Finally someone is standing up to those lazy preset users! :P Had these come out 5 years ago when I was learning synthesis I would've gotten one for sure. It's a neat first synth I think.
I just typed out a reply but YT keeps auto-censoring me. Leaving this here to help spread awareness because this is not ok. There was nothing controversial about what I said. (update - I removed mention of a certain NET Paint application and it isn't being deleted anymore. What the hell?)
The no preset thing is definitely a nice change. I've been loving my Neutron for a long time, especially for complex generative patches for sfx generation. I'll just leave it recording for hours with occasional knob tweaks as it makes new sounds for me haha. Although the downside here is I'll leave it on the same patch forever because I don't want to lose it, and the patch is so complex that I don't often feel like image editing a digital patch sheet (no printer). It's such a deep mono synth that I've left it on the same generative patch for months because I know there's still a lot of untapped sampling material there.
Best sounding VA synth ever. Its easily worth the £300 price tag. Lets see the competition in the same price range. YAMAHA CS REFACE £300 ROLAND BOUTIQUES £329NOVATION BASS STATION II £349ARTURIA MINIBRUTE £289NOVATION MININOVA £269 None of these can touch the sound and sonic capability of the REFACE CS. When you actually compare the competition none of which is 8 NOTE POLY with so much sonic palette. You will start to realize Yamaha have delivered something very special at a very affordable price. When all the synths in this list have run out of ideas. The REFACE CS will still be delivering UNIQUE aswell as classic sounds. Fat and warm. And 8 note poly. With a superb 5 different OSCILLATORS and the unique TEXTURE AND MODULATION that make a sound fatter than big mama. To sum it up for those who want a synth that is super hands on and has an infinite palette. The REFACE CS wins this price war EASILY...
Great for beginner synthesizer players, mass marketed, small and compact. Really handy. I can see this being sold to schools and bands and pretty much everyone, really. This line is a fantastic idea. Just look at the guitar industry. Too many elitist keyboard players IMO. This is not for you. I hope this helps to bring synthesizers and keyboards into popular music again, which is already pretty guitar-dominated except in EDM of course. You can quickly create a really cool sound even if you aren't a synthesizer pro. A lot of people don't know what a CS80 is, they're not synthheads. I just really love this. It's like a microbrute kind of thing.
I see a lot of critical comments of this synth but I actually like it and consider buying one now when the price is lower. I dont care about the small keys or no patch saving. Are there other synths in this pricerange with 8 polyphony (or more) with these hands-on soundtweaking I should check out before I buy this?
Great sleeper hit Synth. Now the prices have dropped on all Refaces, they are re-reviewed in a different light. Look them up on Equipboard to see the amazing artists who use them. I know DX is the fav of most, but the CS on many YT demos (besides this one - although to be fair the guy seems to be just showing the technical range, and deliberately not making beautiful music in a pretty short demo, so he did his job), sounds amazing.
The Bass Station II may not a a duophonic mode, but it has a good filter (that operates in more than one mode!), full sized keys and mod/pitch wheels. It also has two oscillators and LFOS, along with a basic sequencer. A mate of mine picked a BSII up new for 500 AUD, which means he picked up a superior synthesizer for one hundred pounds less than Yamaha is offering. Seems like a good deal. Even when it was still fairly fresh over here, the BSII offered more features for the same price as the CS. Buying the CS doesn't make an awful lot of sense to me, understandably.
It seems that the big players like Roland and Yamaha have lost direction, can't think up anything really new and so are re-hashing new versions of their old synths. Have we really gone as far as synthesis can possibly go with all the subtractive, additive, FM, phase modulation, spectrum, physical modelling, wavetable and granular methods?
astrophonix "Have we really gone as far as synthesis can possibly go with all the subtractive, additive, FM, phase modulation, spectrum, physical modelling, wavetable and granular methods?" Funny, this was my first thought when I heard about these new reface synths.
Sunny D Mini\MicroBrute, BassStation II, MS-20 - all monophonic. JD-Xi - too much lights and menus, but this Yamaha is really what I need on stage. Don't know about YC and CP but CS and DX is epic!
Alexandr Shursoma Feature for feature there is much better bang for the buck out there. microKorg: bi-timbral ... vocoder... aux in thru filters ... more LFO shapes ... mod matrix .... (onboard)patch memory. mini/microBrute : CV connectivity .... broader sonic palette ..... aux in thru filter MiniNova: flexible mod matrix .... editor ... vocoder ... more polyphony ....massively broader sound palette ..... more performance features (modulation). The price for the reface is mind boggling.
Dane Xoth again Micro/MiniBrute is great but monophonic. microKorg, miniNova, alesis micron etc. is fine but I hate menu diving ang matrix interfaces. Also I assume that this 2015 yamaha VA synth would sound much better then korg and novation. Here on this demo I like the sound. The best thing about this synth IMO is simplicity, I prefer faders over knobs, I adore its size too. I don't care about money really because when it will be shipped in my country it will cost much more than 500$ anyway, so I'll have to wait it it on a second hand market, but as a concept it receives big thumb up from me!
I will be very surprised if these do well and wind up being used in numbers that even register. They sound ok. The form factor is too dinky, I think, to be useful or much of a draw...How on earth can you reduce something as manually accessible as the CS80 to a tiny little deck with a couple sliders? The filters seem ok...but the tiny sweep on that slider would make it tough to do anything with precision unless you are a gerbil sized person...The PRICE is the part I find most astonishing...With all the decent analogue stuff on the market and all of the VA stuff available with comparable functionality, more knobs, less menu diving, and regulation keys, How in the hell can you think a retail price of $799 U.S. is going to stand up and lead to sales? It's a good thing Yamaha makes everything else in the world too...If any company that ONLY made synths pulled this, it'd be their last move ever...
This is a good basic synth for beginners, or for those who want just one or two sounds on stage to play with. Not enough parameters to tweak for me though. It would be nice to see a larger version that is closer to the CS80 in terms of the number of parameters available. Even if it's digital-only, a 'v-CS80' would be very popular. Either that, or someone needs to make a really high quality MIDI controller for the Arturia version!
Very disappointing. Yamaha teased this as being CS80 like ... Crap, it's not even a CS15. There are just too many better sounding, more fully featured VA synths in this price range to take this seriously.
ZombieTactics Arturia MiniBrute or MicroBrute ... Korg MicroKorg or MicroKorg XL, Roland JDXi, Aira or Gaia ... The list goes on and on ... what a disaster on Yamaha's part. The interview with the designers from Japan (during the online release event) was telling. They provided no rationale for why anyone should want these, others than "we really like small keyboards, when people come over for parties and stuff". It was (re)FacePalm worthy.
I actually like this one, It has polyphony and it's VA. I'm not a fan of Mini keys, but I haven't really messed with mini keys. The price range is about right, most Cs series aren't going below $200 at times. When Mini Brute first came on the scene it was about $500.
It's great they brought back the AN series, I always loved their sound, and the filter sounds really nice. Regarding the price, I think Yamaha didn't quite get the Korg trick. Korg educates customers on their older gear but has educational price to go with that.
The AN analogue modeling engine by Yamaha (AN1x - 1997) is in my opinion the best out there. This CS instrument is a nice addition and revival but just too expensive for what you get. Let's just hope Yamaha will develop another synth based on AN with proper specs (Size, keys, modulation, presets) or even better; (at least try to) model the actual CS synths. That is what every synthesist wanted So the 'CS' name is misleading. 'AN' would be more appropriate. Synth God Dave Smith himself was involved developing the AN1x (It's IMO very Prophet-y sounding - Not CS-like) and they should be proud of their AN legacy. Nice product, great but misleading marketing. Should be cheaper.
My boys love playing on my gear. I don't like it so much. So in my mind I designed a toy synth that they could use that was fun and good enough that it might cross over into studio use as well. It was a sort of modern Casio mini synth type device. What I imagined was almost exactly the same as what Yamaha have come up with for Reface ........... only much more expensive.
William M. Nash With both the CS and DX there is a possibility for manipulating the LFO depth to simulate the action of a mod wheel. On the CS it is a physical slider and on the DX it is a “virtual slider” in the “LFO Edit” mode.
Talking about the app that lets you take a snapshot of the settings and recall presets :"I guess you can do that in your DAW as well"... I understand that all the controller data will be recorded in a DAW... But I'm not so sure about the snapshot in a DAW and neither are they it seems... Anyone knows the answer?
This is like a "top of the piano" type of keyboard. Great for that. And cool for a small home studio. And great even for learning analog synthesis, entry level. But being able to store sounds online/iphone or not. It should've been able to save patches on it. Otherwise I think it's good for what it's meant for.
José Bordas OMFG. I thought it was pretty cool as a dirty little toy sounding analog modelling digital synth. Something dirty and gross sounding if you just want to be punk as fuck. But $799?! How does this merit that? I was expecting around $200. There aren't even presets? Only one ADSR? Mini keys?! What a terrible, terrible mistake Yamaha have made.
***** I've read it elsewhere, but can't find any original source. Other prices are $500+ that I've seen people throw around. It just doesn't feel worth that to me, but I'll have to play it in the store.
Maybe original RRP - mine was £65 new in box in 1985. You could get them from Argos or the Kays catalogue. Nice machine, big sound, with proper sockets, and mod and pitch wheels where you could just go for them :-)
VA?? For that price? Sorry... Korg, Arturia, and a few others now have given us more for less. If I wanted a digital unit why don't I just use a computer? Seriously I was expecting either a JD-Xi type thing with all of them crammed in and the CS voice being Analogue - OR - individual units for around $200... :/ Great video as always, Nick.
sorry but this might the beginning of the end for Yamaha. Its been on the cards for a long time now, but to take this long to come out with this...hmm.
Vince Watson lol. Surely you know that Yamaha makes some of the best, most popular Grand Pianos in the world? Every conservatory in the world is filled with Yamaha uprights and grands, they make CP stage pianos, digital pianos, mixers, studio monitors, brass, woodwinds, awesome saxophones, drums, the Motif XF series workstations used by countless professional keyboardists. And judging by the interest already for these Reface boards, Yamaha will have another hit product line. But don't let me interrupt your trolling.
I personally think this is great move from Yamaha and I would love to own all 4 of them, even though in reality I will probably only go for one: DX. Whatever people claim, there is a lot to be said about how something looks as well as its functionality and I think these look lovely. One tiny criticism I have is the weird midi port and the proprietary cable. They could at least go for the mini 3.5 mm jacks as in iRig midi or similar products. I don't like to search non-standard cables. Will Yamaha sell replacements? They will have to...
i like all the models but they seem overpriced for what they are. 300 each or a keyless module that has all the sound engines for like a grand wouldve been spot on. i will probably cop the dx though especially if i can find a deal on it
I see this video posted, get kinda excited (haven't been following the Reface stuff) 'cause it's a "CS," hope they've started doing what Korg has and... it's a VA. An *extremely* limited VA. Why?
Not just mini keys, but a MINI MIDI SOCKET, FFS! So even if you were to plug in a proper controller and use the Reface as a module, you're doing it through a fragile and unprofessional dongle. "It's a real proper synthesiser", he says... OK, so make it in a "real proper" SIZE! These are SUCH a missed opportunity. The Reface sounds great on all the demos I've seen - especially the electric piano version. The delay effect is great. The ring modulator - in the brief glimpse we get here - also sounds very good and old school. (Although, Bert, rather suspiciously, appears to skirt a few things in these demos.) [edit: yes, in the the Andertons demo, the ring mod can be heard to step horribly. That rules it totally out for me.] And the pricing! No effing way!! This is a toy, Yamaha - albeit a good sounding toy - but I wouldn't pay more than £50 for it. Or you make a proper one. Maybe Yamaha (and Roland and Korg) have been lulled into thinking that because some people use iPads for music, that the sight of someone hunched over a tiny machine is somehow cool... it isn't. It's as ridiculous as a twenty-something riding a kiddy-sized motorbike. At least Korg really HAVE re-made legendary synths.
Is there a looper, too? If not. Why does not Yamaha licence a proper looper technology from Phil Tipping? Sequetron by Phil Tipping is a phenomenal looper, so contact Phil and check if you can license this original technology? All reface users who do not want to wait for Yamaha licensing or adding a powerful looper into reface, simply check Sequetron by Phil Tipping. It can force to scale, chords, held notes and much more, there is nothing like it I know. Vangelis and Tangerine Dreamers will love it.
Hmmm not sure on this one Yamaha - £347 is a bit steep. No Sub Osc though which is probably why it sounds very toy like. Like the drive but it has no ooompf. Not sure it has enough in it for the price when there are better "cheaper" entry synths out there.
Agreed, Cuckoo. Can't wait to get my hands on the DX in particular. Don't even care about the mini keys. Build quality seems strong--they just need to get that price point down a bit. I'll pull the trigger on one regardless, tbh, but I'd really like to see these do well in the interest of Yamaha doubling down on the synth market and possibly putting out an analog poly flagship in the near future. Speaking of which, what do you think of the Roland JD-XA? Have you gotten a chance to get your hands on one?
Your ears need cleaning out. When you use this properly. Especially the bass end it will match a moog with ease. And no tuning probs. But a Moog isnt 8 NOTE POLY. Know what im saying?
Anton Fruytier because the cs has the widest scope of the four and is one of the best sounding VA synths in recent history. Sounds can be sculpted so fast you never lose interest in it. I posted a vid of 75 patches i came up with
first thing i notice every time he adjusts most of the controls is how blatant the stepping is... 'mod' and 'texture' don't even seem to be tweakable in a practical real-time setting. Plus, why does Yamaha think that of all possible instruments, we need more virtual analog?
KAUSTIKUTT6 Really? I don't think you know what 'stepping' is. "Everytime ... most controls...blatant" . You mean you heard stepping when he tweaked the LFO or the ADSR? When he swept the timbre/mod controls in the FM/ Ring OSC that's exactly how one should expect it to sound. There will also be weird bits of grit if the distortion fx is on. You're more likely to hear artifacts from youtube than any 'flaws' in the instrument.
Dane Xoth Yes I do know what stepping is. Usually it is used in the context of talking about digital (or digitally controlled) filters, where it jumps from one value of the 128 possible values right to another, rather than smoothly gliding. In this case you can hear it right at 0:07 when he alters 'mod'... OK it is not very obvious on the saw, when it fades in supersaw, but at 2:12 through 2:22 it is very obvious that the value jumps quite a bit without any kind of slew between, which makes it undesirable to actually tweak in real time (unless that it what you're going for; I never am though). And no, I am not hearing youtube compression artifacts. And no, I did not hear stepping on the tweaking of envelope or LFO, take my word 'most' with a grain of salt. But where there is stepping it would be a serious issue for a lot of musicians.
Honestly I think the sound is great. People dissing the sound should re listen. The REAL Issue is the price. when i herd about these new products i thought they would sort of be like lower end synth collection. sort of like the Vocola series by korg. Cheap but Powerful. This is kinda dissapointing so expensive you might as well buy a better Synth with that kinda money.
Hmmm why not AN1X mkII? With bigger screen, more controls, balanced output, better looking, more advanced keyboards? But ahead this is a nice job. The naming a bit frustrating. Is not CS, is a AN line. I think is will be come a selling disaster. I think the best way to put all this engine from the remake line and put into a big heavy synth with lot of controllers.
I love mines. built better than most keyboards. especially the Korg Microkorg which broke in four months. its a cool portable keyboard. they are not big flagship keyboards. that would be the Motif. they don't have everything but if its not what you need move on and buy something else.
I actually think this is way more musical than the mircobute.. Coming from a guitar playing background i think the Microbute is really only for Dj heads... I was so disappointed when I tried it.. Whereas this.. there are songs in this and parts for tunes... It is a bit pricey alright..
Take a look at what should be Yamaha's NEXT "ReFace" Model ( -a full-featured 64-128 voice workstation "ReFace" model ). You'll find it shown below the Yamaha "ReFace CS" review here: creativetechnerds.jimdo.com/gear-5-1/
This is better than a CS80.because its portable. It took.two.wrestlers to lift a fucking.CS80. Stop blaming the tool..In the right hands this will blow ur mind. Ive got Vince clark drum sounds out of mine. It has great snappy envelopes.
Big disappointment. This will be very popular with schools though, I suspect. Good for teaching the basics... Plugging it as a cs80 was a huge mistake by the marketing team though. Let's hope there is a "big sister" coming soon for the pro market.
+Ammer Reduron This is better than a AN1X. Try producing a full electronic drum kit on a AN1X for starters. Not to mention moog style bass that this baby can push out. And it will match the AN1X all day for pads. Agree that if it was the same size as the AN1X and onboard patch memories. It would be alot more appealing to the masses. But when we come down to THE SOUND. The CS REFACE takes the trophy for me.
I just don't think it fills any gaps in the market. You can get all these sounds and more from almost anything nowadays. What drives me nuts is sound demos that just make rancid unmusical blips and farts. Yes we love a bit of that, but at the end of the day, we want usable sounds, some funky bass demos and more about how musical it can be, and less 70s Dr Who! Of course we'd all love one or all of them, but new sounds inspire us to write, and to be honest, my Arturia minilab I use for noodling, will get those sounds and more, for less than £100! Has synthesis reached a stopping point? Lets face it, surely we are sick of 'Super-saw' by now?
I've spent the last 2 weeks hating and mocking the teaser videos for such a lame attempt by Yamaha to copy Korg and Roland.. But this is impressive to say the least! Hundred quid cheaper would've been nice but maybe we have the new MicroKorg..!
Horrible demo. Nick asks for a bass sound, he creates a pretty useless bass sound. He asks for a pad, he gets a horrible pad. Ok. So it does a lot of wild effect-y sounds that are fun, but pretty much useless. Great. But no demo of useful, musical sounds. So far the ONLY thing interesting about it is the ring modulator sounds. But the mini keyboard and the price makes me say no thanks, I'll stick with the real instruments. Hopefully there will be full sized keyboard versions with lots more parameters and controls. Then maybe I will be interested. And if they did REAL analog, NOW we're talking.
Clearly aimed at the leasing market for heavy tour use on the label's dime, sounds pretty decent and controls are minimal yet flexible and the thing is easier to transport than, say, a classic juno or something of the like. Typical corporate strategy: priced high for pros to lease while exploiting clueless home consumers who have been indoctrinated with the idea that music is about gear rather than imagination. That said, that filter sounds steppy as fuck....
Moon YEs sir! Thank you! And it's all over too.. Maybe it's just the "RUclips" culture, I don't know... But the amount of stuff that's being put out now is out of control, it's a relatively new development, really, not even 10 years ago, there was this wash of "STUFF". From guitar Equip to keyboards and every little music gizmo for recording. IT's just insane, seriously. Don't even get me started with the whole Boutique stuff, made just for middle aged dad's to try to recapture their youth, seriously, this is the new fast sports car for middle life crisis. Gibson making guitars that look like real old instruments, slapping somebody's famous name on it and charging people 6k? For a cheaply made guitar? Effects pedals that cost $400? When did music become about the gear? Because everywhere I look, and by that I mean "youtube" he he, it's all about the gear, people don't post music anymore, it's always a review about some piece of gear, which inivitably ends up sounding the same after a while... Sheesh people, stop buying, talking about gear, grab a cheap guitar/amp/keyboard/mic and make some great f'ing music already...
"I'm already getting carried away"... Not sure if i should be laughing myself silly or what, but the Yamaha guy seems so fake and insincere when he repeatedly says that (or similar). Like he's trying too hard to sell it. Over the series of all 4 videos, there are infact several details and subtext that just sound wrong to my ears. Not to mention that several times in the series, he's "answering" Nick's questions with something completely unrelated that doesn't actually answer the question. Trying to sell minikeys and built in speakers as a positive is getting all Korg-like, which is about as bad as things can get. But if it indeed is as substantial as Nick says (i wouldn't trust the Yamaha guy further than i can throw him), these might still be worthwhile, infact a proper build may explain the price to some extent. First impression of the physical side is however mostly positive, if indeed the build is that good. While i prefer full size keys, the small size of the unit itself is nice, and i think they've done a lot with a limited interface, which incidently reminds me slightly of the Waldorf Rocket (that i like a lot). I'm missing a modwheel, and there's a few other things that i'm not sure whether is good or bad, but all in all i actually like the design. Also glad they've thought about connectivity, and eventhough it's on a dongle (prefer proper plugs) it's nice they included proper MIDI. Something i would like to know is how the octave fader actually works. Do you have to be super precise with it to avoid the whole thing going out of tune? Does it step, and if so does it step in full octaves, semitones, or? As for this particular unit, it's a bold move to call it CS and then make it VA. They should perhaps have looked closer at how Rolands SH-201 was received, largely due to people wanting SH-series to be analogue. Moreover a strange choice in these analogue days, and with the DX also being digital (the CS being analogue would bring more variation to the series). Smells slightly of reused internals across the series, for reduced cost. Paired with all but the interface panel being reused across the entire series (and obviously a separate interchangable part), you gotta question how much of it is cost cutting, and how much is clever design for a more efficient production (yes there's a difference). Personally i kinda enjoy the fact that it's not analogue, just because people expected analogue and are now upset about that. And by the same token, reminding people that analogue isn't the only way to do things. Also polyphony is always nice! All that said, this is the only unit/demo in the series that doesn't leave me with a positive sonic impression. The design, size and immediacy all appeal to me, but i'm missing that something making me really wanna shell out that kind of money. And a modwheel!
Yamaha completely lost the plot here , what a load of crap, can do so much more with my Yamaha CS1x which cost $1395 when I brought it , in 1996 , this is just a Chidren`s toy , good grief !!!
Wow! I don't know how you kept a straight face reviewing any of these. Yamaha have created some of the greatest and most versatile synths in history, but these are just embarrassing, ergonomically ridiculous, ugly, under-specced toys. Stick all four sound engines into a full size Motif-eque workstation and you might just be onto something. But these should have never have left the R&D lab.
it sounds very cheap and crappy... especially at that price point. very little in terms of control compared to the synth it's named after... very disappointing
Love my CS! Soooooo many sweet-spots in this synth.
Yes, a lot of “musicality” to it... now less than $300 USD.
Adam and Jamie from Mythbusters
Jedi Mind trick "Mini-keys are not a problem"
another classic its incredible yamaha is finally listen the synth players again thanks god.!!
yeah, this is actually going to improve Korg Ms20 sales
despite the negative comments, I think it sounds pretty cool. Forget the key size listen to the sounds
shabbee Glad you enjoy the sounds!
Finally someone is standing up to those lazy preset users! :P
Had these come out 5 years ago when I was learning synthesis I would've gotten one for sure. It's a neat first synth I think.
I just typed out a reply but YT keeps auto-censoring me. Leaving this here to help spread awareness because this is not ok. There was nothing controversial about what I said. (update - I removed mention of a certain NET Paint application and it isn't being deleted anymore. What the hell?)
The no preset thing is definitely a nice change. I've been loving my Neutron for a long time, especially for complex generative patches for sfx generation. I'll just leave it recording for hours with occasional knob tweaks as it makes new sounds for me haha. Although the downside here is I'll leave it on the same patch forever because I don't want to lose it, and the patch is so complex that I don't often feel like image editing a digital patch sheet (no printer). It's such a deep mono synth that I've left it on the same generative patch for months because I know there's still a lot of untapped sampling material there.
Best sounding VA synth ever. Its easily worth the £300 price tag. Lets see the competition in the same price range.
YAMAHA CS REFACE £300
ROLAND BOUTIQUES £329NOVATION BASS STATION II £349ARTURIA MINIBRUTE £289NOVATION MININOVA £269
None of these can touch the sound and sonic capability of the REFACE CS. When you actually compare the competition none of which is 8 NOTE POLY with so much sonic palette. You will start to realize Yamaha have delivered something very special at a very affordable price.
When all the synths in this list have run out of ideas. The REFACE CS will still be delivering UNIQUE aswell as classic sounds. Fat and warm. And 8 note poly. With a superb 5 different OSCILLATORS and the unique TEXTURE AND MODULATION that make a sound fatter than big mama.
To sum it up for those who want a synth that is super hands on and has an infinite palette. The REFACE CS wins this price war EASILY...
Great for beginner synthesizer players, mass marketed, small and compact. Really handy. I can see this being sold to schools and bands and pretty much everyone, really. This line is a fantastic idea. Just look at the guitar industry. Too many elitist keyboard players IMO. This is not for you.
I hope this helps to bring synthesizers and keyboards into popular music again, which is already pretty guitar-dominated except in EDM of course. You can quickly create a really cool sound even if you aren't a synthesizer pro. A lot of people don't know what a CS80 is, they're not synthheads. I just really love this. It's like a microbrute kind of thing.
Lol
***** We're glad you like the product.
I see a lot of critical comments of this synth but I actually like it and consider buying one now when the price is lower. I dont care about the small keys or no patch saving. Are there other synths in this pricerange with 8 polyphony (or more) with these hands-on soundtweaking I should check out before I buy this?
I keep waiting for a proper ring mod and FM demonstration.. Can't understand why you'd just briefly touch on those.
Great sleeper hit Synth. Now the prices have dropped on all Refaces, they are re-reviewed in a different light. Look them up on Equipboard to see the amazing artists who use them. I know DX is the fav of most, but the CS on many YT demos (besides this one - although to be fair the guy seems to be just showing the technical range, and deliberately not making beautiful music in a pretty short demo, so he did his job), sounds amazing.
At least it's not cheaply built. And Yamaha ventured beyond pcm synthesis again.
I was expecting half that price. what the hell?
The Bass Station II may not a a duophonic mode, but it has a good filter (that operates in more than one mode!), full sized keys and mod/pitch wheels. It also has two oscillators and LFOS, along with a basic sequencer. A mate of mine picked a BSII up new for 500 AUD, which means he picked up a superior synthesizer for one hundred pounds less than Yamaha is offering. Seems like a good deal. Even when it was still fairly fresh over here, the BSII offered more features for the same price as the CS. Buying the CS doesn't make an awful lot of sense to me, understandably.
It seems that the big players like Roland and Yamaha have lost direction, can't think up anything really new and so are re-hashing new versions of their old synths. Have we really gone as far as synthesis can possibly go with all the subtractive, additive, FM, phase modulation, spectrum, physical modelling, wavetable and granular methods?
Korg is indeed doing the same
Roland Gerard So is Novation
astrophonix "Have we really gone as far as synthesis can possibly go with all the subtractive, additive, FM, phase modulation, spectrum, physical modelling, wavetable and granular methods?" Funny, this was my first thought when I heard about these new reface synths.
Andrew Piatek actually that would be something
Love this concept, why so negative people?
Alexandr Shursoma you can buy real analogs that have more features for the same price or less....
Alexandr Shursoma I know man, never seen so much discontent at a first promo vid
Sunny D Mini\MicroBrute, BassStation II, MS-20 - all monophonic. JD-Xi - too much lights and menus, but this Yamaha is really what I need on stage. Don't know about YC and CP but CS and DX is epic!
Alexandr Shursoma Feature for feature there is much better bang for the buck out there.
microKorg: bi-timbral ... vocoder... aux in thru filters ... more LFO shapes ... mod matrix .... (onboard)patch memory.
mini/microBrute : CV connectivity .... broader sonic palette ..... aux in thru filter
MiniNova: flexible mod matrix .... editor ... vocoder ... more polyphony ....massively broader sound palette ..... more performance features (modulation).
The price for the reface is mind boggling.
Dane Xoth again Micro/MiniBrute is great but monophonic. microKorg, miniNova, alesis micron etc. is fine but I hate menu diving ang matrix interfaces. Also I assume that this 2015 yamaha VA synth would sound much better then korg and novation. Here on this demo I like the sound. The best thing about this synth IMO is simplicity, I prefer faders over knobs, I adore its size too. I don't care about money really because when it will be shipped in my country it will cost much more than 500$ anyway, so I'll have to wait it it on a second hand market, but as a concept it receives big thumb up from me!
I will be very surprised if these do well and wind up being used in numbers that even register. They sound ok. The form factor is too dinky, I think, to be useful or much of a draw...How on earth can you reduce something as manually accessible as the CS80 to a tiny little deck with a couple sliders? The filters seem ok...but the tiny sweep on that slider would make it tough to do anything with precision unless you are a gerbil sized person...The PRICE is the part I find most astonishing...With all the decent analogue stuff on the market and all of the VA stuff available with comparable functionality, more knobs, less menu diving, and regulation keys, How in the hell can you think a retail price of $799 U.S. is going to stand up and lead to sales? It's a good thing Yamaha makes everything else in the world too...If any company that ONLY made synths pulled this, it'd be their last move ever...
Ian Goold $400, not $800, and now it’s less than $300
This is a good basic synth for beginners, or for those who want just one or two sounds on stage to play with. Not enough parameters to tweak for me though. It would be nice to see a larger version that is closer to the CS80 in terms of the number of parameters available. Even if it's digital-only, a 'v-CS80' would be very popular. Either that, or someone needs to make a really high quality MIDI controller for the Arturia version!
nice to see Bert.. Nick and Bert looks like brothers..
Very disappointing. Yamaha teased this as being CS80 like ... Crap, it's not even a CS15.
There are just too many better sounding, more fully featured VA synths in this price range to take this seriously.
Even the bass station 2, a very capable real analog synth, is cheaper.
ZombieTactics Arturia MiniBrute or MicroBrute ... Korg MicroKorg or MicroKorg XL, Roland JDXi, Aira or Gaia ...
The list goes on and on ... what a disaster on Yamaha's part.
The interview with the designers from Japan (during the online release event) was telling. They provided no rationale for why anyone should want these, others than "we really like small keyboards, when people come over for parties and stuff". It was (re)FacePalm worthy.
ZombieTactics I was really excited for this whole range, but yeah for the price point, very disappointing.
I agree distance sucks donkey balls
justwitti And even though monophonic, has its own patch memory onboard.
I actually like this one, It has polyphony and it's VA. I'm not a fan of Mini keys, but I haven't really messed with mini keys. The price range is about right, most Cs series aren't going below $200 at times. When Mini Brute first came on the scene it was about $500.
ish233 Glad you enjoy it!
I like the concept, all the reface series have a touch to them, but this one speaks to me more. I guess because I'm just so used to FM.
It's great they brought back the AN series, I always loved their sound, and the filter sounds really nice. Regarding the price, I think Yamaha didn't quite get the Korg trick. Korg educates customers on their older gear but has educational price to go with that.
Great review, we were rather surprised at the price!
p.s we thought you looked like brothers too!
The AN analogue modeling engine by Yamaha (AN1x - 1997) is in my opinion the best out there. This CS instrument is a nice addition and revival but just too expensive for what you get. Let's just hope Yamaha will develop another synth based on AN with proper specs (Size, keys, modulation, presets) or even better; (at least try to) model the actual CS synths. That is what every synthesist wanted
So the 'CS' name is misleading. 'AN' would be more appropriate. Synth God Dave Smith himself was involved developing the AN1x (It's IMO very Prophet-y sounding - Not CS-like) and they should be proud of their AN legacy.
Nice product, great but misleading marketing. Should be cheaper.
My boys love playing on my gear. I don't like it so much. So in my mind I designed a toy synth that they could use that was fun and good enough that it might cross over into studio use as well. It was a sort of modern Casio mini synth type device. What I imagined was almost exactly the same as what Yamaha have come up with for Reface ........... only much more expensive.
I love my CS1X, and looking at this machine I really wish they would add a pitch and mod wheel.
William M. Nash With both the CS and DX there is a possibility
for manipulating the LFO depth to simulate the action of a mod wheel. On the CS
it is a physical slider and on the DX it is a “virtual slider” in the “LFO
Edit” mode.
Talking about the app that lets you take a snapshot of the settings and recall presets :"I guess you can do that in your DAW as well"... I understand that all the controller data will be recorded in a DAW... But I'm not so sure about the snapshot in a DAW and neither are they it seems... Anyone knows the answer?
This is like a "top of the piano" type of keyboard. Great for that. And cool for a small home studio. And great even for learning analog synthesis, entry level. But being able to store sounds online/iphone or not. It should've been able to save patches on it. Otherwise I think it's good for what it's meant for.
The CS is to synths what the ukulele is to acoustic guitars.
low end? nah!
Commercial trip down memory lane. Create something new Yamaha
IT HAS NO PRESETS? $799 is kinda steep for a VA with no presets.
José Bordas OMFG. I thought it was pretty cool as a dirty little toy sounding analog modelling digital synth. Something dirty and gross sounding if you just want to be punk as fuck. But $799?! How does this merit that? I was expecting around $200. There aren't even presets? Only one ADSR? Mini keys?! What a terrible, terrible mistake Yamaha have made.
***** I've read it elsewhere, but can't find any original source. Other prices are $500+ that I've seen people throw around.
It just doesn't feel worth that to me, but I'll have to play it in the store.
***** from yamaha offical price
You can buy An1x from ebay for the same price (or even less) and you will get much more powerful and better sounding VA synth than this
I don't mind that they are going for an old school look, but how about the price being a little more old school as well guys?
You mean charge $4,000 for it??
The cs01 was $300 in the 80s
Maybe original RRP - mine was £65 new in box in 1985. You could get them from Argos or the Kays catalogue.
Nice machine, big sound, with proper sockets, and mod and pitch wheels where you could just go for them :-)
VA?? For that price? Sorry... Korg, Arturia, and a few others now have given us more for less. If I wanted a digital unit why don't I just use a computer? Seriously I was expecting either a JD-Xi type thing with all of them crammed in and the CS voice being Analogue - OR - individual units for around $200... :/ Great video as always, Nick.
sorry but this might the beginning of the end for Yamaha. Its been on the cards for a long time now, but to take this long to come out with this...hmm.
I am inclined to agree. It is like going back to the 1980s.
Vince Watson really what are they thinking?
Vince Watson lol. Surely you know that Yamaha makes some of the best, most popular Grand Pianos in the world? Every conservatory in the world is filled with Yamaha uprights and grands, they make CP stage pianos, digital pianos, mixers, studio monitors, brass, woodwinds, awesome saxophones, drums, the Motif XF series workstations used by countless professional keyboardists. And judging by the interest already for these Reface boards, Yamaha will have another hit product line. But don't let me interrupt your trolling.
I personally think this is great move from Yamaha and I would love to own all 4 of them, even though in reality I will probably only go for one: DX. Whatever people claim, there is a lot to be said about how something looks as well as its functionality and I think these look lovely. One tiny criticism I have is the weird midi port and the proprietary cable. They could at least go for the mini 3.5 mm jacks as in iRig midi or similar products. I don't like to search non-standard cables. Will Yamaha sell replacements? They will have to...
i like all the models but they seem overpriced for what they are. 300 each or a keyless module that has all the sound engines for like a grand wouldve been spot on. i will probably cop the dx though especially if i can find a deal on it
hmmm. my CS-60 sounds nothing like this. odd naming choice.
I see this video posted, get kinda excited (haven't been following the Reface stuff) 'cause it's a "CS," hope they've started doing what Korg has and... it's a VA. An *extremely* limited VA. Why?
Not just mini keys, but a MINI MIDI SOCKET, FFS!
So even if you were to plug in a proper controller and use the Reface as a module, you're doing it through a fragile and unprofessional dongle.
"It's a real proper synthesiser", he says... OK, so make it in a "real proper" SIZE!
These are SUCH a missed opportunity. The Reface sounds great on all the demos I've seen - especially the electric piano version. The delay effect is great. The ring modulator - in the brief glimpse we get here - also sounds very good and old school.
(Although, Bert, rather suspiciously, appears to skirt a few things in these demos.)
[edit: yes, in the the Andertons demo, the ring mod can be heard to step horribly. That rules it totally out for me.]
And the pricing! No effing way!!
This is a toy, Yamaha - albeit a good sounding toy - but I wouldn't pay more than £50 for it.
Or you make a proper one.
Maybe Yamaha (and Roland and Korg) have been lulled into thinking that because some people use iPads for music, that the sight of someone hunched over a tiny machine is somehow cool... it isn't. It's as ridiculous as a twenty-something riding a kiddy-sized motorbike.
At least Korg really HAVE re-made legendary synths.
so its an AN1? just buy a controller keyboard and plug it into your ipad and use the free version they gave away in their synth app
wow, no midi and less features then a monotron ;D why is this called cs?? come on do a bladerunner sound....
***** best comment on this thread lol "less features then a monotron" so fuckin truth, but ill choose the TE Pocket operators
***** Did you watch the video? It absolutely has midi IN and OUT.
yes have seen it ;D
Is there a looper, too? If not.
Why does not Yamaha licence a proper looper technology from Phil Tipping? Sequetron by Phil Tipping is a phenomenal looper, so contact Phil and check if you can license this original technology? All reface users who do not want to wait for Yamaha licensing or adding a powerful looper into reface, simply check Sequetron by Phil Tipping. It can force to scale, chords, held notes and much more, there is nothing like it I know. Vangelis and Tangerine Dreamers will love it.
no midi ?
Demo guy looks like the dude on Mythbusters. So.... Myth busted then?
Plops $40 down on the table...any takers? Thought not.
i hpe you can programm the old school cs01 bass.!!
Interesting how all people bashing the synth here on the basis of a bad demo (bad demonstrator). Negative hype :)
how long can looper recordings be?
They could have at least included the classic CS multimode filter.
Hmmm not sure on this one Yamaha - £347 is a bit steep. No Sub Osc though which is probably why it sounds very toy like. Like the drive but it has no ooompf. Not sure it has enough in it for the price when there are better "cheaper" entry synths out there.
This is probably the least interesting of the four, by the sound of it.. In my ears it sounds pretty thin. The others I totally want to play :)
Agreed, Cuckoo. Can't wait to get my hands on the DX in particular. Don't even care about the mini keys. Build quality seems strong--they just need to get that price point down a bit. I'll pull the trigger on one regardless, tbh, but I'd really like to see these do well in the interest of Yamaha doubling down on the synth market and possibly putting out an analog poly flagship in the near future. Speaking of which, what do you think of the Roland JD-XA? Have you gotten a chance to get your hands on one?
Your ears need cleaning out. When you use this properly. Especially the bass end it will match a moog with ease. And no tuning probs. But a Moog isnt 8 NOTE POLY. Know what im saying?
Actually it's the best of the four
tblv9300 why do you think so? I am doubting between the CS and the DX. Thanks for your opinion ;)
Anton Fruytier because the cs has the widest scope of the four and is one of the best sounding VA synths in recent history. Sounds can be sculpted so fast you never lose interest in it. I posted a vid of 75 patches i came up with
Sounds like Stevie Wonder & Vangelis jamming on a beach Bernie Worrell... wait no... it sounds like 16 year old with a MicroKorg.
😍😍😍
Joel Sutton :)
Why small keys ??
These things would be sweet if they were like $200
The $300 they are now isn't bad.
first thing i notice every time he adjusts most of the controls is how blatant the stepping is... 'mod' and 'texture' don't even seem to be tweakable in a practical real-time setting. Plus, why does Yamaha think that of all possible instruments, we need more virtual analog?
KAUSTIKUTT6 Really? I don't think you know what 'stepping' is. "Everytime ... most controls...blatant" . You mean you heard stepping when he tweaked the LFO or the ADSR?
When he swept the timbre/mod controls in the FM/ Ring OSC that's exactly how one should expect it to sound. There will also be weird bits of grit if the distortion fx is on.
You're more likely to hear artifacts from youtube than any 'flaws' in the instrument.
Dane Xoth Yes I do know what stepping is. Usually it is used in the context of talking about digital (or digitally controlled) filters, where it jumps from one value of the 128 possible values right to another, rather than smoothly gliding. In this case you can hear it right at 0:07 when he alters 'mod'... OK it is not very obvious on the saw, when it fades in supersaw, but at 2:12 through 2:22 it is very obvious that the value jumps quite a bit without any kind of slew between, which makes it undesirable to actually tweak in real time (unless that it what you're going for; I never am though). And no, I am not hearing youtube compression artifacts.
And no, I did not hear stepping on the tweaking of envelope or LFO, take my word 'most' with a grain of salt. But where there is stepping it would be a serious issue for a lot of musicians.
Honestly I think the sound is great. People dissing the sound should re listen. The REAL Issue is the price. when i herd about these new products i thought they would sort of be like lower end synth collection. sort of like the Vocola series by korg. Cheap but Powerful. This is kinda dissapointing so expensive you might as well buy a better Synth with that kinda money.
Wow, I'm so underwhelmed here with what Yamaha has done... and a VIRTUAL CS? At that price? No thank you.
"wow, amazing! a filter.... with not really dedicated adsr" cmon. really?
YAMAHA IS THE NEW ROLAND
Hmmm why not AN1X mkII? With bigger screen, more controls, balanced output, better looking, more advanced keyboards? But ahead this is a nice job. The naming a bit frustrating. Is not CS, is a AN line. I think is will be come a selling disaster. I think the best way to put all this engine from the remake line and put into a big heavy synth with lot of controllers.
"Become"
Yes You are right:) but the C is too close to the space on the Ipad :) bonus fat fingers hahaha :)
AN200 can do that, nope?
I love mines. built better than most keyboards. especially the Korg Microkorg which broke in four months. its a cool portable keyboard. they are not big flagship keyboards. that would be the Motif. they don't have everything but if its not what you need move on and buy something else.
I actually think this is way more musical than the mircobute.. Coming from a guitar playing background i think the Microbute is really only for Dj heads... I was so disappointed when I tried it.. Whereas this.. there are songs in this and parts for tunes... It is a bit pricey alright..
not for that price....... its too tiny for that much money!
Going for £289....89 too much, considering it's just software at heart. Nice, but a bit rich.
I think the DX seems pretty interesting. . .not this.
At least it doesn't has that silly light show like those roland toys.
I love the aira lights.
Kirk Monteux spot on
Pacific Rim Scrap
crap ...
For it to get on eBay .... some idiot's have to buy it new first. Judging by the reaction that's not going to happen.
Take a look at what should be Yamaha's NEXT "ReFace" Model ( -a full-featured 64-128 voice workstation "ReFace" model ). You'll find it shown below the Yamaha "ReFace CS" review here:
creativetechnerds.jimdo.com/gear-5-1/
This is better than a CS80.because its portable. It took.two.wrestlers to lift a fucking.CS80.
Stop blaming the tool..In the right hands this will blow ur mind. Ive got Vince clark drum sounds out of mine. It has great snappy envelopes.
Big disappointment. This will be very popular with schools though, I suspect. Good for teaching the basics... Plugging it as a cs80 was a huge mistake by the marketing team though. Let's hope there is a "big sister" coming soon for the pro market.
Lol. What a horrid lfo. And that price.
lhmmhl1 a full analog an1x man.. that would be so awesome! the an1x itself is already awesome!
+Ammer Reduron
This is better than a AN1X. Try producing a full electronic drum kit on a AN1X for starters. Not to mention moog style bass that this baby can push out.
And it will match the AN1X all day for pads. Agree that if it was the same size as the AN1X and onboard patch memories. It would be alot more appealing to the masses. But when we come down to THE SOUND. The CS REFACE takes the trophy for me.
so much cash for so few knobs... meh. I got more mods on my therapsid - with a MOS 6581 SID built in the 90ties.
I just don't think it fills any gaps in the market. You can get all these sounds and more from almost anything nowadays.
What drives me nuts is sound demos that just make rancid unmusical blips and farts. Yes we love a bit of that, but at the end of the day, we want usable sounds, some funky bass demos and more about how musical it can be, and less 70s Dr Who!
Of course we'd all love one or all of them, but new sounds inspire us to write, and to be honest, my Arturia minilab I use for noodling, will get those sounds and more, for less than £100!
Has synthesis reached a stopping point? Lets face it, surely we are sick of 'Super-saw' by now?
I've spent the last 2 weeks hating and mocking the teaser videos for such a lame attempt by Yamaha to copy Korg and Roland.. But this is impressive to say the least! Hundred quid cheaper would've been nice but maybe we have the new MicroKorg..!
Horrible demo. Nick asks for a bass sound, he creates a pretty useless bass sound. He asks for a pad, he gets a horrible pad. Ok. So it does a lot of wild effect-y sounds that are fun, but pretty much useless. Great. But no demo of useful, musical sounds. So far the ONLY thing interesting about it is the ring modulator sounds. But the mini keyboard and the price makes me say no thanks, I'll stick with the real instruments. Hopefully there will be full sized keyboard versions with lots more parameters and controls. Then maybe I will be interested. And if they did REAL analog, NOW we're talking.
It sounds quite cheap.
Get a bloody Mopho for that budget, you can even get more juice with a Minibrute or a MicroXL
12/1 of a real cs 80Its very limted
Clearly aimed at the leasing market for heavy tour use on the label's dime, sounds pretty decent and controls are minimal yet flexible and the thing is easier to transport than, say, a classic juno or something of the like. Typical corporate strategy: priced high for pros to lease while exploiting clueless home consumers who have been indoctrinated with the idea that music is about gear rather than imagination. That said, that filter sounds steppy as fuck....
Moon YEs sir! Thank you!
And it's all over too.. Maybe it's just the "RUclips" culture, I don't know... But the amount of stuff that's being put out now is out of control, it's a relatively new development, really, not even 10 years ago, there was this wash of "STUFF". From guitar Equip to keyboards and every little music gizmo for recording. IT's just insane, seriously.
Don't even get me started with the whole Boutique stuff, made just for middle aged dad's to try to recapture their youth, seriously, this is the new fast sports car for middle life crisis. Gibson making guitars that look like real old instruments, slapping somebody's famous name on it and charging people 6k? For a cheaply made guitar? Effects pedals that cost $400?
When did music become about the gear? Because everywhere I look, and by that I mean "youtube" he he, it's all about the gear, people don't post music anymore, it's always a review about some piece of gear, which inivitably ends up sounding the same after a while...
Sheesh people, stop buying, talking about gear, grab a cheap guitar/amp/keyboard/mic and make some great f'ing music already...
"I'm already getting carried away"... Not sure if i should be laughing myself silly or what, but the Yamaha guy seems so fake and insincere when he repeatedly says that (or similar). Like he's trying too hard to sell it. Over the series of all 4 videos, there are infact several details and subtext that just sound wrong to my ears.
Not to mention that several times in the series, he's "answering" Nick's questions with something completely unrelated that doesn't actually answer the question.
Trying to sell minikeys and built in speakers as a positive is getting all Korg-like, which is about as bad as things can get. But if it indeed is as substantial as Nick says (i wouldn't trust the Yamaha guy further than i can throw him), these might still be worthwhile, infact a proper build may explain the price to some extent.
First impression of the physical side is however mostly positive, if indeed the build is that good. While i prefer full size keys, the small size of the unit itself is nice, and i think they've done a lot with a limited interface, which incidently reminds me slightly of the Waldorf Rocket (that i like a lot).
I'm missing a modwheel, and there's a few other things that i'm not sure whether is good or bad, but all in all i actually like the design. Also glad they've thought about connectivity, and eventhough it's on a dongle (prefer proper plugs) it's nice they included proper MIDI.
Something i would like to know is how the octave fader actually works. Do you have to be super precise with it to avoid the whole thing going out of tune? Does it step, and if so does it step in full octaves, semitones, or?
As for this particular unit, it's a bold move to call it CS and then make it VA. They should perhaps have looked closer at how Rolands SH-201 was received, largely due to people wanting SH-series to be analogue. Moreover a strange choice in these analogue days, and with the DX also being digital (the CS being analogue would bring more variation to the series).
Smells slightly of reused internals across the series, for reduced cost. Paired with all but the interface panel being reused across the entire series (and obviously a separate interchangable part), you gotta question how much of it is cost cutting, and how much is clever design for a more efficient production (yes there's a difference).
Personally i kinda enjoy the fact that it's not analogue, just because people expected analogue and are now upset about that. And by the same token, reminding people that analogue isn't the only way to do things. Also polyphony is always nice!
All that said, this is the only unit/demo in the series that doesn't leave me with a positive sonic impression. The design, size and immediacy all appeal to me, but i'm missing that something making me really wanna shell out that kind of money. And a modwheel!
Poc toyTried and verified
microbrute would be better......
Wow! What a huge disappointment. Who the fuck is going to buy this?! So stupid.
Instant Flop
hmmm... no.
One word : yuck!
"interesting" .. ;P
This is much more disappointing than a kick in the balls, and much more expensive.
Bad demo actually, there are some better ones out there
Yamaha completely lost the plot here , what a load of crap, can do so much more with my Yamaha CS1x which cost $1395 when I brought it , in 1996 , this is just a Chidren`s toy , good grief !!!
Overpriced garbage.
Wow! I don't know how you kept a straight face reviewing any of these. Yamaha have created some of the greatest and most versatile synths in history, but these are just embarrassing, ergonomically ridiculous, ugly, under-specced toys. Stick all four sound engines into a full size Motif-eque workstation and you might just be onto something. But these should have never have left the R&D lab.
it sounds very cheap and crappy... especially at that price point. very little in terms of control compared to the synth it's named after...
very disappointing