13-02-2023, 09:54 PM
(This post was last modified: 13-02-2023, 09:55 PM by Lucien Nunes.)
Here's something rather high-end, the Yamaha E50 from 1978. This was near the pinnacle of 2-manual analogue home entertainment / multipurpose organs in its day, selling for over $12,000 and surpassed only by the E70. These two models used Yamaha's patented digitally-controlled analogue sound engine termed 'PASS-VCF' which generated four source waveforms (sine, square, pulse and sawtooth), filtered them e.g. by digitally-controlled VCFs, then combined them with VCAs to complete the synthesis. What is interesting about the system from a wider electro-music perspective is that Yamaha's highly respected CS-80 analogue synth, which was the firm favourite of Vangelis and competitor to such greats as the Sequential Circuits Prophet, uses the same sound engine as the E70. The key difference is that the CS-80 presents all the parametric controls explicitly to the user, whereas the E70 presents them only as presets via the conventional organ controls. The E50 only has one synth core compared to the E70's two, so it cannot generate as many different timbres simultaneously, but in other respects they are near identical.
I mentioned earlier the notorious unreliability of some organs due to connector problems, where the quality of the connectors was inadequate for the complex and extensive purpose of constructing an electronic organ. Also, that Wurlitzer and others tended to avoid them where possible, creating tightly tethered boards festooned in wire-wrapped looms and spread liberally over all available surfaces. The E50 shows how it really should be done, in Yamaha's characteristic, sensible, Japanese style. Admittedly, with the price tag of these instruments, they did not have to scrimp on components. The digital end of things lives on about eight boards in a completely enclosed card frame with a backplane and high-quality 2-row connectors. The remaining 18 or so boards that are not sensitive to longer wiring runs, are hard-wired into the loom and slotted into a card frame. But they can be easily withdrawn and placed on top for access, as each has its own branch of the loom with sufficient slack. Thus, the number of connectors is minimised but where they are essential, they are up to the job. Only the amps and PSUs are outside the rack.
I mentioned earlier the notorious unreliability of some organs due to connector problems, where the quality of the connectors was inadequate for the complex and extensive purpose of constructing an electronic organ. Also, that Wurlitzer and others tended to avoid them where possible, creating tightly tethered boards festooned in wire-wrapped looms and spread liberally over all available surfaces. The E50 shows how it really should be done, in Yamaha's characteristic, sensible, Japanese style. Admittedly, with the price tag of these instruments, they did not have to scrimp on components. The digital end of things lives on about eight boards in a completely enclosed card frame with a backplane and high-quality 2-row connectors. The remaining 18 or so boards that are not sensitive to longer wiring runs, are hard-wired into the loom and slotted into a card frame. But they can be easily withdrawn and placed on top for access, as each has its own branch of the loom with sufficient slack. Thus, the number of connectors is minimised but where they are essential, they are up to the job. Only the amps and PSUs are outside the rack.
