Attention Yamaha S80 and CS6X/R users...

[chevybusa]

Hello. I just recently purchased a Yamaha S80 and it is the most amazing board I have ever owned. I am completely blown away by it's sounds and action. Anyways I have collected quite a few Voices and Performances and would be happy to share them with anyone that wants them, just let me know. Likewise if you have any Voices or Performances or other resources you would be willing to share please let me know, I can't tell you how much it will be appreciated. Thanks so much!

[Mark Schmieder]

I took a lot of time to sort through the confusion of "too many voice banks" at the S80/CS6x resources page, and consolidated them into a smaller number of voice banks, arranged by category in GM order (and removing redundancies). This may prove helpful to you.

 

I also made my own "Best Of" custom INT/EXT bank. The EXT bank is a strange implementation unique to the S80/CS6x and it took me awhile to figure out all the details of how it works. If you have any problems with it, let me know.

 

I accidentally erased a purchased CS6x voice bank because of the vendor supplying them all as generic EXT voice bank files. Money down the drain (they wouldn't replace them). It is really important to understand how the EXT bank works before you start doing any custom work with voice banks on that synth.

 

Most specifically, the EXT bank gets overwritten on the SmartMedia card every time the synth powers on (you can also manually reload). So it's REALLY important to IMMEDIATELY make a backup file using the ALL-VOICE or ALL format (I forget which, but read the manual and it tells which formats include the EXT information), and to do this any time you make a change -- otherwise you risk obliterating whatever is in the EXT bank.

 

This is the "short" version of the "EXT Bank Caveats" :-). The basic point is that the order you do things in is important, in that it's easy to forget that the EXT bank changed, before taking the next action that could potentially wipe it out or replace it. I guess Yamaha saved on non-volatile memory or something by only having one "true" user preset bank.

 

I tweaked some of the presets and extras in some cases, to improve them. These are strictly saved in my own custom bank, so do not get confused with the "cleaned up" collection of Yamaha's free voice banks for the series.

 

Many tell me the S80 had the best keybed action of any Yamaha 88-key board in their synths division. I unfortunately never got the chance to try one. I thought of buying one used, to have good piano action, but ended up getting the Studiologic VMK188plus instead (for one thing, it weighs less!).

[chevybusa]

Thank you so much for responding! PM sent...