Nicholas,
what can I say: I totally agree ! Even the Japanese now need to outsource the making of certain components to their arch enemies...
I think the magazine that comes with the SX-150 is just absolutely great to a degree that I wish I understood Japanese.
The CS-80 is shown in the section where they have hard vs soft. They have also assigned sufficient space to the mighty GX-1 in the Vintage Synth section.
Now that I have managed to control the SX-150 via MIDI/CV it's even more fun, hence the track.
It should be interesting to contact Gakken to find how many they have sold so far, so the SX-150 will find its appropriate place in the history of synths...
The Mini Moogs went up 13,000, the Prophet-5 to 7,200, our beloved CS-80 to -ahem- 2,000, and nothing beats the DX-7 at 160,000, but of course we all know that it's not exactly an analog synth.
Worsel
--- In yamahacs80@yahoogroups.com, zaum <zaum@...> wrote:
>
> Fun and impressive from such a simple instrument.
>
> Just to tease you a bit, the SX-150 is actually made in China, though
> it is a Japanese design that comes semi-assembled with a $30 "Science
> for Adults" magazine. (well it's not really an "Adult" magazine,
> ahem... it's just written on a layman's level rather than a kids level)
>
> There are a bunch of higher end Japanese magazines that come with
> kits or collectables inside, though the one it comes in takes the
> prize with other issues containing things like a dollhouse sized
> working Theremin or a mechanical Edison style recording phonograph
> that uses coffee cups, One good part is that the "gift" tends to be
> good enough that bookstores keep them until they sell unlike typical
> magazines.
>
> Tomita, a CS-80 user (but I fear he might have sold his to make
> room in his studio) is in the magazine.
>
> The magazine has many neat rare synth pictures but conspicuously
> absent is the Paia Gnome. While not a direct copy I'd call the SX-150
> a "lite" version of the Paia Gnome since it is more a synth than the
> better known Stylophone, which it also resembles. Paia of course is
> still in business.
>
> While I've not confirmed it, I suspect the SX-150 has the highest
> number manufactured of any analog synth in history.
>