Yamaha CS80

Hi everyone.

Well, yesterday may have been the first time a bunch of people got 
together to learn to tune a CS80 since some training sessions at Yamaha 
thirty years ago!

Scott (who's in this group, and whose CS80 I added the Kenton MIDI kit 
to), wanted me to clean up a few voices that had drifted a bit since I 
last tuned it (a little over two years ago).  He figured we'd make it a 
party, and invited a couple of other CS80 owners, including Shawn from 
Analoghaven.com and Steve. It was a little crowded in Scott's studio 
loft, with the ton of gear he has (and the Obie 4-voice wasn't even 
there!), but we managed.

It took a long time, partly from schmoozing, partly from letting 
everyone try tuning a voice card, and a lot from a D'oh! moment: Scott 
has the MIDI in of the CS80 hooked up to a Kurzweil MIDIBoard. It's a 
great setup for recording poly-aftertouch performances on his Mac and 
then controlling the CS80. However, the spring-loaded pitch and mod 
wheels of the MIDIBoard don't have a dead zone and don't always go back 
to zero. Apparently, during our pizza break after the first four voices, 
the wheels got hit, and the pitch-bend was slightly off for the next 
four sets of cards.

In the end, it was all in tune. I think we also came up with a very nice 
and fast tuning procedure which I'll write up in the next few days.  
Looks like I may be putting in a couple more Kenton kits in the near 
future, too.  Then we have to get all three MIDI-ed CS80s in one room, 
played from the MIDIBoard, plus Scott's Obie 4-voice via a Doepfer 
MIDI-CV interface. I think the sound will violate several international 
weapons treaties!

 David