Yamaha SY-1 and Yamaha SY-2

When a global company that’s active in so many industries like Yamaha tries to get into the synthesizer business, you might assume that it would create just as big an impression on both eyes and ears here as well.

But that wasn’t quite the case. This somewhat composed three-octave monophonic preset synthesizer—with the rather unsurprising name of SY-1—was brought out in no time in 1974 alongside the recently released Roland SH-1000, the soon-to-be-released Korg 900-PS, and even—moving away from Japan for a second—the ARP Pro Soloist.

The Yamaha SY-1’s design suggests that instead of musicians of the likes of Keith Emerson, they wanted to turn the home organ owner into a Lucky Man.

It didn’t take long for Yamaha to decide to come out with a successor to the SY-1. Any guesses as to what this successor was called?

The flight case, which was coincidentally slightly longer, along with its slick legs, was proof that the SY-2’s target audience was now already more at home on the stage than in the studio.

Some updates were amazingly successful, especially this rather unusual high-pass filter which was also in the same price category. The intensity controls for the foot controller—volume and filter—slid from back to front, the envelope was upgraded to the ADSR standard, and a few other small improvements aimed to help the SY-2 achieve huge sales numbers.

But the numbers didn’t add up in reality. The Roland SH-2000 remained the undisputed champion in the battle between the big league players Yamaha and Roland, at least in Europe.

A private performance to honor this otherwise superbly and logically designed synth: while researching this text, the almost completely neglected SY-2 here in the EBOARDMUSEUM was put into operation again for the first time since … (when did Columbus sail to America?) … basically forever, and it worked perfectly first time!

Although here in the museum, we do feel like we’re regularly spoiled by Yamaha. :-)