OldSynths

I'm probably gonna work on my CS80 again this weekend. The poor 
beast is terribly out of tune as it hasn't really been played in 
about 2 years.

Here's how I'm doing the tuning. I synthesized some sign waves using 
a old copy of Sound Forge XP and play these into my mixer in loop 
mode.  I get a perfect A440 or whatever this way.

Then I pop open my baby and attack the trimmers.  Takes hours this 
way. I'm counting the beats but the trimmers are wacky on account 
their max position is almost within a few cents but darn it, I just 
can't get it.  So, I'm thinking I might try adjusting the master 
tuner fader to see if I can get the trimmers "centered".

I really need a good Frequency Counter but I'm almost afraid to buy 
one because all I'll be using it for is to tune. Is there such a 
thing as a tuner for Electronics? (the idea of using a guitar tuner 
is insane to me although to be honest, I've never tried).

If you've got any advice for me, it'd be great.  I've one channel of 
the CS80 tuned (stills sounds bad, though) and I'm not looking 
forward doing the other channel at all.

Cheers!

Scott L Holmes

Have you looked at:
http://www.oldcrows.net/~oldcrow/synth/yamaha/cs80/

Tips & procedures on maintaining the cs80, from someone who's devoted a LOT 
of time & attention to old synths.

~GMM


At 05:18 PM 1/22/04 +0000, you wrote:

>I'm probably gonna work on my CS80 again this weekend. The poor
>beast is terribly out of tune as it hasn't really been played in
>about 2 years.
>
>Here's how I'm doing the tuning. I synthesized some sign waves using
>a old copy of Sound Forge XP and play these into my mixer in loop
>mode.  I get a perfect A440 or whatever this way.
>
>Then I pop open my baby and attack the trimmers.  Takes hours this
>way. I'm counting the beats but the trimmers are wacky on account
>their max position is almost within a few cents but darn it, I just
>can't get it.  So, I'm thinking I might try adjusting the master
>tuner fader to see if I can get the trimmers "centered".
>
>I really need a good Frequency Counter but I'm almost afraid to buy
>one because all I'll be using it for is to tune. Is there such a
>thing as a tuner for Electronics? (the idea of using a guitar tuner
>is insane to me although to be honest, I've never tried).
>
>If you've got any advice for me, it'd be great.  I've one channel of
>the CS80 tuned (stills sounds bad, though) and I'm not looking
>forward doing the other channel at all.
>
>Cheers!
>
>Scott L Holmes
>
>
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--- In oldsynths@yahoogroups.com, greg montalbano 
<greg.montalbano@u...> wrote:
> Have you looked at:
> http://www.oldcrows.net/~oldcrow/synth/yamaha/cs80/

Greg, yes. And a matter of fact I posted this link in our group's 
link page. Very good stuff there. He just doesn't go into much 
detail about the actual tuning (although he's got great advice on 
how to locate which "Voice" you're on.)

Thanks. BTW I also posted a link to the service manual although the 
one at that site is very much different from my paper original - 
mine looks revised.

Scott

I should really add more about tuning, I suppose.  The main problem with 
tuning is Yamaha used the cheapest single-turn trimmers imaginable and the 
settings are overly sensitive.  I've replaced all the trimmers on my CS-80 
(this is a very tedious and lengthy task, be forewarned!) with multi-turn 
trimmers which makes tuning much, much easier.

  I've seen that there are several revisions of service manual.  I have 
two, one from 1977 and one from 1981, and there are minor differences.  
And typos in both...

Scott Rider
http://www.cs80.com/
/**/

On Thu, 22 Jan 2004, Scott L. Holmes wrote:

> --- In oldsynths@yahoogroups.com, greg montalbano 
> <greg.montalbano@u...> wrote:
> > Have you looked at:
> > http://www.oldcrows.net/~oldcrow/synth/yamaha/cs80/
> 
> Greg, yes. And a matter of fact I posted this link in our group's 
> link page. Very good stuff there. He just doesn't go into much 
> detail about the actual tuning (although he's got great advice on 
> how to locate which "Voice" you're on.)
> 
> Thanks. BTW I also posted a link to the service manual although the 
> one at that site is very much different from my paper original - 
> mine looks revised.

--- In oldsynths@yahoogroups.com, The Old Crow <oldcrow@o...> wrote:

OMG!

> I should really add more about tuning, I suppose.  
> The main problem with 
> tuning is Yamaha used the cheapest single-turn 
> trimmers imaginable and the 
> settings are overly sensitive.  I've replaced all the 
> trimmers on my CS-80 
> (this is a very tedious and lengthy task, be forewarned!) 
> with multi-turn 
> trimmers which makes tuning much, much easier.

OMG!

> I've seen that there are several revisions of service manual.  
> I have two, one from 1977 and one from 1981, and there are 
> minor differences.  
> And typos in both...

I'll try to remember to look at mine and let you know more about it.

Thanks a bunch Scott.  Needless to say, I'm not going to replace my 
trimmers any time soon - not without practicing with the old 
soldering iron first - for about 2 weeks straight! I used to be 
pretty darn good with the iron but that was in the early 80s and 
have since concentrated on making money to pay folks to do that!

Cheers!

Scott

--- In oldsynths@yahoogroups.com, The Old Crow <oldcrow@o...> wrote:
> 
>   I should really add more about tuning, I suppose.  The main 
problem with <snip>

Scott, I forgot to ask. The previous owner of my CS80 and I were 
talking that it would be nice to wire leds onto the M cards so that 
we could _see_ which M card was currently sounding. This sounds like 
it might be a bit easier to do than the trimmers. Any thoughts?

Thanks,

Scott