£347
It might be hard not to think of Yamaha’s Reface series as sitting in the shadow of the Roland Boutique Series (JP-08) synths, but don’t let that put you off. There are a lot of similarities here, of course, but the Yamaha keyboards are worthwhile choices in their own right.
There are four options on offer: the YC, based on Yamaha’s organs; the CP, based on electric pianos; the CS, based on the CS80 analogue polysynth; and the DX, based on the DX7 FM synth. The latter two are probably most interesting to the majority of dance producers. What you get for your money is a range of classic synth sounds: silky pads and organic leads in the case of the CS, aggressive basses and metallic chords for the DX.
At a street price of around £290, the Reface synths are also much more attractively priced than their RRP would suggest.
04.01 PM
Wow, 2 oscillators, 4 waveforms, filter, lfo to modulate it. It’s no wonder electronic music hasn’t really advanced in the last decade as people are still getting boners for things we’ve all seen/heard before. New synths are just tools for muso-posers to show off with, posh handbags for guys/gals who don’t leave their bedrooms. All you really need if you want hardware to make music is a £100, 20 year old Roland W-30 and a good idea.
This ain’t a dig at Attack.
09.29 AM
wow, the original really is a lot better sounding. Much richer and thicker sounding. The update is somehow ‘skimmed’.
08.43 PM
@Duncan
Ridiculous isn’t it. I went into a music shop the other day and all the guitars still only had six strings! Retrograde madness
07.22 PM
@Nathan
Not a fair comparison at all. Synths are based on technology that is constantly changing. And due to Moore’s Law, the technology is constantly getting cheaper. These two things dictate that synths should be evolving a lot more than they seem to be. What is new and unique here?
05.16 PM
@ Duncan
Plenty of unique synth design out there. That’s mostly what the eurorack format is about. Also, what would you consider “unique”? 99.999999% of soft synths are based on hardware. The only truly novel synthesis in software comes from stuff like MAX/MSP, PD, Kyma, etc.. Do you think the Roland W-30 was some sort of revolutionary design at the time? I’m old enough to remember and it wasn’t. I say the more synths the merrier.