CS-50

Back in 1977, this synth arrived as the compact sibling to Yamaha's legendary CS-60 and CS-80, packing polyphonic aftertouch into a more playable size without the back-breaking weight of its bigger brothers.

Its single analog oscillator per voice delivers sine, sawtooth, and pulse waveforms with PWM, feeding into resonant low-pass and high-pass filters—both 12dB/octave—for that classic CS bite, though some find the tone on the thinner side with just four voices. Dedicated ADSR envelopes shape the filter and amp, while a versatile LFO offers saw up/down, sine, square, and sample/hold for modulation, plus ring mod and noise for extra texture. The 49-key keyboard responds to channel aftertouch, routing to LFO depth, filter freq, and volume, with long faders on the left panel making real-time tweaks a breeze on its sturdy 98cm-wide wooden frame that weighs around 35kg. Thirteen illuminated presets get you started, but no user memory means dialing in sounds stays hands-on.

Players love its unique spot in the CS family—raw, expressive poly analog that's lured everyone from ambient explorers to retro rockers—though upkeep can be tricky with those vintage custom parts.