Yamaha FS1r

[Jay Vaughan]

>> pinnacle of Yamaha’s FM
> 
> Definitely. If only it had been more usable.

Its definitely strange how resistant Yamaha was to making things more controllable and open.  

There was a definite distinction between the ’synthesisers should be usable’ camp versus ‘its not a synthesiser, its a keyboard for players’ group.  Sure, the FS1R has one of the most extraordinary synthesis engines of the age - but it was only supposed to be a preset/XG machine, ultimately, in the eyes of the marketers and other ponies running the circus.

Big-company politics were definitely at play - the UK/US/Japan/EU groups all competed to be the source of the next ‘cool’ release, mostly by sabotaging each other on design reviews and product demo’s.  Then, there was the Yamaha/Korg blue line that had to be factored in too - for a while, Korg were supposed to be the cool kids - but they seemed to resent the position and always wanted to compete with Yamaha’s core, keyboard business, in strange ways.

The Yamaha FS1X, a keyboard version, would have been amazing.  I sure hope pics of this mythical prototype appear some day.

These days, Yamaha seem to be focusing on the punters and music schools, whose conservative approach shows in the Reface designs - which could, arguably, be packaged with much, much more dynamic controller designs  — but are locked down, mostly for the preset-brigade that run the worlds music schools.

The preset vs. tweaker battle simply rages on.

j.