Yamaha SK-30

I bought it used, so I ain??t got the manual wich was the best for me ??cause it forced me to explore the field

3 preset ptches and a manual solo synth section

the key are really comfortable. being not keyboard player I must say it??s quite easy for me. It does the job for 70??s rock and progressive music.

it??s the enterprise. never fails

I love this machine. if it were stolen from me I??ll start the third world war !!!!!

This instrument are very easy to use,because the SK-30 not have a hiden patches and parametric.VERY EASY TO USE.

Keyboard of SK-30 has a 61 keys.This instrument not have a user memory,but it has a 3-preset patches per section.

ORGAN has one of the early implementations of YAMAHA's FM technology.It offers a full range of stop levers from 1' to 16',percussion levers with adjustable decay,and controls for averall sustein,briliance and decay.Organ has full poliphony.

Poly-synth is a 7-note polyphonic synthesizer with basic filter,pitch and envelope.It features two(detunable)oscilators per voice.

SK-30 Have a preset STRINGS and preset POLY-SYNTH(synth brass).

Solo Synthesizer has one-note polyphonic.It has a VCO ,envelopes,portamento.

The AMAZING ANALOG SOUNDS.The SK-30 have a preset and a your(manual)sounds.It has a preset 3 organs , 3 strings , 3 poly-synth(brass).

ORGAN The organ is FM based and it sounds very B3 like.You can add a organ ensamble(as chorus).You can change decay,sustein,brilliance and DISTORSION. You can add Distorsion if your volume set on MAX,but your speakers turn down.And you'll have a distorsion organ like a "Doors".Organ has a Leslie output.

STRINGS Are not very god,but on it add a poly-synth ensamble the sound is much better.If you are looking for that classic '70's string machines,you can do a lot better then the SK-30.Strings not have a envelopes and attack envelope,because is not very good for pads.

POLY-SYNTH Preset poly-synth(synth brass)have a fine sound.This sound is not power sound,but this sound can be used in chords and melodies.
Manual poly-synth is AMAZING.It have a vibrato,poly-synth detune and tune.TUNE is as pitch bender,but is not practic.Poly-synth have a slow attack,brilliance.Waveforms is saw and squere.You can create a AMAZING analog sounds.You can add a distorsion(volume set on max) and you'll have a POWER sound.
My favorite poly-synth sound is:

DISTORSION(volume on max)

VIBRATO Decay-MIN.
Speed-1\2(if wish)
Depth-(MAX)
NO ENSAMBLE OR TREMOLO EFECTS(my tremolo is not in function)

Briliance 0
MODE II (poly-synth detune:little on left)it much feeleng
----------------
FEET 8' I\
CUT OFF +3
Ressonan.-0.5 of MAX
EG Depth +3
Attack +3
DECAY +2
SUSTEIN +3
RELEASE -1 of MAX

This sound is like as the lead from Roland JD-800(Listen the "GENESIS"-Fading lights and Rick Wakeman in album "Wakeman with Wakeman")
You can hear the oscilation of distorsion and cut off.

SOLO SYNTHESIZER is the amazing as poly-synth.
You can create a great leads,analog efects,analog sounds like Jean-Michel Jarre(album "DESERTE PALACE").It has waveform beetween saw and squere.You can create a SUPER BASS and bass like a Prodigu with distorsion.PW is great,and portamento is not fine as Yamaha CS series,but is very good.
You can mix a poly-synth and Solo-synthesizer and mix all.

When I buy the SK-30,rats are lived in the SK-30.My serviser is SK-30 wake up in DEAD's.NOW my SK-30 doesn't have a problem.

The YAMAHA SK-30 is very Very VERY V E R Y AMAZING ANALOG SYNTHESIZER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But the SK-30 is not avalibile to all artist.The companions as Roland,Yamaha,Korg...make a digital instruments with big memory,sequencers and features,but not have a pure,power,amazing,analog sounds as:
Yamaha CS,SK-series
Roland SH,JX,JUNO,Jupiter...
Korg polysix,MS,DW...
ARP synthesizers
and MODULAR SYSTEM synthesizers... I can not buy this synth never.

I have a Roland XP-50
Roland D-50
Roland JUNO-106
Yamaha SK-30
Korg-T3
Roland RD-700
..and I make a electronic,jazz and modern clasical music with them.

This keyboard is very easy to learn and operate, but has enough depth that you don't become bored with it. I'm always surprised at the new types of sounds I'm able to get from such seemingly simple controls. There are a couple of quirks about its operation that may not be obvious without reading a the user's manual, but fortunately, the manual is available from Yamaha as a .pdf download, so there's no excuse for not knowing your instrument inside and out.

Speaking of ease of use, I should mention that it's VERY easy to get inside the unit if you need to do any cleaning or repairs. Once you remove four screws from the bottom of the keyboard, the entire top panel opens up and hinges backward out of the way, exposing the entire interior. There's even a "prop rod" to hold up the panel so you can get in there and see stuff. They just don't make keyboards like this anymore!

What a strange, unique, wonderful instrument! Is it an organ? a string synth? a polysynth? a monosynth? YES, YES, YES and YES! It's a Symphonic Ensemble for goodness sakes! I'll talk about each section individually below. Many people buy and use the SK-series of instruments simply as stage organs, and these units certainly excel at that function, but they are capable of so much more!

Organ: Let's get this out of the way right off the bat. The SK-series instruments in general and the SK-30 and SK-50D in particular are excellent Hammond organ replacements. You get sliders for each drawbar, percussion with adjuatable decay (2nd, 3rd, and 5th harmonic or any combination thereof), a sustain function that allows notes to decay away slowly (at a rate dependent on the position of the Decay slider) and a very convincing analog Leslie simulation that speeds up and slows down, just like the real thing. You've got 7 notes of polyphony here, which doesn't sound like a lot, but honestly, I've never encountered a problem playing typical two-handed organ parts.

Polysynth: This section has a few limitations that would bug you if you were expecting a fully-featured polysynth. Once you know about the quirks, it's possible to work around them and produce some great sounds. It's a dual analog VCO design with sawtooth and square waves and a funky bandpass-filtered wave that I believe is intended to be mixed into the String section (see below) to add definition to the sound. The VCOs can be detuned by several cents, but no large intervals are possible, unfortunately. Probably the two biggest drawbacks of the Polysynth section are these: first, that all seven notes of polyphony share one resonant lowpass filter; and second, that the amplitude envolope is AR only, and the attack portion is a fast/slow toggle switch. On the plus side, the aforementioned resonant VCF has full ADSR with an ammount slider.

Strings: Not a separate section per se; this is basically an overlay to thicken up the Polysynth section. Yes, it has its own seven notes of polyphony, independent from the Polysynth, but has very little in the way of control. Think of it as a "fixed" dual-VCO synth section that can be layered on top of the Polysynth, nothing more.

Monosynth: This is a very cool section with single VCO, resonant LPF, LFO, and one ADSR shared by amp and filter. There is a waveform slider that is continuously variable between sawtooth and square wave. The square wave has variable pulse width that can be manually set from a slider, or driven by the ADSR, or the LFO. The LFO can modulate the filter cutoff, too, as well as pitch. A slider named Glide is what we normally think of as autobend: setting this control above or below the midpoint of its travel will cause the pitch of a new note to swoop down or up to the target pitch. True portamento is provided on a slider too.

Other Features: I've already mentioned the analog Leslie effect (which can also be applied to the Polysynth/Strings section), but there's a thick analog ensemble effect too. This is where you go to achieve that classic string ensemble effect made famous in the 1970s. Other goodies include an 11-pin Leslie connector on the rear panel that can bypass the internal Leslie effect. In fact, the front panel buttons that normally control tremolo on/off and speed can actually control the rotors in an external Leslie cabinet! I've never been able to hook this keyboard up to a real Leslie, but I'm sure it sounds amazing. And don't forget the pedal board input on the back panel to accomodate a Yamaha PB-2, a one-octave bass pedal unit that was available as an option. Hard to find today, but they're out there.

Of course, this is a pre-MIDI keyboard, so no MIDI control, but there is a Key Code connector on the rear panel. This was Yamaha's proprietary MIDI-like specification that allowed some of their popular keyboards of that era to interface together. If you've got a CP-35 e

How does it sound? Um, good. Very good, in fact. I've raved over the organ sound already; it really does sound quite nice and I'd put it up against any clonewheel organ out there today for authenticity. Through a hot Leslie, I bet this thing absolutely screams.

The Polysynth is very thick and satisfying, and even given the limitations of its architecture, you can get a wide variety of meaty tones out of it. Fat synth basses, warm strings and pads, horns, buzzy Jump-type polysynth sounds, and much more. Layer the String section over the Polysynth for even more analog fatness.

The Monosynth is wonderful, too. Where the Polysynth is fat and smooth, the Monosynth is spiky and crisp. Supreme techno basses and leads are possible for days. Hey, did I mention this thing has AFTERTOUCH?! You read right, my friends. No velocity response, but the keyboard's aftertouch can be routed to the Monosynth's Vibrato, Filter, or Modulation ammount control. This adds tons of expression to this already expressive synth. Doing PWM via the LFO is a great way to fatten up the tone for monster drone bass sounds. Watch those woofers MOVE! And the CV and Gate inputs on the back mean it's fairly easy to integrate this section into a modern MIDI sequencing rig, which is something I'll be doing very soon.

Like I said in the opener, they just don't build keyboards like this anymore. I bought this unit used and the guy who sold it to me evidently thought a thin layer of bubble wrap and an old blanket(!) was enough padding to ship a 40 pound vintage synth. Never mind that the box was too large for the keyboard, causing it to slide around inside and bang hard against the sides of the box during transit. My heart stopped when I opened the box on my end and saw what he did. I needn't have worried. Somehow, the unit survived the poor packing job and the trip to my studio. It works and plays perfectly. I have zero qualms about playing without a backup and expect this keyboard to outlive me.

I think the fact that I can go on Yamaha's web site and download the User's Manual for any electronic instrument they've ever made is nothing short of a miracle. This is a WONDERFUL service and shows an unusual commitment to supporting owners and afficiandos of their classic instruments. Bravo, Yamaha, and thank you!

I love this instrument. I love playing it, I love looking at it, and I love listening to it (on the rare occasion when I let someone else touch it). It's a bit of an oddball; not quite a Hammond clone, not quite a true polysynth, not quite a string synth, not quite a true monosynth, but some bizarre mutation of all of these thrown together. It's a mutt, I suppose. Maybe that's one reason why I love it so.

I'm mainly using this keyboard live right now, in two different projects. One is a space rock or ambient rock kind of thing with guitar and drums, and the other is a drone/spoken word project with another keyboardist and a vocalist/poet. In both cases, the SK-30 is the only keyboard on stage with me. I do process the output with various effects: chorus, flanger, delay, reverb, etc. but the SK does everything I want and need.

It took me a couple flips through the manual to figure out some of the features, but otherwise it's very straightforward. All sliders and buttons, so there's really not anywhere you can go wrong.

In the modern context, it doesn't have many features at all. 4 voice polyphony max, no midi, only really one type of keyboard split, etc.
But, if you consider when it was made (70's) and judge from there, it's very high marks: 4 instruments stuffed into one board (poly-synth, mono-synth, organ, strings), some chorus fx, keyboard splits, c/v gate, velocity sensitive on the mono-synth, polyphony on the synth part..probably pretty high marks when it came out and that's what I judged it by.

As I mentioned before, there are 4 instruments onboard this one synth, so I'll give my opinion of each:

Mono-Synth: This section is comparable with another old Yamaha, the CS-5. Doing an A/B comparison, most non-resonant sounds were pretty similar. There are some major differences overall though. The SK30 lacks the smooth portamento that the CS has. I'd even go so far as to call it whiny and, for the most part, unusable. The resonance is also very different. The SK's has a more liquid quality and an increased effect on the overall sound. Lastly, the LFO is sine only, unlike the CS's 3 shapes. All of that in mind, for what it was intended for (bass and leads), it does very well. The overly simple modulation throws it out of the race for complex sounds and FX, but the bread and butter sounds are all there with a good punch in them.

Poly-Synth: Though it is a very solid sounding section, I would not use the word "beefy" to describe it, more like "spacey." It lacks any bite whatsoever and, even in normal attack mode, has way too slow an envelope to be used for any bass or percussion sounds. But, the pads and strings you can get certainly shine and glitter like Bowie a'la Ziggy Stardust (especially when layered with the String-Synth).

String-Synth: As a solo instrument, this is the worst of the sections. With very limited editing capabilities and a rather thin sound, it's only real purpose is to layer with the Poly-Synth. If you're looking for a string machine, you can do alot
better than the SK.

Organ: Not being a fan of organ sounds, I was suprised at how much I liked this section. Its sound is all about the 70's era rock organ, especially with the Ensemble effect in use. The tone sliders give you quite a deal to work with in the way of synthesis. Within minutes of turning it on, I was able to get everything from mournful goth stuff to some tones which made me want to poof my hair and get some tightpants. The percussion is okay, I'd like to have a bit more "click" to it, but that's just me.

It hasn't broken down on me yet and seems to be built pretty sturdy, all metal and wood. But, I wouldn't even think of gigging with it. Weighing in at 90lbs with case, it's not really easily transportable and I imagine it would break eventually if I tried to do an extensive tour with it.

Suprisingly, even though this is a rare synth, Yamaha still has it's manual in PDF format on their site, gotta love that! Now, if I had a problem with the unit, I certainly wouldn't call them up, it would be a waste of breath, but at least they are recognizing it.

If it were lost/stolen/broken, I don't think I'd find another one anytime soon as they are pretty rare. The Sk20 is more common, but it loses the mono-synth, which is one of my favorite parts of it. Plus, it's so damn heavy, I wouldn't want to go through paying for shipping one again. I love it though and plan on holding onto it for awhile, as most older keyboards, it's very intuitive and I end up with great material composing on it faster than I would using my sampler or computer.