Part Two of Jerry Kovarsky’s History of the Synthesizer starts around 1980. Yamaha introduced the GS1 and GS2 in 1981, the first FM synthesizers based on John Chowning’s research. Two years later came the legendary DX7. Jerry’s article continues with the birth of MIDI, digital sampling and the first physical modeling synthesizers like the VL1.
Check out History of the Synthesizer Part Two, and if you missed Part One go here!
The TG55 is a rackmount version of the SY55 keyboard. Both instruments were among the first solely AWM synths produced by Yamaha and featured 74 waveforms in a 2 Mb of ROM. It’s amazing how great 2 Mb of ROM can sound! Some of this is due to the dual filters per Voice, LFO and on-board effects. The TG55 is 16-part multitimbral, 16 voice polyphonic with DATA and WAVEFORM card slots for additional content. There are a line stereo out puts and two additional outputs for extra routing possibilities. Pretty cool for a synthesizer released in 1990!
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
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