Yamaha CS80 - Why Is It Worth So Much? 

GERMANY TOUR JUST ANNOUNCED IN MAY :) bit.ly/xwhyz-LMNC

Released in the 70's and still sounds like the future of music.

I am Van-jealous.

I got so nervous watching that beast shake on its stand when Sam keeps slamming and slapping it.

I've restored one of these... one of the most difficult synths to keep working, ESPECIALLY when you are 'working' on it, thanks to the super small gauge wiring used throughout, and with aging, the soldered ends and their flux residue have eaten at the copper strands, making them separate if you look at them too hard! Oh, so many wires broken!!!! Argh.. I still remember the pain of that repair/restoration! Love the channel, keep up the fantastic work!

best video of this keyboard ... as a jazz musician who is sampled based , this helped me alot understanding this "Yamaha CS80" is the top keyboard i want now !!!!!

This is the first time Sam has made me legitimately nervous. Seeing that mythical giant beast sway on a casio stand is not a sight for the faint of heart.

Never thought an Extra from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome would know so much about synthesizers. Nice man!

That may be the best CS80 demo I’ve ever heard. Bravo!

My first introduction to music was piano lessons at Yamaha Music School in 1977, which was attached to their local piano showroom. I remember the first day the synthesizers appeared, all Yamahas of course, on stands next to the Yamaha grand pianos. I had never seen a keyboard synth before, they seemed so exotic. We were encouraged to experiment with them before and after classes. They seemed fun, but because they only used presets, and those presets were all named after traditional instruments WHICH THEY SOUNDED NOTHING LIKE, I was actually very disappointed at first. It would still be a loooong time before I learned to appreciate electronic music, and now I really kick myself for not identifying the potential and getting in on the basement floor. The industry really set stupid expectations by trying to market these instruments as electronic proxies of traditional instruments. I guess the point is I remember those Yamaha buttons and sliders very well, I goofed off for many hours with them and I can still remember what they felt like, I just wish I realized what I was playing with at the time.

I had to double check this video is from 2019. Guy looks like he is straight from the 90's and he is playing synth from the 70's.

I was responsible for one of those things when I worked for Zappa back in the '70s. We picked it up in Germany. I took a class in how to tune it there. Was I sorry we he ditched it for a Profit 5? Hell no! That thing weighed a ton. It was the 2nd heaviest keyboard we had after the Hammond B3.

Really nice sounds, thanks for actually playing it instead of babying it!

Wow that masterpiece-of-a-synth is beyond heavenly genius. My kidney wouldnt even be able to pay for half of the price

I owned a CS-60 for many years. It is the baby brother of the 80. Still had poly aftertouch and the ribbon controller. Sounded fantastic! My fave thing was the ring mod and those great "pull down" pots. Still the most expressive synth I ever Played!

I admire the way you test drive these classic synths. It's like watching Guy Martin take a Lamborghini Countach from the early 80's, and compete in the world downhill mountain bike championships.

You just ripped us through a time loop back to the 80's. It was awesome.

This is a professional instrument intended for stage use, it's built to take a bit of a beating on tour. Sam knows what hes doing and it always looks much more dramatic on video than it actually is. Give the guy a break and just enjoy watching!!

The greatest synthesizer to ever be conceived and you play it like you built it. Amazing.

I would like to buy an hours worth of this CS-80 performance! Dear Lord, that was a-mazing!!

I've never seen one in real life but I'd love to one day. This thing is a monster. I was a bit worried we were going to get furbies hacked onto it but instead we got a sweet little jam session. Great stuff.

You always hear about the CS-80's lush pads and atmospheric sounds, but man this beast can output some seriously dirty low end!

God, I love the sounds it makes. Something so full and strong about them.

That sounded amazing! You can really place it at the heart of all those historic sounds.

They are so expensive because Vangelis owns 95% of all the existing working ones.

That synth is a beast! It’s really got a unique sound to it, maybe it’s that additive sinewave that makes it different from most polysynths.

6:49 wow, never heard it this fierce. nice.

Yep, amazing as usual. Don't forget Keith Emerson and Eddie Jobson were also both users of this amazing beast when it came out. And to think this one actually has a MIDI upgrade!

Omg, what a massive sound with so much articulation. I'm speechless.

Honestly I love just listening to the jam session. Just trying out different sounds, and the slow beat. Its so good!!

That's a absolute unit

3:40 absolutely smooth analog ribbon pitch control! Not a whisper of the stepping you'd hear on almost any modern microprocessor-controlled UI.

First time i’ve heard a CS-80 properly played full on madness!

I’ve played and listened to a lot of synths, but hadn’t heard a CS-80 be ‘showcased’ before. This is fr the best sounding and most dynamic synth I’ve ever heard. When I first read about the price tag, as always, being cynical, I thought it was simply a supply & demand issue. I didn’t expect anything that stood out immensely. I did not expect to get this blown away.

Holy cow that sounds amazing. Has to be the best sounding poly ever

Yo, Behringer, how about a $500 version?

6:49 That drum beat with the dark ambiance was when I fell in love.

I just love your work, attitude, and style. It's a very refreshing approach to typical reviews and creations.

The dream synth. Please be gentle with it !!! And the low end on this... So "woaw" I'm not sure it's legal.

I can't believe this synth was made in the '70s... It sounds great!

This synth was literally 4 decades ahead of it's time

6:50, This is why the CS-80 is my dream synth, despite all its issues, it would totally be worth it.

Goosebumps, your demo is amazing. The sounds are so cool and atmospheric. By the way your collab with Hainbach was great.

Good Lord, that tone is amazing! I listen to this and remember why it’s my favorite synth ever. I think it was also used on The Shining and everything Toto did.

Saw this in 1978. It retailed for 8K in LA at the time.

If i got my hands on one of these, i'd play the hell out of it! I didn't even know the CS80 could sound like this, since almost every CS80 demo uses vangelis presets.

Great sound, great keys! Hello from the audiofund from Ukraine! in the history of synthesizer construction in the USSR, there was nothing of the kind, our technology was very far behind foreign, and when in Japan and other countries there were already such great synthesizers, in the USSR they were just starting to make simple keys on factories for the general consumer. In some devices you can find similar ideas, for example, switchable analog presets. There are interesting and great sounding devices among our devices, but the fact that it was then that abroad abroad still looks like a fantasy. It’s very ironic when I have on my desk a huge electroorgan over 25kg weight made by the USSR and a small yamaha dx100, released in the same year.

I can feel the warm glow flowing from the speakers while flying through space.

Never fails to amaze me. Even after all those decades.

Fantastic sound! Clearly legendary for a reason. Can't wait to buy the Behringer version, if Yamaha had come out with their own analog reproduction for 5 or 6 thousand US I would have bought one already, missed opportunity on their part!

I loved the part between 0.05 - 9.58 when the keyboard stand was giving me severe anxiety

Nice jamming on the CS80! I've always wanted one of those expensive beasts for their coveted sounds.

Respect for the music you played on it. Actually you nailed the best performance made on this synth in the last 20 years. (!) (Im very very critical on synths and how they are used.) Keep on the path! And thank you!

Wauv... what a fat, emotionally evocative and living sound.. most synth's of today do'nt even come half the way to that. HUGE sounds, and eerily alive..absolutely brilliant!

I love this guys enthusiasm

Great video, iconic synth. That stand is totally inadequate!

No wonder it's worth so much, one of the few vintage synths with a truly unique sound...Love what you're doing at 7:00...so deranged, like circuit-bent micro-chip brain damage action.

i don't know anything about synthesizers but the sounds this makes are clearly above-average. i think the "aftertouch" is very distinctive

Me and my dad have one since 1981 and it is hell to keep tuned.....And hell to travel with.......

The sliders and buttons on this look exactly like some of the old Yamaha "home organs" from the 70s & 80s which are still knocking around and which I sometimes play. But this beast is truly awesome for its time (apart from the obvious limitation of having only 4 user memories). Thanks for the excellent demo and hearing the great sounds that it makes.

thisguy sounds all London until he says 'aftertouch' and his northern roots are exposed!

Human ears are made for this synths😍

Just subscribed today - echoing the same thoughts as below many months ago. I was expecting Vangelis'ness to come out, but instead blown away by god-level madmax sounding tunes! Awesome!! Never thought of a CS-80 doing that kind of stuff...but it does! And melts the speakers with no care. And I am going to use this comment to confess my sin too, and hope people will pray for my redemption. Back in the mid 90's, as a teen, listening to Vangelis and JMJ a fair bit already, I visited a Cash Converters in Kings Lynn (UK). There I saw a brightly buttoned huge mother of an "Organ" as it was ignorantly displayed , wanting the huge bugger gone, the price tag was...£25!!!!! Yes, £25 bloody quid! .. AND with the original stand and lid etc. So I bought it cause it looked retro funky, I had the fecking heavy thing on my lap in the car, all the way home. Plugged it in, couldn't get any sound - I was dumb of course (more so now evidently). Soooo many buttons and switches, I couldn't figure it out. I said to myself, "Nah, silly organ thing doesn't work", so I ...*sobs in agony*... started dismantling it like the donkey I was/am, without a care or any awareness of its prestige and legacy. I kinda knew something was odd when I noted Rosewood sides, and what seemed to be gold plated contacts under the keys and the bands along the base of them (velocity), then wires attached to the felt strip and so on. In time, I moved out, and dad disposed of the parts at the local dump. Some years later I really got into Synths and started searching (the internet was taking off by then, unlike before). I search "what is the ultimate synth?" ..." A Yamaha CS-80, used by .... oh ok - nice!. Looks a bit familiar .... see some more pictures.....and ..Oh....... FFFFFFFFFFF***********************************************KKKK!!!!!!! ....and I truly do feel a deep gutted feeling even now, like 25 years later - so sad. But, as soon as I have 20k spare, I will have to buy another one as punishment!

You keep beating the snot out of a museum piece. That thing has gotta have the heaviest, deepest, "phatest", bass of any synth before or since. 

Would love to see a CS-80 in person someday. The plug-in versions are pretty good but having it right there in all its glory has to be pure synth heaven.

8:06 When you ask for turntables on Christmas but your mom gets you a CS80 instead

Look mum a Vangelisizer ! ❤️

The second he pushed that first note I climaxed...my god...

Never really looked into the details of it, thanks for sharing that. I think having two oscillators per voice with separate parameters is unique and we can start to understand this notion of sounding complex wave characteristics to actuate realism, furthering down the line of Yamahas interest into FM...maybe

There really is just nothing like it. It sounds amazing. It cannot be stopped. It cannot feel pain. It does not care that you cannot afford it. It will be amazing until long after time stops.

Only LMNC could have a music room big enough that a CS80 could hide in a corner. Also, this thing sounds so orgasmic I'm gonna be running on empty for the rest of the week at best.

"Today I found this old Yamaha organ, so I pulled all the guts out and filled it with voice chips from Gameboys and Furbies!" Sam the Man, you've hit the big-time, getting to play one of the most iconic synths ever built. Nice patches, lad!

I believe you get one of this if you go to heaven

This synth is a LEGEND. One of the very best of all times.

Best CS80 demo I've seen, by far 😊

lots of surface to snort a line on, huh?

I didn't know that the Yamaha CS80 had built in digital reverb.

I don't think that X stand is going to survive long lol I have to get my CS kicks out of a Deckard's Dream, but love the original still of course :)

This thing has actually been invented in 2077. As a time machine. It just has teleported itself into 1977 by having pushed that funny yellow button.

That thing sounds incredible. What a massive tone.

@5:42 Mother of God that bass.

It's sounds massive!! Today You can have a clone...Deckards dream, but it's expensive too

Nice to hear it not being used to rehash Vangelis. Not to denigrate Vangelis - Spiral is my favourite synth album and the solos on Dervish D are a great advert for the expressiveness of this synth. PS. the original Dr Who theme predates the Yam and was created from a tube/valve custom synth and tape manipulated parts.

I wanted a good cs80x demo and if I could pick anyone , this would be the guy to play it !

Many and many years after this one is the best synth ever made : it is living :) I hope one day someone will recreate it as an harware not too expensive^^

That thing is amazing, and likely the reason I'm into synth music, blade runner being my intro into it.

most powerful and complete none modular analog synth ever created bar none.

"Describe in single words only the good things that come into your mind about your mum." "My mum? Let me tell you about my mum..." **blam**

My grandparents had a Yamaha organ in their basement. I used to mess with it as a kid. All those buttons and switchgear bring back memories. They were so tactile and satisfying to play with.

from around 5:32 for about a min is great ! ! right up my street. proper 80s movie soundtrack vibes. all cool jams, but for me that was a gem.

Sounds like the new ASM Hydrasynth.

9:58 with no ads. Because who needs money when you have s y n t h

Still the best Yamaha CS80 in depth feature on RU-vid

*Bladerunner* would _never_ have been what it is without this instrument.

Wouldn't it be brill if Yam could re-imagine this cult beast in to a real world (& affordable!) 21st Century version whilst retaining 'that' sound plus all the original functionality ... and some. I'd feel a re-mortgage coming on ...!! 😎🎹🤘

kinda sounds like music from A Clockwork Orange

you made me want to want it again

Wow, the moment you started playing my jaw hit the floor. That thing sounds deeeeeeep!

Man that stand looks super wobbly. I would put a cement foundation under a cs-80, the price certainly justifies it

NOTE: Headphones Are Required for listening