CS-80 Under the Hood w/ Super Tech Rob Rosen-Clip

In this video, we learn about the grandaddy of them all, the CS-80! It’s an amazing design inside and out. It functions entirely in the analog realm without any software intervention. I’ll demonstrate the Yamaha CS-80 panel features and then Rob’s exclusive intimate and detailed tour inside the instruments begins. He starts by going inside the CS-80, “Under the Hood”, to explore miles of wiring, the rack of cards, master boards, below the keyboard, velocity, aftertouch, DAC, key code assigner, TSB boards, TKC boards, KAS boards, dedicated effects boar, output board and ring modulator. Rob teaches us how the unique oscillator boards function, including how they regulate pitch and change waveforms, We’ll also deep dive into the sensors on each key that allow for polyphonic aftertouch. We’ll see the VCF’s and VCA’s and learn about the importance of regulating temperature to keep everything stable. Rob shows us how he matches the uniquely different voices in the CS-80 to make the instrument perform more consistently. We’ll learn why these instruments cost so much to build from scratch and what it takes to keep them thriving today.
00:00 Intro
01:05 Anthony Plays he CS-80
08:01 A Trip Inside the CS-80
10:09 Under the Keyboad
18:49 Rob removes the boards
29:02 Preset Boards
29:29 Deckard's Dream Revealed
32:05 Rebuilding a CS-80 from Scratch
35:55 Sliders and Knobs Boards
37:17 How Rob Learned to be a Technician
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[@hammondeggsmusic]

What an unmistakeable sound even when it’s not soaked in blade runner-esque reverb.

[@musiqsoundsproductions]

The cs40m was also part of the Blade Runner sound.

[@SteveOuimette]

Can you even imagine designing, let alone building one of these? How insane is that?! And incredible. Thank you for this excellent video, Anthony.

[@keepitreal811]

Rob has already reached legend status - appreciate his work and presence!

[@samsonwoods5448]

Rob is a "GIFTED & TALENTED SYNTHESIZER TECH, BEING SELF TAUGHT AT THAT, WITH NO EGO!!!!!!!

[@12bitizthewaytogo92]

no ego? fuck outta here

[@Heavy_Distortion]

We love you Rob Rosen! We need more service techs of his caliber.

[@robinwindsrygg9568]

Every part of that synthesizer is decades past it's intended lifespan. To actually see and hear this instrument today is just mesmerizing. Imagine the costs of keeping one in service today.

[@quenadares]

it's the same like coffee express. you should make coffee regularly, and if some part dies, you should replace old part with a new one

[@musiqsoundsproductions]

@@quenadaresthe big difference is you cat replace some of the most important parts.

[@galaxiesmerge_original]

I’m so looking to get my CS80 back after Rob completes his absolutely amazing work on it.

[@19speedster56]

Rob is obviously a brilliant person! Great show guys.

[@CallousCoder]

That machine alway gives me an immediate Vangelis association. It was so prevalent in his films scores that for me the CS80 is Vangelis. There’s this one little scene where he sits with Ridley Scott composing for 1492 Conquest or Paradise I believe it was and Ridley explains kind of awkwardly what he wants. Vangelis sits behind his keyboard and starts playing. And you see Ridley’s eyes light up and Vangelis says: “something like that?!” -“That’s it!” “Well now the only question is how to do that?” Vangelis says z And Ridley says: “I believe you just did it!” And o frankly had no idea what Ridley was on about but great composers like Vangelis and Anthony, Zimmer and JunkieXL (Holkenborg, I know him as a gigging musician in the 90s here in NL, when often we played the same festivals or venues) they have this weird telepathic connection with the director as to what they want. I do miss playing live but I don’t miss the hauling of equipment and the travel and the rehearsal and they stinky toilets on festivals and the mud 😂😂😂

[@edgardvera3132]

I love vintage synths and have too many of them but I had to go into the modular “rabbit hole” to really understand the building blocks of the whole thing. Now I can understand better when two masters have a chat like this. This is like a fantastic college lecture. Thank you professors.

[@LFOVCF]

Im blown away with the complexity of the construction, but Rob's knowledge of it. Brilliant video guys!

[@rbus]

This video made me pick up Cherry GX-80 and already very very happy with the couple of synthwavey-bladerunner-esque tracks I've made. Can't wait to get super deep into modulations.

[@Multi_ToBi]

Dear Anthony, I remember going to my favorite music store in Stuttgart when I was 17 and seeing the CS 80 literally fenced in so nobody but the staff could even touch it, let alone play it. It was on display like the altar in my church. When I asked the sales person how much this synth cost I just got a very snobby laugh and no answer. I only found out many years later that that was the synth that my (our) beloved Vangelis used. Today I'm 64 and I haven't seen one since and I would give a lot to get behind that fence... Ah, to still have dreams..! Thank you so much for letting me have a peek into the inside of the Eighth Wonder of the analog synthesizer world! And I am in awe of Rob Rosen. I love how he talks about the specifics of the CS. I can feel his admiration and respect for the ingenuity and craftsmanship that made this marvelous synth possible. Big thanks to Rob! As always a pleasure, Thomas

[@deantiquisetnovis]

This is probably the most comprehensive synth video I have seen! Excellent stuff!!!

[@rot_studios]

I've serviced and restored electronic organs before, which are often insanely complex inside, but the CS-80 still takes the cake in terms of complexity. I don't envy owning one of these and having to re-tune and service it so often haha

[@galaxiesmerge_original]

Nice episode! I just saw this. Rob is working on my CS80. I’m looking forward to playing it again 😊

[@Genshi]

In a strange twist of fate, I had in my possession a brand new Yamaha CS-80 for 3 months when I was 14 years old back in 1978 (it's a long story of how that happened.) It was the second synth I had ever played, the first being a brand new ARP Odyssey MK III a few months before that. Night and day difference between both synths, but I loved them both, and it's how I learned to program synths. Wish I could have kept that CS-80 though...

[@michaelorange2500]

I was reminded as I watched and listened that sometimes with these older instruments, limiting our thoughts to analog versus digital gets in the way of including some of the instrument’s reaction to the player’s behavior being merely electrical and sometimes mechanical with no electricity involved at all. And analog did speak a primitive form of binary when it detected ON and OFF states.

[@drsamurai009]

Holy Cow!!!! The guts of the CS-80 are insane! The depth of the inside matches the depth of the sound it puts out for sure!!! Thanks for this overview. Synth nerd heaven!

[@Andronicus2007]

Wow, thats a lot of spagetti under the hood!

[@jimbotron70]

All soldered by hand, one by one.

[@FransvandenBergeMuziekschuur]

Thank you. My dad made boxes like this. Takes me back.

[@FransvandenBergeMuziekschuur]

I would love to hear about these dedicated yamaha circuits that put the CS80 on the map. A italian organ of the time had even more wires than this. These japanese master piece chips is what set the CS80 apart. Then there is the intuitive interface of knobs, sliders and buttons. Something slowly returning to new synthesizers. I would love a sequal to this dedicated to the chips involved. As he explained. More and more of these chip design are remanufactured. All those wires can be replaced by circuitboards.

[@OtherMike5000]

Anthony, you're SO humble!! 🤗

[@vcf4012]

Rob’s knowledge and experience is priceless and the way he explains the magic and complexity of this beast is something I could listen to all day Thank you so much for sharing

[@simonrussell77]

Such a treat listening to you two cats chatting. Amazing stuff!

[@flaviobanterla]

just subscribed to Rob Rosen youtube channel, it's great to discover more about this so loved machine, thanks both for making this video

[@cerahjoselet7423]

i've been obsessed with these machines since 2007 and WHAT A COOL LOOK AT THIS BEAST!!! i cant wait to binge the other videos like this!!!! Rosen-Clip is the MAN!!!

[@CommunityGuidelines]

What a fascinating video. The complexity of this instrument is a testament to human ingenuity. Like when craftsmen of old would spend years designing a majestic pipe organ for a cathedral, forging all the parts from wood, metal, ivory, and leather, by hand, without electricity. It's the same spirit of creativity to make something wonderful that elevates the human soul.

[@farmboypresents9977]

Great vid about a great synth. Thanks. I wish Robs shop was just down my road.

[@slapdash1438]

Thank you for the amazing content Anthony! One of my favorite channels :)

[@rosalindwebb7729]

Wonderful sounds it’s a nice synth thank you for sharing ❤

[@grooveduststudio]

wow to see the inside of the CS is crazy and to learn the knowledge that went into it. Great video.

[@In-SoulProMusic]

Love it guys!

[@arcadestudio]

Fascinating !

[@paulwilliams5013]

Fantastic piece!! Thank you.

[@jts-jc8jk]

Wow!! This is super cool!!

[@ALFA8902]

Incredible deep interview

[@KierDarby]

Priceless insight, thanks to you both

[@jayadkisson8934]

THIS WAS AMAZING!! THANK YOU ! ! ! ❤️❤️❤️

[@Soundpaintmusic]

Pure brilliance and so informative!

[@JewelzFinazzo]

This was a dope video. It's my first time on your channel... You had me at USC. Fight On!

[@dmcgwhisper5945]

Fantastic video. Thanks. I loved this!

[@AudioAtmos]

Man what an excellent video. Thank you!👍

[@globalsquirrel]

Simply amazing and such detailed info! Thank you Anthony and Rob for doing this!

[@albanyrebelion]

Wow I'm totally nerding out

[@dizzysdiamonds]

What an astounding synth ....in every way ... thanks so much for this amazing insight ....

[@thecapricornchannel]

Wow, super informative and great sound examples, kudos! 👍

[@alphabeets]

Incredibly great channel. You’ve outdone yourself, Mr. Marinelli!

[@funkycochise]

invaluable knowledges exposed in your videos Thank you Anthony ! can't get enough of synth teardown !

[@786itube]

Excellent teardown of this wonderful icon - which still sounds so good. Most informative. Thank you

[@jooei2810]

This is one seriously cool supersynth, thanks!

[@splaz333]

Anthony, as always great video and great shirts

[@mhmrules]

I learned a lot today. 😮

[@K-ORA]

Amazing! Such a cool video. Its pure electronic wizardry 😅🤘🏽

[@iancain6647]

This is a crazy cool video

[@facundofontela316]

gracias por esta clase de material anthony, saludos.

[@jimbeaux4988]

I guess they really wanted the functionality, but software control was not ready. So you got this incredible work of electronic art.

[@Chumbawumba1000]

So rad ❤

[@MFitz12]

Wow, that was really deep. When I was in high school in 1986 I answered an ad from a guy who was selling one of those for (wait for it),... $200.00. Yes, that's right, two-hundred dollars and zero cents. Unfortunately someone else got there right before me and snatched it up. Honestly though, I couldn't have done the care and feeding required to keep one of these running for 35+ years.

[@iixorb]

Discovered this channel after seeing Anthony appear on PSN last week 👍. Definitely going to be another place I’ll be watching regularly :-)

[@jimlemons9231]

Amazing stuff!! Love the channel and the look inside the "beast" the lovely beast! lol

[@FakthorX]

Amazing

[@tschak909]

the discussion at 14:29 - You can indeed do digital logic, without a computer. e.g. Atari Pong does not have a microprocessor, and instead does every aspect with some sort of counter, buffer, or gate. This is what we used to call "random" or discrete logic. The CS80 is doing the same thing here, although thankfully the control voltage sampling, output, and voice signalling are being done with what are called ASICs (Application Specific Integrated Circuits). ASICs are _VERY_ expensive to make, as they require an entire process of logic design, and layout onto silicon, a process that, for a nominal yield of say, 100,000 ICs would have cost something close to $500,000 in 1976. This is why custom logic design is only done when you're going to either be making a whole lot of a given device, OR you have no other choice, that is, the equivalent design using 7400 (TTL) or 4000 series (CMOS) logic would have taken up far too much board space.

[@Mr_A_Mia]

thanks or sharing. very very cool.

[@OtherMike5000]

I'd LOVE to show you the inside of a Pinball Machine! 😮

[@SYNDRONE]

Whenever I see the CS-80's inside, it's impressive and intimidating but I still always feel like MacGyver put it together and I'm impressed this thing actually works. :D

[@darryldouglas6004]

13:10 Gotta love sticking a finger on a circuit board and hearing static.

[@Robert44444444]

The famous brass synth riff that defines Toto's 'Africa' was done using presets Brass I & Brass II on the CS -80. There's been a lot of confusion on this over the decades now as some people thought it was the Yamaha GS1, others thought it was an Oberheim. I recently watched a video clip where Steve Porcaro himself actually spoke to this and identified the CS-80 as the instrument and which presets were used.

[@dinorocker8647]

I've also heard the haunting Don Airey intro to Mr. Crowley was done on the organ presets for the CS-80.

[@makers1958]

This might be stated elsewhere in the comments, but “CS” stands for “Combo Synthesizer”. This is printed on the covers of the CS series service manuals, anyway…

[@paalrammer]

It is extremely impressive that Yamaha decided to make a synth with such complexity. A true flag ship. Thanks for the tour. Behringer is working on a clone of this. But now that I see how complex it is, I don't think they will be able pull it off properly. Even if they were to reverse engineer the chips, there is still all the variation caused by the analog circuits in the envelopes, filters, ring mod, heat, calibration, ... that is difficult to reproduce digitally. Furthermore, they will never make a keyboard with such long keys. And no long throw sliders for accurate control. Time to win the lottery.

[@blastofffpv]

Simply amazing. One of my favorite digital emulation synths big time. Hopefully one day get to try the real deal. Btw, did it originally come with a screwdriver and a soldering iron? 😅

[@EvilDragon666]

Freaking amazing! I just want to provide a bit more context regarding one statement from the video: binary logic does NOT necessarily mean "digital". Binary logic just means you're only using 0 and 1 to do things. Those things can be analog. Boolean algebra is based on binary logic, and this all existed way before the first digital computer was ever made.

[@anthonymarinellimusic]

Extremely interesting

[@tony714keene]

The Predecessor is Yamaha GX1. The gx1 looks like an organ

[@orderofelim]

Bless the physicists

[@asdifasi5379]

cs80 is the g.o.a.t.

[@user-xf9xe4it1n]

WOW 😮

[@RogerSartet007]

As an electromechanical engineer with some experience in electronics, a question for Rob: Doesn't all this wiring cause a lot of grounding and interference issues when restoring these devices?

[@RosenSound]

Great question! In fact, you’ll notice this 80 has a bunch of blue zip ties in the rack. This is part of a fix that has to do with shielded wire grounding issues that’s corrected in later 80’s. Indeed they suffer from grounding issues occasionally.

[@RogerSartet007]

Thank you!@@RosenSound

[@dreamingone615]

I loved it when analog/digital convo happened about the cmos logic stuff. Yes, an analog square wave is a high/low, 1/0 digital signal. Even worse, your ears are analog, your brain is digital. What is the ADC?

[@pintuvijayan2724]

👌👍from God's own country, kerala

[@geluix69]

Vangelis was a big user of this Beast.

[@maxdavis670]

Beethoven's 8th symphony , awesome, would love to hear that, it's my favourite symphony 3:10

[@RogerSartet007]

Isn't this also the synth the Blackbyrds used for 'Mysterious vibes'? Been looking for that sound for ages...and I still haven't found what I'm looking for... ;-) Love this channel. I've got he Arturia VST version and I prefer your demo's on the real thing to actually reading the manual of the VSTi Best regards

[@jimbotron70]

Vangelis used it a lot.

[@DuckAlertBeats]

What a tune

[@EvilDragon666]

Regarding the oscillaotr. Anthony, don't think about it in terms of harmonics, that's the additive synthesis brain. This is subtractive. It's all about changing voltage in time. So the core of the oscillator produces a straight up sawtooth (by periodically discharging a capacitor or somesuch). This generates a change in the voltage that LOOKS like a sawtooth wave. From here, you can use other circuitry to "physically" reshape that sawtooth to other shapes. You're not adding or removing harmonics as you would on an additive synth. You're literally reshaping the waveform, just like you would add distortion to a guitar signal before hitting the amplifier - put enough gain in and anything becomes a square wave.

[@OtherMike5000]

F-BOMB!!! 😳

[@darryldouglas6004]

I’m worried about the weight capacity of that stand it’s sitting on. 😃

[@ekimako]

“ Dave, I don't understand why you're doing this to me.” 21:12

[@4hodmt]

23:39 The fundamental principle behind most oscillators is feedback. Just like putting a microphone too close to its speaker, you amplify a signal, delay it slightly, and route the output back to the input. By changing the delay you can tune the feedback frequency. The initial signal that gets the feedback started is just analog noise, and the gain is set high enough that you get full feedback immediately.

[@KingMJForeverAndEver]

🎊🎊🎊

[@sebairsteinmusicexperience4157]

❤❤❤😮Thanks you, really crazy, it’s like a church analogue they have made. The sad news for the most of us, it’s to know the only cs80 we gone play are plugin 😂. But now we now why 😅

[@brandonm8385]

The fact that a team designed this monstrosity and Yamaha said “yes, this seems like a great product to manufacture” is amazing in itself.

[@Foxxorz]

Looks like Apollo program hardware in there.

[@FredF78]

So the voice board shown at 22:33 implements the filter in an IC chip? I thought the whole synth was from discrete components. Or some parts like counters etc always comes in chips late 70s? Trying to understand if this was the latest and greatest technology for the parts.

[@RosenSound]

That’s correct. The IG00156 is a filter core used in many Yamaha synths. Each CS-80 M board has 2 of them, one for HPF and one for LPF. Like most chips, it requires many support components to function in its intended way.

[@tschak909]

it still blows my mind, that even today, when it is ridiculously easy to design a MIDI controller, why POLYPHONIC AFTERTOUCH isn't available by _DEFAULT_?

[@lorencarlin2087]

Holy mother of Isis! Incredible machine! I got a Yamaha home organ for free and didn't realize the behemoth was very similar to this. I, being a dumbass, recycled it. Wish I'd known. Would have saved, cut it down, modified, and might have made something cool. Kick my own ass. No one has to do it for me. Lol!

[@Wagoo]

Aren't you gonna be busy with something at the time of this premiere..? ;)

[@Sonikbytes]

AKS said do me next ;)

[@musiqsoundsproductions]

Besides its current crazy market price (although prices seem to go lower even below 35k), the parts are now unobtanium and makes me scared to buy one. Btw. As a former tech seeing, no esd safety strap and touching the printboards was hard to watch (yes you can damage them even if there is no power on) 😂

[@koalemos1679]

Very cool. It’s almost impossible for us normies to see a CS80 like this.

[@morphoice]

I never should have sold mine in 2004.

[@whollenbeck8]

Deja Vu?

[@videosuperhighway7655]

Holy crap must have cost a fortune to build these.