CS-10

Back in 1977, this compact powerhouse joined Yamaha's second wave of analog synths, carving out a niche as a hands-on monosynth that's mostly empty space inside its long, slender chassis—pure '70s efficiency at 71cm wide by 29cm deep and just 15.5cm tall.

A single analog oscillator dishes up mixable sawtooth and square waves plus white noise, with pulse width modulation tweakable manually or via LFO, spanning five octaves plus pitch bend and portamento sliders for up to four seconds of glide. The star is its versatile multimode filter—low-pass, band-pass, or high-pass—with resonance, plus dual ADSR envelopes (one each for filter and amp) featuring unique initial level and attack level knobs for punchy, wow-inducing sweeps; LFO can modulate pitch, filter cutoff, pulse width, and even VCA for tremolo. Hands-on bliss comes from 22 knobs and 8 switches across the slim 37-key keyboard, CV/Gate in/out for modular control (Hz/Volt standard), external audio input to run through that filter, and a sample/hold switch on the VCA—though no velocity or aftertouch, and it's strictly monophonic.

Players dig its warm, beefy bass and leads with that bubbly filter bite, calling it a gem for real-time tweaking in electronic and trance setups; the tuning stability skips long warm-ups, but some miss sample/hold depth or dual oscillators found in siblings like the CS-5.