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Midi controllers with polyphonic aftertouch CS-80's price CS-80 Musicians

Midi controllers with polyphonic aftertouch

If you like CS-80's polyphonic aftertouch, you might also want to get polyphonic aftertouch capable midi controller. I own A-80 & A-50 and don't know how well others work. You can use it to control CS-80 if you have assembled the Kenton retro-fit (I haven't midified my CS-80). When using it with other synths you should note that not all of them will respond to poly aftertouch. Roland JV-2080 responds to poly-aftertouch. I have been told that Yamaha EX5R and Korg TrRack also respond to it. Also even if keyboard has polyphonic aftertouch this doesn't necessarily mean that it also transmits poly-aftertouch data via MIDI. Naturally A-80 and A-50 do send poly aftertouch via MIDI, since they are dedicated midi controllers.

88 WEIGHTED KEYS:

Roland A-80, has real poly aftertouch. A-80 & A-50 info
I've been told that Kurzweil MidiBoard also has it and is in addition release velocity sensitive.
Roland A-90 emulates poly aftertouch in software level: it senses only channel pressure, but has capability to send aftertouch to only one note. For example, you can not apply different amount of aftertouch to three notes at the same time, like you can do with real poly-aftertouch capable keyboards, like A-80.

76 SYNTH-TYPE KEYS:

Roland A-50, has real poly-aftertouch. A-80 & A-50 info

61 SYNTH-TYPE KEYS:

Ensoniq ASR-10 and TS-10 and some other Ensoniq synth-type 61-key keyboards

And here's listed few more poly aftertouch keyboards (synths, samplers, controllers etc.) Some of them are extremely rare and expensive.

Sequential Circuits Prophet-T8, vintage synthesizer, weighted keys and release velocity.
Yamaha DX1, weighted keys, http://www.harmonycentral.com/Synth/Data/Yamaha/DX1-01.html
SynthAxe, guitar like controller, http://www.hollis.co.uk/john/synthaxe.html
General Music GEM S Series workstations, http://www.generalmusic.com/gem/s/techspec.htm
Ensoniq SQ80, http://www.harmonycentral.com/Synth/Data/Ensoniq/SQ80-01.html
Ensoniq  VFX, http://www.cassiel.com/gearhead/vfx.html
Ensoniq VFX-SD, http://www.pconline.com/~rohrwerk/synthnorg/synths.html

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CS-80's price

Quote from Used gear price list:

>CS-80 analog synth
>
>$1300 (11/96), $1000 (02/96), $1000, $1200, $1350
>L/H/A: $1000, $1350, $1170

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David Arnold: Arnold & Propellerheads: track "On Her Majesty's Secret Service," on Shaken & Stirred. "The funky stuff, which sounds a bit like a Clavinet, is a Yamaha CS-80."
Kate Bush: She plays the C.S. 80 on the songs Babooshka and All We Ever Look For.
Brian Eno: Before and After Science: Here he comes, Julie With..., and By this River.
Peter Gabriel: Shaking The Tree compilation album: The tunes Mercy Street and Don't Give Up from So album. Gabriel plays CS-80 on former and Simon Clark on latter.
Kirsty Hawkshaw/Mark Pritchard: CS-80 was spotted at their studio.
Garth Hudson (The Band): Q: What do you like about the CS-80?
A: The CS-80 is polyphonic, and I can come up with a strong section sound. It has a wide variety of sounds, and one interesting thing about the instrument is that you never really return to a particular preset sound, because most of the controls do not have detentes, so that you can move a control to within an eighth of an inch of where it was to get a particular brass sound, and it'll be a little different. It won't be a tuba this time, it'll be more like a trombone. And you can't really see where you're moving the little green filter tab, just to the right of center, or the red resonance tab to the right of the filter, so you do get a varied performance.
Q: It gives you a sense of adventure, then.
A: Oh, sure. That's the whole deal. I also need an instrument that has presets and digital memory, so that I can work out a sound and then tailor it over a period of time, however long it might take to get the thing to respond right, until I have what I want right there on number 42, or whatever. So I have a Rhodes Chroma.
Jean-Michel Jarre: Oxygene 7-13
Eddie Jobson: Q: Would you ever concider playing on the CS80 again?
A: Unlikely. I would be more likely to sample the sounds I needed.
Kraftwerk: *
Peter Lemer: Q: Around the same time, you apparently switched from the piano to keyboards/synths. Why ?
A: I started using electric pianos when it became obvious that the gigs I was being asked to do didn't have very good acoustic pianos. The Fender Rhodes was becoming popular so I avoided it. Herbie Hancock used an RMI electric piano for a while, I liked the sound of it so I bought one. Unfortunately I never mastered it. It had no 'touch' and I wasn't able to speak with any fluidity. I then succumbed to the Fender Rhodes bandwaggon and had a much better time of it. I learnt of a gadget that Chick Corea used to toughen up the sound and got one, it helped a lot. Then I sort of backpedalled and got an 88-note Yamaha Electric Grand, but this was too heavy to cart about. Eventually, following advice from Trevor Taylor, a drummer who had a pro keyboard shop in Chelmsford & knew my work, I got a Yamaha KX88 mother keyboard and a Roland MKS20 piano module and was most happy with this. I still use the same module though I've replaced the KX88 with a Roland A80 (because it has polyphonic aftertouch). I first fell in love with a synthesiser when I saw David Cullen using an ARP 7600 in 'Jesus Christ Superstsr'. Having seen my friend, John Mitchell, get heavily into the EMS (as far as I can remember) I was ready to dive into analogue synthesis. When 7th Wave happened, I was in heaven. I had a 7600, an Odyssey, a Crumar Stringman. I found the whole paradigm delightful and intellectually satisfying. Plus I could play a storm, so it worked well for me. When Polyphonic synths arrived and everyone was into Prophet, I rebelled again, and bought a CS80, which was absolutely stunning. Polyphonic aftertouch that *really* worked!!!
Paul McCartney: *
David Paich and Steve Porcaro (Toto): Toto's 'IV' album. According to Paich: "On 'Africa' you hear a combination of marimba with GS 1. The kalimba is all done with the GS 1; it's six tracks of GS 1 playing different rhythms. I wrote the song on CS-80, so that plays the main part of the entire tune."
Eric Persing: Spectrasonics' "Distorted Reality" and "Distorted Reality 2" sampled sound libraries.
Klaus Schulze: Listed at his official Website
Isao Tomita: Daphnis et Chloé
Vangelis: Many of his late '70s and early '80s albums: Beaubourg, Blade Runner, Chariots of Fire, China, See You Later...; "Well, the only instrument that came a little close to what I am trying to say - even though it was slightly too large and it didn;t have a great variety of sounds - was the Yamaha CS80. It really was the most musical instrument of all and the most unsuccessful - maybe because it was too early and also because it wasn't continued long enough in order to allow people to understand it."; QUESTION: What do you think about the technical evolution of the synthesizer?
VANGELIS: The biggest problem is makers of synthesizers aren't musicians. The instruments are approached incorrectly. Alright, there's an enormous library of information, but you can't play the instruments, they hinder the spontaneous creativity. You buy a synthesizer and six months later, it's out of fashion. Then, a new one will appear which won't resemble the previous one at all. One should be working in the direction of a simpler, more human model. I don't want to lose time by reading every manual. What's the point of having a violin sound when you can't express yourself with it (no dynamics, vibrato, etc). They can implement all these things, but they prefer making instruments for the amateurs, the masses. When the CS-80 was released, I was euphoric; at last an instrument that responded, one with which you could communicate. Since then, no real instrument has been released over the world. The computer, instead of helping us, enforces it's way of thinking on me, and that's very dangerous. That's why I haven't bought such a machine ...
Stevie Wonder: *
Yellow Magic Orchestra: *
Frank Zappa: *

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