to the fact that there’s so many separate voices and split key’s, and foot pedals. I’m planning on putting out a few videos in the near future. Please keep up the Nerding out with these deep dive/mini docs. Thank you and Much love to the whole crew

First of all, the earlier mid-1989 4op V50 was a workstation. There was supposed to be a 6 op V80FD workstation, having been shown at NAMM that year, but it was cancelled in favor of the SY77, released in Dec 1989. The later original Motif, Motif ES and other keyboards/racks of that period supported PLG series expansion boards, including a 6op FM board. There was never a rack version of the SY99.

"I think there was a full-blown FM module"... that would be the FS1R, which added formant synthesis as well. Wouldn't have gone amiss to look this up. Also, there's the PLG150-DX plug-in board, which could be placed in several Yamaha synths.

I have a TG77 (rack SY77) and SY99. I agree that it sounds awesome, especially the FM EPs. There was never a rack version of the SY99, but they did do the FS1R a few years later, which was their final FM synth until the Montage. This was the only 8-op synth until the Montage and has a lot of advanced features, although the default user interface was quite bad for programming. I'd advise anyone to pick one of these up, while they're still cheap, as they're bound to get more expensive soon (the FS1R is already quite pricey). I think that these didn't do so well in the market as the AWM implementation was pretty basic and the trend at the time was away from FM, which had been badly overused in the 80's. Sample-based Romplers were the hot ticket then, which is why Yamaha switched to this with the Motif lne.

Amazing synth for ambient music. A few years ago you could get them for under $300 easy, but people are gear hungry now

The current MoDX and Montage series have full blown 6 operator FM engines (like the DX7). The Reface DX uses a 4 op engine.

The sy77 was a few years on from the DX7 and was where Yamaha was putting their efforts. They were however only in the primitive stages of developing usable wave synth. And they got caught with their pants down when the M1 came out. Scrambling to come up with an answer, this is what they came up with. And it was a great response. I love mine. But it got overshadowed by the trend set by the M1

It looks like the predecessor to the ex5 motif...like a cross of a ex5 and sy35?

had an SY99, SY77 and a TG33, the TG55 SY55 is the best of the bunch if you like Alien odd sounds

I've had one since 1990 but never got on . with it. Apart from being extremely difficult to get a decent sound out of it it always sounds too clean. Yet I still have it.

Why time forgot? We don’t forgot this special instrument. I bought SY85 in 1994, my first SY77 in 1997, soon after a TG77, and shortly after SY99. I still have the three SYs, even though I bought SY77 three times, the last one last December. When I don't have it, I miss something, despite always having a SY99. There is a lot of nostalgia in this and I am aware of it, but certain sounds are only there 😀

The D-50, M1, SY77, the most exciting times in synthesizers.

Let’s also not forget about the SY-99 which was the big brother of the the 77 and in my opinion the real flagship.

I bought a beat up one fora pretty penny, but I love it!

"Synth that time forgot"? Um... No. Those of us who own/use the SY-series, have never forgotten. Also have never let anyone we've ever talked to forget that SY is one of the greatest synths of all time.

1:45 AWM actually stands for A-dvanced W-ave M-emory (not "M-odelling"). 😉

The synt can easily be forgotten when you just play the presets, when you search on the web for (commercial) voice sets, you find sounds that are just awesome, even by todays standard. Loading DX7 patches is possible, but the SY/TG77 shines when FM and samples are combined, the 77 can sound very anlogue or ‘alive’. You cannot combine different voices, but in a way you can, by copying parts of a sound to another sound. So two sounds of 1 part each can easliy be combined. The individual parts are nothing special (i.e. the samples and the effects) but combining them can deliver great sounds!

Please correct me if wrong. Was this synth used in the movie ''Rock School?. I have one by the way.

I have a like new TG77 and I forgot how good it sounds...

There was an SY55 too.

Let's forget Chick Corea, who was a Yamaha poster, had both the 77 and 99. He even wrote a tune called "99 Flavors" which was also a demo sequence that could be played back on the 99. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-WcWZDTzvnVg.html

i just repaired my old SY77.

Another important point you may have forgot to mention, is that it was more expensive than the M1. The technologies that Yamaha put into this instrument were a bit outdated, like FM, the SPX effects and the sample specs were below par with what was standard by 1989. Another mistake I think Yamaha made, was that both the FM and AWM engines were 16-voice and those voices could not be borrowed, so if you wanted to layer two FM sounds you'd end up with 8-voices, albeit dynamically allocated. It wouldn't use the other 16-voices from the AWM engine.

The sy77 & sy99 could also use samples as modulators in fm so very powerful indeed, the purely sample based sy85 was a better workstation though.

Had one in the 90's - Loved it - T.V. Blew up - Had to sell it - Regretted it!!

One of the only synths I never program because it's so annoying. BUT there are some great 3rd party sound banks to replace those stock presets. I've also never even tried to use the sequencer just because the sequencers in my Ensoniq synths are so simple to use that I just have not bothered. Besides layering the FM and AWM sounds you can actually use the AWM waveforms within the FM algorithms. I got one from Japan for about $500 in 2021 and even though I have sold at least 60 synths since then, I kept the SY77. The 99 has more waveforms, keys and memory. There's also a strange 1992 SY85 that has no FM and really doesn't fit in the SY line. Also, little tip, If you are going to buy one and want to swap out the floppy drive for a USB emulator, you'll need some kind of adaptor that I have not been able to find. The floppy drive in the SY77 does not have a standard cable. If anyone has any leads on an adaptor, let me know. I have a usb drive that's been sitting around for a year.

would like to hear it compare to casio vz1

Give sure new modulation schemes That you can use with classic DX base , Check out Front 242 up evil and off tg 77 and korg wavestation

It’s almost like the DX7, D50, and M1 had a baby that was missing all the cheesy sounds!… Eh, who am I kidding, my sonic pallet has been numbed by those synths.

This complements the Roland D50 perfectly.

I had both and the sy22 , underwhelmed by the 77/99 as well as the sheer real estate. The 22 was much more interesting and intuitive.

1:25… actually the SY-99 was the flagship of the series. Also, the FM was clearly NOT very similair at all to what was in the DX7II… as jeffevansmusic pointed out in his comment below, samples from the AWM memory can be inserted into the AFM oscillators, and instead of just using a sine wave, the FM operators could use other waveshapes. You really should research this stuff better IF you're going to go into specifics with the gear.

The Montage & MODX cover most of what it could do and it's type of sounds. I only wish they had made it so it could load SY-77 sounds like it can of MOTIF series sounds & DX-7 series sounds. The Korg M1 still held it's own, except with the piano. That's where the SY-77 was superior.

The SY77 and SY99 are really powerful synths but the factory patches only scratch on what it can do. It can create very realistic emulations of acoustic instruments. So it really blows away the Korg M1.

I think Yamaha bought Korg in the late 80s which is why you had some cross pollination with the Korg DS8 with FM and the Wavestation/SY vector stuff

They sound great but it's the operating system (no pun intended) from hell isnt it. The weirdest thing about FM is that if you've ever used one of the few FM synths with an entire knob per function setup, it's like the easiest and most amazing type of synth to program, and it's like oh...this makes perfect sense how simple and how easy and great. but those menus just make you think it's hard and tedious don't they.

Great video. Do you have a SY99 which is basically everything that the SY77 should have been in the first place with its ability to import samples, improved sequencer with the ability to have multiple songs in memory at the same time, twice the sample ROM, and way superior dual digital fx processors with real time parameter control

I never made my mind up about FM. Alot of it sounded pretty cheesey. Yet the Korg OP six sounds quite interesting doesn't it. I think it was the dx7 electric piano......some love it but I never got into it.....you do get some interesting synths on your channel for sure.

The Roland D50 wasn‘t a workstation, it even hadn‘t a sequencer. And the first Yamaha workstation was not the SY77, it was the V-50 (also called V2 in Japan), it was released one year before the SY 77. Very bad research here.

2:12 Nope. Yamaha's current Flagship and like 4 other products have full FM. 8op even

Sy 85????

The factory presets are not even close to what sy77 can sound like. The AFM engine is so powerfull that whoever loves fm synthesis can make incredible sounds. The filters and EGs are contributing to a very nice result.

Was there an SY35? SY55 is what I remember...

Fantastic overview. What about the SY85? I still own one in my collection of synths. You've made me want to take a fresh look. Mine is in mint condition ... Bought in 1993.

What does fm mean

FM was never about menu diving! People loved it coz it sounded good on pop records. Making a deep FM synth with menu diving, also for a lot of money... was a miss. Also, losing functions that lower models had on the top models is always a no-no...

I don’t know man . I think the sy77 is a coveted classic . So so a lot of people.

the last real synth before the rompler era ... ( minus some exceptions)

There never was a rack mounted version of the SY99. Only a TG77.