MOTM

On Fri, 8 Sep 2000, sikorsky wrote:

> off down to Rak Studios in London on Monday (to collect some
> production equipment) and i only just found out they have one of THOSE
> Yamaha synths:
> 
> all i know (from heresay) they were the pinnacle of Yamaha's analogue
> expertiese, an R&D excercise based loosely on the CS80, that there
> were only four ever build - one went to Micky Most (hence it being at
> Rak), one went to Abba, one went to Stevie Wonder - i've seen some
> footage of this, and i suppose the last one is in the Yamaha synth
> bunker

  A Yamaha Electone GX1?  Various vintage keyboard sites seem to suggest
there were at least 7 of these built.  Debuted at 1973 NAMM.  It was the
predecessor to the CS80 (the CS80 being a chip version of most of the
GX1's discrete transistor circuits).  The GX1 must weigh over 500kg.  I'd
love to have one, but then I'd need to buy a crane to move it. Personally,
I'd settle for a CS80, but people irritatingly hold onto those things like
the pieces of gold they are. ;)

  I can still hope, though.  After all, I never thought I'd find a DX1 and
it happened...

  Yamaha still makes the Electone series, but it only gets listed on their
Japan website.  One friend living in Saitama has this one:

http://www.yamaha.co.jp/product/el/elseries/el900m.html

  It look like an organ, but it is a synth.  Still has the spring-loaded
knee controller.  (The page will probably have a lot of gibberish on it
unless you're running a Japanese character extension or J-Windows,
etc.)  The price is 1,280,000 yen (about $11,000).

Crow

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