SK50D is Ridiculous

[smoothcriminal]

Can someone explain to me why this thing has 3/5 stars on VSE? 2 keyboards, full parameter control, analog and DX7-style FM in the same unit....by far the most ridiculous synthesizer I've ever seen!


http://www.vintagesynth.com/yamaha/sk20.php

[JJQ]

Yeah,
Ive tried one in a store.

Supercool

[philip]

DX7-style FM ?

[Zamise]

Lack of filters maybe, otherwise a beauty.

[smoothcriminal]

DX7-style FM ?

The "organ" on it is an FM synth, there are comments on the VSE page speculating it could be the same engine as the DX7 since its a yamaha from the same time period.

[Automatic Gainsay]

I once won an auction for one, but the guy didn't honor it.
Shortly after, he put it back up, and someone beat my bid.
I've never gotten over that.

[Dubersive]

I once won an auction for one, but the guy didn't honor it.
Shortly after, he put it back up, and someone beat my bid.
I've never gotten over that.

Seriously though, that f**k sucks. I hope you've plastered bad reviews about that douche everywhere it could matter.

[bhrama]

Wow! I hadn't heard, nor seen this in action. Very cool, seem to be a rare bird to find though. I'm going to keep a look out in the future

[Micke]

DX7-style FM ?

The "organ" on it is an FM synth, there are comments on the VSE page speculating it could be the same engine as the DX7 since its a yamaha from the same time period.

The "organ" uses an early (limited) form of Yamaha's FM technology however I'm pretty sure it's not the same
engine as the DX7 which appeared some three years laster.

[Denms20]

In it's day they were the thing. However, any of the parts by their lonesome were pretty weak. The organ was pretty bad (the original Korg CX3 and the crumars beat them by far). The poly synth was weak also. The mono synth was kind of cool, but nowhere near an MS or a yamaha CS, or any number of arps and the strings were average. What made it was the ability to layer all of them. I can remember drooling over them in the stores. They were a do anything keyboard. But like I said, look at any one part of them and you didn't have much. Maybe two years ago I won a bid for a CS-30 (little smaller than the 50, single keyboard, but still had the ingredients) and got it home anxious to enjoy my prize. I traded it a week later for a leslie, was just too thin. And it really didn't do anything I couldn't do (and much better) by midi'ing up what I had. Interestingly, I also got a Korg Lambda from that same auction, both together were a tiny bit under 300. I traded the Lambda for a roland RS09, because the lambda wasn't near as sweret as I remembered it either. Then the roland also went for the same reason. Bottom line is sometimes with today's great deals we can get what we dreamed about getting when we were young and broke, but technology has come miles since then. It's not always what you remembered it being.

[maindeglorie]

I owned one for a while. It was awesome.
The FM is the organ part. The mono synth and poly section are analog I believe.
It sounded good, looked great, weighed 150 pounds.

[Phollop Willing PA]

Outstanding!

[I12]

3/5 is a tad high more like 2 or at best 2.5.

there are weak synths and this happens to be one

sure it can produce something usable

but its not like its a anywhere near

a top flite synth

[smoothcriminal]

3/5 is a tad high more like 2 or at best 2.5. There are weak synths and this happens to be one.
Sure it can produce something usable, but its not like its a anywhere near a top flight synth

But come on, just look at it.