Great video and sums up my sentiments exactly. The CS-15 is criminally underrated! Mine also came from Japan in a blue lined case when I was back in Aus. There are things this synth can do like a layered sound within a sound using the 2 channels independently, something that a Minimoog, ARP Odyssey, Pro-One, Oberheim OB-1 cannot do. It can also be played truly duophonically via a sequencer like Korg's SQ1 or Kenton MIDI 2000 using the individual channel keyboard and gate jacks, like having a duophonic CS-5. Modulation wise it is closer to an ARP Odyssey with individual depth controls for each module except an envelope depth control for the PWM. The flexibility of being able to operate this synth as 2 independent CS-5's, a dedicated 2 Osc-2 filter-2 VCA synth, and anything in between is its Ace card over the usual renowned mono synths. Coming from a Moog/ARP/Roland mono synth background the CS-15 was quite a revelation and one of those "how did I miss this?" moments. I admit the first sound I tried was the Bladerunner intro complete with pitch bend fall into a Strymon Blue sky reverb pedal.
I love this synth. I grabbed one a while back that need some work as well. Some new caps and a ridiculous amount of cleaning and it was good to go. I'm envious of how nice yours looks though
I modded my CS-15 with the Don Solaris serial filter(4 pole) mod. It sounds cool but uses too much headroom(especially with pulsewidth moving away from 50% duty cycle) and dulls the max cutoff brightness too much. Been meaning to add a mod for Filter Cutoff modulation input jacks for each filter and another mod to switch modulation to the VCO's with a footswitch, since there is no modwheel. There's a mod online for oscillator sync that looks interesting. Never bothered with any of those though. Agreed they are very easy to service. Built to last, for sure. Sorry to hear about the trouble you encountered. I only replaced the power supply caps and had no issues. The IG00151 VCA chips may have entered a failure mode on mine though, as they are very noisy, and were not when I first acquired it. With all the modern options available now, the instrument just doesn't seem worth doing much with these days. imo. It sounds too "on-chip", too clean and perfect, unlike discrete 70's character but more like the plethora of modern monosynths, and then certain omissions stick out that should be available on a "performance" model like no adjustable value for VCF keyboard tracking or modwheel, and then also no crossmod or hard-sync.
Great video and sums up my sentiments exactly. The CS-15 is criminally underrated! Mine also came from Japan in a blue lined case when I was back in Aus. There are things this synth can do like a layered sound within a sound using the 2 channels independently, something that a Minimoog, ARP Odyssey, Pro-One, Oberheim OB-1 cannot do. It can also be played truly duophonically via a sequencer like Korg's SQ1 or Kenton MIDI 2000 using the individual channel keyboard and gate jacks, like having a duophonic CS-5. Modulation wise it is closer to an ARP Odyssey with individual depth controls for each module except an envelope depth control for the PWM. The flexibility of being able to operate this synth as 2 independent CS-5's, a dedicated 2 Osc-2 filter-2 VCA synth, and anything in between is its Ace card over the usual renowned mono synths. Coming from a Moog/ARP/Roland mono synth background the CS-15 was quite a revelation and one of those "how did I miss this?" moments. I admit the first sound I tried was the Bladerunner intro complete with pitch bend fall into a Strymon Blue sky reverb pedal.
I have a CS-5. It was my first synth, back in the 80s. Little brother to this.
I used to own a CS40M - that thing was awesome for the baby brother of the 80. I like the sound of this 15 - great sounds.
Another thing you can do with them is connect the line output from the front into the external input in the back and do polymod feedback effects
The CS15 sounds so awesome!
I love this synth. I grabbed one a while back that need some work as well. Some new caps and a ridiculous amount of cleaning and it was good to go. I'm envious of how nice yours looks though
Great review! very simple walkthrough - thank you for that!
just like you Hugh! Good idea to do synth retrospectives - maybe you can get in on some of Alex Ball's action! Or Espen Kraft's, etc.
Cold solderjoints. Try resolder as much as possible. Fixed a SH-101 this way.
This was the first synth I owned. I have always regretted selling it...
Can you share a schematic of your Power Supply modification...?
I modded my CS-15 with the Don Solaris serial filter(4 pole) mod. It sounds cool but uses too much headroom(especially with pulsewidth moving away from 50% duty cycle) and dulls the max cutoff brightness too much. Been meaning to add a mod for Filter Cutoff modulation input jacks for each filter and another mod to switch modulation to the VCO's with a footswitch, since there is no modwheel. There's a mod online for oscillator sync that looks interesting. Never bothered with any of those though.
Agreed they are very easy to service. Built to last, for sure. Sorry to hear about the trouble you encountered. I only replaced the power supply caps and had no issues. The IG00151 VCA chips may have entered a failure mode on mine though, as they are very noisy, and were not when I first acquired it.
With all the modern options available now, the instrument just doesn't seem worth doing much with these days. imo. It sounds too "on-chip", too clean and perfect, unlike discrete 70's character but more like the plethora of modern monosynths, and then certain omissions stick out that should be available on a "performance" model like no adjustable value for VCF keyboard tracking or modwheel, and then also no crossmod or hard-sync.
Cue the space cats @ 10:37!
Con este sibte se puede tocar el tema maic fly de la banda Space.
black nails? get a doctor my friend!