The Yamaha CS-15 is a

Monophonic Monaural or monophonic sound reproduction (often shortened to mono) is sound intended to be heard as if it were emanating from one position. This contrasts with stereophonic sound or ''stereo'', which uses two separate audio channels to reproduc ...

analog synthesizer An analog (or analogue) synthesizer is a synthesizer that uses analog circuits and analog signals to generate sound electronically. The earliest analog synthesizers in the 1920s and 1930s, such as the Trautonium, were built with a variety of ...

produced by

Yamaha Yamaha may refer to: * Yamaha Corporation, a Japanese company with a wide range of products and services, established in 1887. The company is the largest shareholder of Yamaha Motor Company (below). ** Yamaha Music Foundation, an organization estab ...

from 1979 to 1982. In the CS series, the CS-5, CS-10, CS-30 and CS-30L were similar in sound, structure and design (the all had similar black casing). The 5 and 10 had a single oscillator and one multimode (lowpass/bandpass/highpass) filter, whereas the 15/30/30L had two oscillators that could be routed in various ways through two multimode filters.

Architecture

It features two

voltage-controlled oscillator A microwave (12–18GHz) voltage-controlled oscillator A voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) is an electronic oscillator whose oscillation frequency is controlled by a voltage input. The applied input voltage determines the instantaneous oscilla ...

s, two 12 dB/Oct multi-mode

Voltage-controlled filter A voltage-controlled filter (VCF) is an electronic filter whose operating characteristics (primarily cutoff frequency) can be set by an input control voltage. Voltage controlled filters are widely used in synthesizers. A music synthesizer VCF ...

(

Low-Pass A low-pass filter is a filter that passes signals with a frequency lower than a selected cutoff frequency and attenuates signals with frequencies higher than the cutoff frequency. The exact frequency response of the filter depends on the filter des ...

High-Pass A high-pass filter (HPF) is an electronic filter that passes signals with a frequency higher than a certain cutoff frequency and attenuates signals with frequencies lower than the cutoff frequency. The amount of attenuation for each frequency de ...

Band-Pass A band-pass filter or bandpass filter (BPF) is a device that passes frequencies within a certain range and rejects (attenuates) frequencies outside that range. Description In electronics and signal processing, a filter is usually a two-por ...

), two

ADSR envelope ADSR may refer to: * ADSR envelope (attack decay sustain release), a common type of music envelope * Accelerator-driven sub-critical reactor, a nuclear reactor using a particle accelerator to generate a fission reaction in a sub-critical assembly ...

s and a

Low-Frequency Oscillator Low-frequency oscillation (LFO) is an electronic frequency that is usually below 20 Hz and creates a rhythmic pulse or sweep. This is used to modulate musical equipment such as synthesizers to create audio effects such as vibrato, tremol ...

. It also features a

White noise In signal processing, white noise is a random signal having equal intensity at different frequencies, giving it a constant power spectral density. The term is used, with this or similar meanings, in many scientific and technical disciplines, ...

and an external-in for processing other sounds. The CS-15 offers a great flexibility with various routing possibilities to the filters and envelopes. You can, for example, rout VCO 1 to both VCFs and the VCFs to any of the envelopes positive or negative voltage. It's actually a

duophonic Duophonic sound was a trade name for a type of audio signal processing used by Capitol Records on certain releases and re-releases of mono recordings issued during the 1960s and 1970s. In this process monaural recordings were reprocessed into a ...

/ bitimbral synthesizer but you have to connect it two separate

CV/Gate CV/gate (an abbreviation of ''control voltage/gate'') is an analog method of controlling synthesizers, drum machines, and similar equipment with external sequencers. The control voltage typically controls pitch and the gate signal controls not ...

controls (Hz/V like

Korg , founded as Keio Electronic Laboratories, is a Japanese multinational corporation that manufactures electronic musical instruments, audio processors and guitar pedals, recording equipment, and electronic tuners. Under the Vox brand name, they ...

synthesizers not V/Oct) to play the extra voice.

Notable users

The CS-15 was used by several bands in the early 1980s. The

Human League The Human League are an English synth-pop band formed in Sheffield in 1977. Initially an experimental electronic outfit, the group signed to Virgin Records in 1979 and later attained widespread commercial success with their third album ''Dare' ...

made prominent use of the instrument on their album ''

Dare Dare may refer to: Places * Dare, East Timor, a city * Darè, Italy, a commune * Dare County, North Carolina, United States * Dare, Virginia, United States, an unincorporated community Name * Dare (name), a list of people and fictional c ...

''.

Marillion Marillion are a British rock music, rock band, formed in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, in 1979. They emerged from the post-punk music scene in Britain and existed as a bridge between the styles of punk rock and classic progressive rock, becomin ...

used a CS-15 on their first full-length album, ''

Script for a Jester's Tear ''Script for a Jester's Tear'' is the debut studio album by British neo-progressive rock band Marillion, released in the United Kingdom on 14 March 1983 by EMI Records. The album reached number seven and spent 31 weeks in the UK Albums Chart ...

''. It was also used by

Astral Projection Astral projection (also known as astral travel) is a term used in esotericism to describe an intentional out-of-body experience (OBE) that assumes the existence of a subtle body called an " astral body" through which consciousness can functio ...

, Somatic Responses,

The Moog Cookbook The Moog Cookbook was an American electronic duo consisting of Meco Eno (Roger Manning) and Uli Nomi (Brian Kehew). The project was a parody of and tribute to the novelty Moog records of the late 1960s and early 1970s, which featured cover vers ...

, and

Vince Clarke Vincent John Martin (born 3 July 1960), known professionally as Vince Clarke, is an English synth-pop musician and songwriter. Clarke has been the main composer and musician of the band Erasure since its inception in 1985, and was previously ...

(of

Erasure Erasure () is an English synth-pop duo formed in London in 1985, consisting of lead vocalist and songwriter Andy Bell with songwriter, producer and keyboardist Vince Clarke, previously known as co-founder of the band Depeche Mode and a membe ...

Boyd Jarvis Boyd H. Jarvis (October 26, 1958 – February 17, 2018) was an American record producer, remixer and musician, best known for his song, co-written with Jason Smith, "The Music Got Me"; released in 1983 by Prelude Records. He has collaborated wi ...

, a producer and early pioneer of house music, started out with a CS-15 as his first synthesizer.

References

Yamaha products Monophonic synthesizers Analog synthesizers {{electronic-musical-instrument-stub

Architecture

Notable users

See also

References