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SY77 - The Power behind the Buttons! (Part 2)

RCM Synthesis explained
by Martin Russ

In this second part of our in-depth review of the SY77 synthesizer, Martin Russ delves into
Yamaha's ultra new synthesis method: Real-time Convolution and Modulation.

Sound On Sound - Feb 1990

Donated & scanned by: Mike Gorman

> Article Notes / Feedback

Series:

Yamaha SY77
Part 1 | Part 2 (Viewing)

Gear in this article:

Synthesizer > Yamaha > SY77

Gear Tags:

Digital Synth
FM Synth
FM 6-Operator
Polysynth

Other articles featuring gear in this article:

> Yamaha SY-77 MIC Mar 90

> Yamaha SY77 (1) SOS Jan 90

Yamaha's new Real-time Convolution and Modulation (RCM) synthesis is the basis of the sound
> Yamaha SY77 & TG55 MT Dec 89
generation in their new agship synthesizer/workstation, the SY77. Last month I looked at the
performance and design aspects of the instrument, and this month I will show you how RCM > Yamaha SY77 Performance ... MT Jan 90
produces the sounds which make it something rather special. > Patchwork MT Mar 91

WHAT IS RCM? Related Gear:

Synthesizer > Yamaha > SY99

Yamaha tend to be technical in their descriptions - some people might have shied away from the
Synthesizer Module > Yamaha > TG77
complexities of using Frequency Modulation as a name for a synthesis method. Real-time
Convolution and Modulation synthesis is much the same - hardly the name a 'plain English'
Software Editors:
campaigner would choose! Before FM appeared on the scene and was forced into keyboard
players' vocabularies, analogue synthesis was the only practical way to make synthetic sounds. Geerdes > SY77 Softworkstation
The DX7 offered the rst truly affordable way to utilise fully digital synthesis, and the mid- Steinberg > SYNTHWORKS SY77
Eighties saw FM become a huge success.

Review by Martin Russ

In the post-DX7 period, we nd ourselves in a world populated with LA, AI, PD, Wavetable,
Additive, Resynthesis and many other ways to produce sounds, almost exclusively using all-
Ads for Gear in this article:
digital techniques and often mixing samples with synthesis into composite forms. Against the
realism and immediacy of current techniques, FM has recently started to be perceived as
clinical, slightly boring, and de nitely not fashionable - although the V50 breathes new life into
FM, with its complex and versatile stacking of FM sounds.

Unfortunately there is a problem for the current generation of 'Sample+Synth' (S+S)

instruments: samples stored inside the machine are permanently 'frozen', and there is very little
which can be done to alter their intrinsic sound. When I reviewed the Korg M1R a while ago, I
was struck by the way that the extra plug-in sound cards had the same sort of 'feel' as the
internal presets - something in there was not changing. The Roland U20 goes some of the way
to supplying more useful variations in the sounds by providing envelope control, but I still feel Previous article in this issue:
that this is only a partial solution.
> Recording Techniques

Combining sampled sounds with FM, as in the SY77, might seem to be prone to exactly the Next article in this issue:
same problem of xed sounds, were it not for the fact that FM is a powerful synthesis method in > Everything You Ever Wanted T...
its own right. Few people would say the same about the synthesis parts of most other S+S
implementations. In fact, one of the reasons that FM took the world by storm was its intrinsic
> Back to Issue contents
superiority over analogue VCO/VCF/VCA based synthesis, which forms the basis of the synth
part of many S+S instruments. As if this was not enough, RCM provides several ways to change
the samples themselves, including making them part of the FM synthesis. All of this lets RCM
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put a great deal of sonic distance between the original samples and the nal sound. So what
exactly does RCM do?
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REAL-TIME
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Digital Signal Processing is all about real-time operation. Unless you can alter things without If you value this resource, you can support
any perceptible time delay, you lose the advantage of immediate feedback, and this is especially this project - it really helps!

important in a synthesizer where 'live' editing is the prime method of producing sounds.
Unfortunately for synthesizer designers, two things are dif cult to achieve in real time: smooth Donations for February 2020
and fast sweeping resonant low-pass digital lters, and meaningful alterations to sampled
sounds. This is why you normally nd simple ltering and enveloping on most S+S instruments,
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but little in the way of more complex processing.
Issues that have been donated this month.

Yamaha have considerable experience in the design of digital lters (the DEQ equaliser and
Funds donated this month: £10.00
TX16W sampler, for example) and recent advances in the mathematics and implementation of
All donations and support are gratefully
lters have allowed the SY77's lter to generate the same resonant ltering effects as the old
appreciated - thank you.
analogue VCFs. Further, the addition of samples to FM allows the samples to be used as
modulators within the FM algorithms themselves, and this allows very complex changes to be
made to the sounds, far beyond simple enveloping. These two techniques are known as
'Convolution' and 'Modulation'.

CONVOLUTION

In everyday use, convoluted means 'twisted' or 'complex in form', but in the world of Digital
Signal Processing it has a precise mathematical meaning - which is quite dif cult to grasp if you
are not familiar with the subject. Rather than attempt to describe all the necessary stages, I will
give an overview of the basic concept.

Most things which are dif cult to do in one way can be made much easier by rst converting
them into another form, processing them and then reconverting them back. Convolution is one
example of something which can be done in exactly this way, and so achieves ltering by a
roundabout or 'twisted' route, where simple digital processing produces complex ltering.

Yamaha use real-time convolution to make the complex task of ltering as simple to use and
familiar as the analogue equivalent. What it boils down to is that you can replace the word
'convolution' with ' ltering', and although it is technically less descriptive of what is going on, for
most purposes it is suf ciently precise.

MODULATION

The Modulation part of RCM refers to the ability to use AWM2 sampled waveforms as
modulators in the AFM synthesis section. As with ordinary FM, when you increase the level of
the modulating waveform, the resulting sound becomes more and more spread out across the
audio frequencies. When you use an AWM2 sample, this has the effect of gradually blurring the
sample by adding in extra harmonics to the original sound. At low levels the sample can remain
virtually unaffected and can be pitch-shifted by using carrier ratios other than 1.00, but at high
levels the extra harmonics can be interpreted as distortion - with a whole range of sounds in
between these two extremes. Conventional S+S instruments often allow you to lter the
samples, to remove some of the component harmonics already present, but the SY77 also
allows you to add in new harmonics based on the sample itself!

ENVELOPES

When FM was rst released, the four-segment envelopes were amongst the most complex
available. Since then, envelopes with more segments and break points have come into common
use, with the result that the DX7-type envelope has begun to look a little underpowered. The
SY77 brings Yamaha bang up to date with six-segment envelopes with looping, delayed start,
velocity rate scaling, and other useful additions.

The new envelopes allow you to specify separate levels for the start and end points, as well as
loop any of the segments before the sustain period - which makes repeated percussive sounds
simple to produce. The start of the envelope can be delayed with the Hold Time parameter,
which makes echo and am effects easy. Two release segments mean that better control can be
achieved over the tail-end of sounds, and the velocity rate scaling enables playing style to alter
the relative timing of the envelopes, such that hard playing reduces the attack time but gentle
playing increases attack; very effective on string and brass sounds. This is in addition to the rate
scaling, which makes envelopes shorter for higher notes (or longer, as is now possible in the
SY77).

ADVANCED FREQUENCY MODULATION (AFM)

The SY77's Advanced FM uses 24-bit precision arithmetic to improve the audio quality of the
sounds produced. New parameters provide ner control over the detail of frequencies and
levels, as well as opening up further possibilities. The individual operator pitch modulation, for
example, opens the door to ring modulation effects, which can sound very clangorous if over-
used, but can enhance many sounds if employed subtly. When combined with AWM2
modulation, some really unusual timbres can be created.

The extra waveforms provided by the SY77 are an extension of the eight additional waves rst
seen on the TX81Z, and more recently in the DX11 and V50. Each is a mathematically derived
variation on a basic sine wave (waveform 1) and a chart is supplied in the owner's manual
detailing their harmonic content. The waveforms are arranged with a gradual increase in the
harmonic content as you move to the higher numbers. As these can form the basis of complex
waves from just a couple of operators, they are a great asset to the FM synthesis power of the
SY77 - in fact, this is the rst time that six-operator FM has used anything other than a sine
wave.

The Noise waveform and AWM2 waveforms (especially the looped ones) can also provide extra
input to the AFM operators. By using the Pitch EG to change the pitch of just one operator (a
new feature exclusive to AFM), you can produce ring modulation type effects. This opens up a
whole host of new and different sounds, especially sound effects and bizarre modi cations to
recognisable sounds. The ability to use AWM2 inside AFM, and vice-versa, tends to blur the
boundaries between the two methods of tone generation in a way which is not matched by any
competing synthesizer, and makes the SY77 much more than just another S+S synth.

45 ALGORITHMS

There are 45 arrangements of the six operators in AFM. Of these, 14 are equivalent to 30 of the
32 algorithms on the DX7 (because you have more control over the placement of the feedback
loops, one AFM algorithm can be the equivalent of more than one FM algorithm). The
algorithms are arranged into an order determined by the number of carriers and maximum
height of the stack - so the rst algorithm (1) is a stack of ve modulators on top of a single
carrier, whilst the last algorithm (45) is just six carriers.

Two DX7 algorithms have no obvious direct equivalent on the SY77, algorithms 19 and 20: each
of these have three modulators and two carriers both modulated by one modulator. None of the
AFM three carrier algorithms has a modulator which modulates two carriers. By way of
compensation, the four and ve carrier algorithms in AFM have a very exible structure, where
one modulator can affect up to ve carriers at once (these are the only two AFM algorithms
which directly implement multi-carrier modulation). Conversely, up to ve modulators can be
programmed to modulate one carrier in the single carrier section, and up to four modulators
can modulate one carrier in the dual carrier section (three modulators controlling one carrier
was the maximum number available on the DX7).

Some 31 of the AFM algorithms are new, and have no direct equivalent on the DX7. On several
of these the feedback function is xed on one of the operators, which partially 'locks' the
topology of the algorithm, but for the remainder the feedback can be around any operators. A
graphical representation of the algorithm diagram is shown in the SY77's display by pressing
the 'Alg' soft key (f8) whenever the element you are editing is an AFM one, although the
diagram does not show the currently active feedback loops - you have to go to the rst of the
AFM display pages to nd out about the feedback. Feedback and the special inputs to each
operator are all tied together on these pages, and they make algorithms much more exible and
powerful.

The feedback loops are also the answer to the 'missing' equivalents to algorithms 19 and 20 on
the DX7: by routing 'feedback' so that it goes from a modulator to a carrier, you can produce
exactly the same structure as a single modulator connected to a maximum of three carriers (the
cases of four and ve carriers are already covered, see above). So the missing algorithms are
actually not only present, but in a much improved form where you can edit them to suit your
own requirements. More importantly, you can also produce much more complex algorithms
than those provided by using the three available feedback loops - which can also be thought of
as 'feed-forward' loops when used in this manner, to add extra connections of your own choice.
One constraint on placing these extra connections between operators arises when the
feedback loop is already speci ed as part of the algorithm itself (there are only ve out of the
45), and in this case you are left with one less input and thus one less connection for you to
control.

An additional constraint on feedback placement involves the use of AWM2 waveforms as

modulation sources. Because there are only two special inputs to each operator (including
those used by the connections which determine the algorithm topology itself), some inputs are
not available for external modulation by AWM2 or the Noise waveform. In practice, this is not a
major problem, since when you are using an AWM2 waveform, it will normally be the only
modulator of the chosen carrier, and so at least one input will be available. The same argument
applies to the more unusual case of using an AWM2 waveform at the input to a modulator -
where adding another operator as a modulation source can produce very 'rough and dirty'
sounds, not the squeaky clean FM you might be used to.

Because a 'white noise' type waveform (or should I say spectrum) is available as a standard
input to an operator, it is no longer necessary to use feedback and high operator output levels to
produce noise-like sounds - which leaves the six operators free for other uses within a sound.
Combined with the additional waveforms, instead of just a sine wave, the overall effect is more
like having eight or more operators at your disposal. And the exibility of the algorithms means
that you have almost complete control over their structure. The 'Advanced' description of AFM
is certainly well deserved!

ADVANCED WAVE MEMORY 2 (AWM2)

The SY77 has 112 AWM2 waveforms, sampled in 16-bit linear form at either 32 or 48kHz (the
sampling rate is invisible to the user). Additional waveforms can be accessed from ROM cards
inserted in the waveform card slot.

The rst 33 supplied preset waveforms are multi-sampled and looped (there is some cyclic
timbre modulation, but no glitching that I could hear). They include a varied mix of conventional
Western instruments, traditional Japanese instruments, vocal sounds, and sampled analogue
synthesizer sounds. The next 31 waveforms are single samples taken from a different set of
instruments, but covering the same broad areas - again, they are looped (with one exception:
the orchestral stab) and mostly contain both the attack and the steady state sounds. There are
four non-pitched waveform samples, where the majority of harmonically related frequencies
have been removed, leaving the inharmonic residue - the clunks and clinks. Eight attack and
transient samples provide bow scrape, vocal consonants, blown and plucked sounds.

There are 15 special effect sounds (all looped, except the 'Bamboo' sound) which provide a
range of noise-like timbres, bells, and additional percussion sounds. Some 20 drum sounds
complete the roster, with a combination of traditional Yamaha drum samples and some more
interesting gated reverb snares and bass drums to liven things up a little.

The complete absence of any Latin percussion is probably a pointer to the contents of at least
one of the add-on AWM2 waveform ROM cards. Although a ute sound is included, the
shakuhachi (over-used in TV adverts!) is thankfully not present, and the orchestral stab is a little
disappointing. Everything else sounded very nice indeed, even to these jaded ears!

USING ELEMENTS

At rst sight, there are only three ways to use the AFM and AWM2 Elements in an SY77 Voice:
AFM only, AWM2 only, and both together. In other S+S synths this is indeed the case, but the
power of RCM becomes apparent when you start to investigate the other ways of using
Elements in combination. Rather than just going through the possibilities of using the Voice
Modes, I will give examples of the sort of instruments which they might emulate:

1. AFM only - the equivalent of up to four DX7s stacked! And don't forget the creative potential
of splitting the keyboard, velocity switching, and dynamic panning.

2. AWM2 only - the equivalent of up to four EMT10 sounds simultaneously. Alternatively, the
Kawai K4 or Ensoniq VFX can be thought of as just waveform playback, and so this
con guration produces similar sounds. All the tricks are possible: like xing the pitch of a
sample to give a background 'clunk'; transposing it down to give strange low-pitched groans; or
running looped sounds at high pitches so that they take on new pitches based on the loop time.

3. AWM2 with ltering - classic analogue synths (Oberheims, Moogs, plus the modern S+S
equivalents: Roland D50, Korg M1, Kawai K4 etc). Remember that up to eight lters can be
present in one Voice, so the range of timbral variation is wider than with many other synths.

4. AFM with ltering - SY77 only! This con guration gives you classic DX7 sounds, but with
lter sweeps, band-pass ltering, subtle timbral changes and dynamic modulations. The best of
performance FM with added rapid control overtone!

5. AFM using the extra waveforms - Phase Distortion. The typical Casio PD sound uses FM
operator-like pieces with waveforms other than sine waves - the latest Casios let you alter the
arrangement of these pieces as well. In SY77 terms, using the additional FM waveforms should
provide PD-type sounds without any problems - the higher numbered extra waveforms being
particularly suitable for this purpose.

6. AFM with ltering and EG looping - New Age 'rhythmic' sounds. Many S+S synths use looped
samples to provide cyclic rhythmic accompaniment to ordinary synth pad sounds. By using the
SY77's EG loop facilities, similar FM type percussive emulations can be produced and added to
other FM pad sounds, producing sounds which are not related to the AWM2 waveforms in
anyway, unlike any other S+S synth. Since you have total control over the AFM sound as
opposed to a conventional sample, this also avoids many of the problems which can be
encountered in some S+S synths with looped repetitive samples ('BambooTrem' on the M1, for
example), where you can not change its pitch without changing the repeat rate.

7. AWM2 plus AFM - equivalent to other S+S synthesizers (eg. up to four Roland D50s or two
Korg M1's). The SY77's envelope delay can be used to create Kawai K1/K4 type 'evolving'
sounds, and LA type scaled PCM samples can be achieved by using micro-tuning.

8. AWM2 plus AFM, with ltering - S+S synthesizers, plus classic analogue synths. This is the
most widely used Voice Mode in the preset Voices, because it can provide 16-note polyphony
with two separate and distinct sounds - the equivalent of a Combination (or two at once) on a
Korg M1.

9. AFM plus AWM2, with AFM as the waveform source - this gives Kawai K5 type additive
synthesis with up to 32 harmonics, and eight separate lters. The lters can be used to make
broad changes to the harmonics whilst the individual EGs can be used to control the ne detail.
Unlike the K5, in this mode, the SY77 has individual envelopes for each harmonic!

10. AWM2 plus AFM, with AWM2 as a modulation source - SY77 only! The possibilities here
are huge: from simple AWM2 modulating a single carrier, via AWM2 modulating a whole stack
of operators, to complex additive AWM2 structures with the AWM2 modulating several
carriers.

11. AWM2 plus AFM, where each is the source for the other - SY77 only! By assigning the AFM
output as the AWM2 waveform, and the AWM2 output as a modulator in the AFM, you can
create wild digital feedback loops running between the two types of Elements - completely
uncharted territory for the brave explorer/programmer!

12. Mono Modes - equivalent to multiple mono synths. Do not overlook the SY77's monophonic
modes, which also provide ' ngered' Portamento control instead of the xed 'follow' mode
available in the polyphonic modes. As well as making emulation of real monophonic instruments
more realistic, using Mono Mode can help preserve notes when using a sequencer by
preventing you from wasting polyphony on melody lines etc. Detuning Elements within a Voice,
velocity switching, note zoning and other controls can help produce some very powerful
sounds, from acidic basses to owing solos.

13. AFM with selective Pitch EG control - Ring Modulation. A return to the modular analogue
synth, but with the tuning stability advantages of digital. This offers a wide range of possible
timbres, from subtle but complex modulation (as used extensively on CS80s by Vangelis) up to
complete dismemberment of timbre. A powerful tool when used carefully!

There are still more ways of using the Elements. Unlike the Korg M1, the SY77 can place a huge
sonic distance between the original AWM2 samples and the nal sounds appearing at the
output sockets. The combinations of Elements within Voices can provide a truly astounding
scope for emulation of many instrumental sound producing architectures. As with all S+S
synths, the combination of two separate sound sources can appear much 'bigger' than either on
its own, but in the SY77 this is multiplied further by the interaction between AFM and AWM2,
and by the modi cations which can be made to the AWM2 sounds. Here's an example of what
you can do...

Whilst reviewing the SY77, I spent some time editing and exploring the features (I had no
manual at the time, so this was the only way to nd out what was happening) and creating some
of my own sounds. One of these takes the basic AWM2 alto saxophone sample and splits it into
two frequency bands - the high frequencies are enveloped, velocity sensitised and post-
processed with an early re ection effect, whilst the low frequencies are used to modulate an
operator with a ratio of 0.5 (producing an output one octave lower than the incoming AWM2
sample), and then further enveloping and effects were added. The two sounds were also
separately dynamically panned, with the nal aural effect being of a 'treated' saxophone split
into two different parts, moving around in an ambient space. The end result, 'Russ LoSax', is
hardly the sort of sound you would encounter on a conventional S+S synth!

INSIDE THE SY77

Internal inspection revealed that the SY77 is quite similar to the inside of the DX7 II, with ve
main printed circuit boards (PCBs, not to be confused with poly-chlorinated biphenols!) in three
layers: one containing the switches and other controls on the front panel; the I/O board with all
the sockets; the main processor and control board; the DSP board; the power supply (linear,
28W).

The processor board seems to be a typical Yamaha design: a main processor and a subprocessor
(the Hitachi 63701 microprocessor continues their use of the 63xxx series products), with a
Yamaha 68-pin custom chip, and a Western Digital oppy disk controller. The usual EPROM-
based Operating System chips and static/dynamic RAM mix complete the roster.

The DSP board houses 12 Yamaha custom chips: four 40-pin DIL; six 80-pin ceramic surface
mount; two 128-pin ceramic surface mount; and eight Toshiba 4 Mbit ROMs for waveform
storage.

It is interesting to see that Yamaha still produce their own custom chips - there is certainly a lot
of signal processing power in the SY77, and most of it probably resides in these few chips. The
mix of surface mount and conventional plated-through holes is typical of current design
philosophy - pure surface mount only designs still tend to be restricted to items like mobile
phones, where size is most important.

The extrusion and the keyboard itself form the main structural basis for the design, with
additional folded steel shielding hidden underneath the plastic end cheeks. The overall
construction was neat, tidy and remarkably well nished for a prototype. According to the
labels on the EPROMs, the Operating System was a mixture of versions 1.00 and 1.03, whilst
the internal sequencer software was version 1.00. If Yamaha follow the usual software practice
of using numbers before 1.00 for pre-release versions, then these are probably quite close to
the nal release versions.

I could not see the components on the I/O board - it was sandwiched between the DSP and the
front panel PCBs, and I did not want to pull the SY77 apart completely! What follows is best
described as informed speculation...

I assume from the information given in the speci cations about a 22-bit Digital-to-Analogue
Convertor (DAC) that the SY77 uses one of the recently released 18-bit DACs with four added
bits of volume information, in a similar way to the previous Yamaha FM synths and the Roland
D50 etc. The audio output was very quiet, with a good signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) - comparable
with most domestic Compact Disc players (about 90dB), although the maximum output level
(MOL) was not up to the conventional -10dBm standard.

The ever-helpful Jim Corbett at Yamaha-Kemble UK told me that nal production models will
be about 6dB louder, bringing the speci cation into line with other instruments. This will also
improve the volume in the headphones, which proved adequate under normal conditions but
not loud enough for monitoring in a noisy environment.

The highest unwanted signal present in the output was at 88.2kHz and was more than 80dB
below the MOL, suggesting that the sample rate is based on the CD rate of 44.1 kHz. Since the
clock breakthrough in DAC output circuits is normally at half the sampling rate, this probably
means that the SY77 has a four-times oversampling output running at 196.4kHz.

With the Effects section in circuit (the above measurements were taken in Effect Bypass mode)
the signal-to-noise ratio was degraded by about 7dB, which indicates that the stated 24-bit
precision is probably restricted to the AFM and AWM2 sound generation sections, the effects
processors being the usual 16-bit format.

The overall sound of the SY77 is remarkably clean and noise free when it needs to be, and
disgustingly dirty when using the distortion! I could detect only the faintest quantisation noise
on the piano sample, and the bass sounds in particular seemed much improved over previous
FM incarnations. The audio quality is very high and the bandwidth extends well beyond my
hearing's upper limit of about 16kHz. In quiet conditions with headphones on, I could not detect
any noise in the output, although this might change with the increase in output level on
production models. There seems to be some sort of gating at work in the audio output section,
although you have to listen very carefully to the reverb tails to spot it.

CONCLUSION

The SY77 is a formidable instrument. On the surface, the mixture of FM and sampled
waveforms may seem to be just another S+S synthesis method, but the strength of FM and the
exibility of the combination make this a synthesis method with wide application, superb
sounds, and huge scope for exploration. Realtime Convolution and Modulation is bigger than
the sum of its component parts, and it should prove to be a big success for Yamaha in the 90s.

FURTHER INFORMATION

£1999 inc VAT.

Yamaha-Kemble Music (UK) Ltd, (Contact Details).

COMPARISON CHART

SY77 vs M1 vs VFX-SD vs D50

Here is a quick summary of how the SY77 compares with similar products from other
manufacturers. I have taken the principal SY77 features and worked out the nearest
equivalent in the other instruments. For example, an SY77 Voice is the equivalent of a
Preset on a VFX. The number of Voices and Multis is based on the total number available at
any one time, without any disk or card swaps, ie. the internal, presets and card memories.

SY77 M1 VFX-SD D50

32 16 21 16 Polyphony
4 2 2 1 Effects blocks
16K 8K 25K - Sequencer notes
15+1 8 24 - Sequencer tracks
256 200 60 128 Voices
48 20 1 - Multis
16 8 12 - Multitimbral parts
Yes No Yes No Diskdrive

SY77 WAVEFORMS

M = multi-sampled (number of samples)

L = looped
NP = no pitched components (residues only)

01 Piano L M (8) 35 Harpsichord Wave L 74 Vocal 'Guh'

02 Trumpet L M (4) 36 Electric Piano Wave L 75 Vocal'Buh'

03 Mute Trumpet L M (3) 37 Pipe Organ Wave L 76 Sax transient

04 Horn L M (3) 38 Electric Organ Wave L 77 Bow transient

05 Flugel Horn L M (3) 39 Tuba Wave L 78 Bulb (metal and glass) L

06 Trombone L M (3) 40 Piccolo Wave L 79 Tear (tearing cloth!) L

07 Brass L M (3) 41 Soprano Sax Wave L 80 Bamboo (hit)

08 Flute L M (4) 42 Bassoon Wave L 81 Cup Echo (metal) L

09 Clarinet L M (4) 43 Recorder Wave L 82 Digital Attack ("ush")

10 Tenor Sax L M (6) 44 Mute Trumpet Wave L 83 Temple Ra (gong) L

11 Alto Sax L M (6) 45 Acoustic Guitar Wave L 84 Giri (wood percussion) L

12 GuitarSteel L M (4) 46 12-string Guitar Wave L 85 Water (gurgles etc) L

13 Elec Guitar Single L M (2) 47 Bass Wave L 86 Steam Noise L

14 Elec Guitar Humbucker L M (6) 48 Cello Wave L 87 Narrow bandwidth noise L

15 Elec Guitar Harmonics L M (2) 49 Contrabass Wave L 88 Airy L

16 Elec Guitar Mute L M (4) 50 Xylophone Wave L 89 Styroll (inside oildrum) L

17 Elec Bass L M (2) 51 Glockenspiel Wave L 90 Noise L

18 Thumping (bass) L M (2) 52 Harp Wave L 91 Bell Mix L

19 Popping (bass) L M (2) 53SitarWave L 92 Haaa L

20 Fretless (bass) L M (1? 54 Steel Drum Wave L 93 Bass Drum 1

21 Wood Bass L M (3) 55 Mute Reed Wave L 94 Bass Drum 2

22 Shamisen L M (3) 56 Orchestra Attack 95 Bass Drum 3

23 Koto L M (2) 57 Analogue Sawtooth 1 L 96 Bass Drum 4

24 Violin L M (4) 58 Analogue Sawtooth 2 L 97 Snare Drum 1

25 Pizz(iccato) L M (3) 59 Digital 1 L 98 Snare Drum 2

26 Strings L M (4) 60 Digital 2 L 99 Snare Drum 3 (gated reverb)

27 Analogue Bass L M (2) 61 Digital 3 L 100 Snare Drum Roll L

28 Analogue Brass L M (3) 62 Pulse 10% L 101 Rim shot

29 Chorus (vocal sound) L M (4) 63 Pulse 25% L 102 Tom 1

30 Itopia (vocal sound) L M (2) 64 Pulse 50% (Square) L 103 Tom 2

31 Vibe L M (1? 65 Triangle L 104 HH Closed

32 Marimba L M (3) 66 Piano N 105 HH Open LP

33 Tubular L M (2) 67 Electric Piano N 106 Crash LP

34 Celeste Wave L 68 Vibraphone N 107 Ride LP

69 Damped Piano N 108 ClapsP

70 Bottle 1 109 Cowbell L

71 Bottle 2 110 Tambourine L

72 Bottle 3 111 Shaker L

73 Tube (acoustic pluck) 112 Analogue Percussion (noise?)

SY77 EFFECTS

MODES:
- Off - no effects.
- Two parallel pairs of effects.
- Both reverbs in series and one modulation in one group, the other modulation in the other
group.
- Modulation effects in parallel, with the two reverbs in series in the same group, and no
effects for the other group.

MODULATION PROGRAMS:
0 Bypass
1 Stereo Chorus
2 Stereo Flange
3 Symphonic
4 Tremolo

REVERB/DELAY PROGRAMS:
00 Bypass
01 Reverb Hall
02 Reverb Room
03 Reverb Plate
04 Reverb Church
05 Reverb Club
06 Reverb Stage
07 Reverb Bathroom
08 Reverb Metal
09 Single Delay
10 Delay Left/Right
11 Stereo Echo
12 Doubler 1
13 Doubler 2
14 Ping-Pong Echo
15 Pan Re ection
16 Early Re ection
17 Gate Reverb
18 Reverse Gate
19 Feedback Early Re ection
20 Feedback Gate
21 Feedback Reverse
22 Single Delay & Reverb
23 Delay Left/Right & Reverb
24 Tunnel Reverb
25 Tone Control 1
26 Single Delay & Tone 1
27 Delay Left/Right & Tone 1
28 Tone Control 2
29 Single Delay & Tone 2
30 Delay Left/Right & Tone 2
31 Distortion & Reverb
32 Distortion & Single Delay
33 Distortion & Delay Left/Right
34 Distortion
35 Individual Delay
36 Individual Tone Control
37 Individual Distortion
38 Individual Reverb
39 Individual Delay & Reverb
40 Individual Reverb & Delay

Also featuring gear in this article

Yamaha SY-77 - Performance Synthesizer

(MIC Mar 90)

Yamaha SY77 - RCM Synthesizer (Part 1)

(SOS Jan 90)

Yamaha SY77 & TG55

(MT Dec 89)

Yamaha SY77 Performance Synthesiser

(MT Jan 90)

Patchwork
(MT Mar 91)

Browse category: Synthesizer > Yamaha

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