Yamaha SY55

RedSky · Post by **RedSky** » Tue May 13, 2008 9:57 pm

Has anyone used one- what are your thoughts? There's not a lot of stuff out there about them.

Post by **meatballfulton** » Tue May 13, 2008 10:04 pm

It was Yamaha's first digital synth to be based totally on sampled waves...no FM!!! It was overshadowed at the time by the M1 and D50, by today's standards it's nothing special.

RedSky · Post by **RedSky** » Tue May 13, 2008 11:43 pm

I don't know. It's got a resonant filter:D. I think it might be one of hose underestimated synths.

crystalmsc · Post by **crystalmsc** » Wed May 14, 2008 6:19 am

Sealed got a nice page about it, including some audio samples:
http://homepage.mac.com/synth_seal/html/tg55.html
Synthmania has great demos for it:
http://www.synthmania.com/tg55.htm
it's more of the AWM2 side of the TG77 with less materials. If you are interested in an early Yamaha Rompler with good filters, fx and better waveforms, look also for the TG500 (the SY85 module version) which is my favorite.

Post by **meatballfulton** » Wed May 14, 2008 12:26 pm

RedSky wrote:I think it might be one of hose underestimated synths.

Any synthesizer you can buy for less than $200 is underestimated. Even the worst of the early digitals are usable (and useful) instruments.

clubbedtodeath · Post by **clubbedtodeath** » Wed May 14, 2008 1:41 pm

meatballfulton wrote:Any synthesizer you can buy for less than $200 is underestimated. Even the worst of the early digitals are usable (and useful) instruments.

Given a long enough effects chain...

Post by **Jack Spider** » Wed May 14, 2008 2:52 pm

The SY-55 was my first polysynth and I bought mine from my friend's father in 2000. It sounded pleasant enough at the time, and catered for the pianos, strings and organs that I was looking for. I was quite impressed with the quality of the sound back then (don't know how it would hold up now!) and as they usually go for less money than an M1, it might be worth it if you can get one cheap enough!

The keyboard action was solid enough, as was the build quality, but programming it myself was a bit beyond me at the time - I created a basic organ sound, was as far as my programming went with it! I ended up selling it after a year for a Juno 60.

Check out the presets of the TG-55 (the rack version) at SynthMania:

www.synthmania.com/tg55.htm

RedSky · Post by **RedSky** » Thu May 15, 2008 1:20 am

Thanks very much for the info and links. It sounds much like I'd expected. I was after a rompler with decent choir/ethereal sounds with something like a resonant filter to tweak and i think I got a fair deal for £50 so I'm happy!

Post by **Jack Spider** » Thu May 15, 2008 2:45 pm

£50 for a SY-55 is a great price - nice one!

RedSky · Post by **RedSky** » Sat May 17, 2008 1:36 am

Thanks! got it today. A nice solid construction and very straight forward programming. There's some nice aliasing on the bottom keys for some sounds (I like that!) and the res filter is cool.