Personally I like the SY22 sounds, but I can see why it's not to everyone's taste. I've also been enjoying the honesty of your recent videos reviewing hardware. It's nice to see someone willing to voice an opinion rather than just conclude everything is "good".
I picked up one of these for about £80. It had two broken black keys. Replacement keys were about £3 each. Not too difficult to replace but I had to remove the keyboard and pull out the rubber strip at the back to release the faulty keys. When you do that they all start popping out. Once it was all back together it plays fine. I use it every Tuesday night in the pub it is very light sounds fine. I use a Behringer rotary pedal with the rock organ voice. A lot easier to carry than my DX7. Thumbs up from me.
The SY22 will always have a place in my heart, as it was my very first "professional" synth. I bought it brand new in 1993, when I was only 16 years old. The main reason I bought it was that it was basically the only synth I could afford back then! :D It was on sale at my local music store and so I went for it. Good times! ;)
Back then I was 20, I had a Roland U20 but a wish I had bought the SY22, they had it a local Music Store, but though their prices were always very expensive and around a decade later they went out of business.
@@Venatt1 I was in high school when the u20 came out, I couldn't afford it then, so I got a Yamaha PSS 460, outside of midi, it did everything the u20 and the 01 W did and then some, I just picked up a PSS 570 the other day, did a few videos on it, I'm going to do many more because that little synth can do soooooooooo much
I think SY22 is still the most expensive synth/sampler/xyz I've ever had. I planned to buy it with my summer job money, and while waiting for the summer to end Finnish mark was devaluated and the price went up from 4500 to 5500 FIM. Well, my father helped :)
I own Dwayne Goettel from Skinny Puppy's slightly smashed SY22. It came loaded with a bunch of wonderfully nightmarish patches. Another great video as always Mr. Kraft!
Would you consider posting his patches online, or at least putting up a video demonstrating them? He was a sound programming genius, both with synths and samplers. A big fan of the SY77 as well from what I've read.
@@chriswareham Sadly I lost them as at the time (20 years ago or so) I didn't know how to back them up and the memory card ran on a watch battery. I wrote Cevin Key on Patreon about a year ago to ask if he maybe had the patches backed up but he didn't have them either. I did discover that by using the random function in the windows editor you could get in the ballpark of those sounds pretty easy after a couple of tries by messing with a few parameters.
Oh, yes, multitimbral was something in the 90s, we didn't have money to buy a lot of synths and having one which could play a bass on one note, a pad with 6 notes and an ear-candy on another single note was realy a thing.
@gridsleep ? 🧐 In my time it was we did, different sounds from one cheap module. If you did have a big multitrack recorder you could do many things with layers but I didn't have such an expensive thing so I did that when I was 20. With a TX81z, a QX21, a juno1, a TR505, an 8 track mixing desk, a cheap Torque spring reverb and a cassette deck. 👨🏼🦳
F L H 3 is right, back in the 80s and 90s poor musos (most of us) used to try to get a few sounds out of one module. We would hook it up to an Atari ST, primitive Windows or Mac and control it that way. The programs on the computers were reffered as sequencers, not DAWs as there was no recording back then. You would record the stereo mix to cassette or maybe a WAV file if your computer could manage audio too!
I will always keep mine because I brought it from Moby he used those strings all over his tracks.. I just recorded a track with it on my channel with the Analog four and Pro 3 the SY22 strings fit in perfectly right away.
I have to say I like the SY22. I ended up getting it in a 2 for 1 deal which included a Korg Microkorg. Got them both for $190 USD. Both were in mint condition. I got lucky with this deal. A few weeks later I ended up getting a mint SY77 for $100 USD. Not bad for deals within 1 month. Great video. 👍 👍👍👍👍
These were incredibly cheap to buy second hand, so I got one on a bit of a whim a few years ago. I found it way too limited in terms of programmability, and never found a use for the vector control - for me at least it seemed to be a useless gimmick. Sold mine and stuck with the "full fat" FM synthesis of the SY77.
I have the tabletop version (TG33). It was the first synth I purchased that could be considered 'professional'. I have found it works best when run through good external FX (internal are absolute crap) and sampled. The SY35, which is closer to the TG33, had better DA. I've sampled mine a lot and I've recently been converting my personal patches to work on the Korg Wavestate. There are somethings the Yamaha got right, for example the Vector recording (which was more like a motion sequencer than an envelope) was superior, I think, to other vector synths that only let you have a simple 3 or 4 stage env. In addition, there is editor software that lets you get in and actually modify the 2op FM synthesis parts. Without that, it's largely a preset box with very little control over the FM voices. It's flawed, but it has an interesting niche in my studio.
The SY35 actually has a different sample set (not sure if all the samples are different, but some definitely are). It's still got some grit, but less than the SY22/TG33.
@@infindebula I've once seen and heard SY35. I remember it sounding very high quality compared to SY22/TG33 (indeed different sample ROM and perhaps resolution, I don't recall that now). Also, it didn't sound interesting. Couldn't think of switching to SY35 for higher quality sound... It just got worse with SY55, all ROM samples (but: filter!). SY55 also has a sequencer, but IMO not enough memory (to record my acid tweaks).
My first ever Synth was a SY22 where I learned to program Sounds. It uses FM and Samples combined and could sound better with a good external chorus and reverb. The "Itopia" on this Synth sounds beautiful . Thank you for demonstrating ,cheers ;-)
My school bought one at the same time as an Atari running Notator in 1990/91. It was useful for GCSE Music where you had to compose a piece of multi part music as part of the coursework. I remember it easily ran out of polyphony and started note grabbing. They also had a Yamaha V-50 (which was how I learned sequencing) a Yamaha RX7 and a 4 track Tascam portastudio, all underused by most people but for a few of us. It did the job to be fair, so some of these sounds were a pure nostalgia trip. Shouldn't there be an unspoken rule.... Never throw out a synthesizer! 🤣
Had a TG33. Regret selling it, to be honest. Some of the orchestral sounds were way ahead of more expensive ROMplers of the day and I managed to coax some good noises out of it using the vector recording plus the very limited, 2-op FM engine. Some of the presets are pretty great, too. I'm not sure that I'd use it as much now as I did back in the day but it has a few inimitable noises that would stand up in a contemporary context.
I have an SY22 and SY35. Along with the Wavestation, these had input from former Sequential staff. They've started going up in price recently. They were £100-120 synths, creeping up towards £300 now. But they were never expensive, more curiosities.
@@EspenKraft you are wrong. John Probably means tbat Josh Effe, Tony Dean and Chris Meyer did not work it (they were the original developers of the ProphetVS) but they did not work on the SY22 but neither on the Wavestation.
I had a tg33 since it first came out until about a year ago when i sold it and it took me almost a year of convincing myself to sell it. Mostly sold it to free up space as i wasn't using it as much as i used too. I too found it had a certain niche in my setup.
In general I agree with the idea that there are instruments that are good but you just don't get the click using it. I've owned several SY-Series synths. The TG-55 and the TG-500 were not bad at all but I never found my way towards them and so I sold them again.The SY-77 and my TG-33 on the other hand have a save place in my collection.
I own a SY55 I bought more than 30 years ago, it still looks and works as the first day 🙂, much better than this model I suppose, although I use it mainly as a midi keyboard.
Haha same! Love it and it never really gets mentioned almost like it’s been forgotten. I love the ethereal sounds like St Michael, Voyager and as well as the synbadbass, get lucky and sax sounds which are great for making 90s dance tracks
Not only do I like the Sy22, but I really dig the HummingBird shirt. We have a lot of those birds here in Southern California. Thanks for bringing the SY22 to our attention - I may need to pick one up. I hope your trade goes smoothly Espen. :)
I love shirts with birds on them, although I don't wear many in my videos. Must be cool to have hummingbirds right outside your door. Where I live we have wolves and elks. ;-) The trade was done some time ago. When videos are published they're often not very new. ;-) The video description will tell what I got instead. Cheers
I had the chance and I took it. For ambient.. film or FX is very good. I was kinda sad... had to sell it in order to complete money for the new addition to come: An EX7. And is way better in every sound to SY22. So, I'm glad I made up my mind. Can't denie there's some nostalgy for that vector.. and some sounds. But I cover more with the EX7.
That vector control was a pretty neat way to gloss over the limitations of this synth. Truthfully though, I have a (admittedly much newer) consumer-grade Yamaha synth that can produce bigger and better sounds than this. Looking forward to seeing what you get in trade!
If you like it or not depends only on your own needs, and what you make out of it. In general you cant say good or bad, just be creative! The joy Stick could never impress me.
I own a TG-33 myself, and even as someone who generally likes 80's and 90's digital synths that aren't trying to be analogs, I'd admit that this synth and the TG-33 have (broadly speaking) a narrower niche than most digital synths. I think a huge driving factor for that is that the PCM sample palette is quite slim and REALLY pushes the edge of the low end of sample quality/fidelity. This is far from the only synth that, in my opinion, had a great underlying engine but was simply too sparse in samples or underlying horsepower to really shine though (Fizmo and first-gen V-Synth come immediately to mind).
KEEP IT! Seriously, I’ve been debating for nearly 20 years on getting a TG-33 module. I’ve had lots of opportunities, and I’ve never taken one. There’s no explanation for that. It is the only Victor synthesizer that has ever called out to me. Of all the silly things that I’ve been darting around TH-cam and search up, it is whether or not this synthesizer or that module generates the waveform - oriented sound of a Yamaha electric grand piano. That’s not a reason to say yay or nay on anything, but it would almost be like the cherry on top to know that it does. By the time of my comment, Espen, you probably have already swapped out this model for the one you were after. If I were you, I would’ve given it a second chance. Recent TH-cam demos have shown the SY models had it in them to rattle their analog polyphonic precursors.
If you want to make similar sounds and have a joystick control, you could trade this one for the Wavestate. I bought mine a year ago and it's always fun, it has the kind of digital late 80s / early 90s sound that defines an era. Art of Noise, Pet Shop Boys, Jarre. And they are a lot cheaper brand new than many other boutique brands. I love Korg.
I wish I had NOT sold off all my synths from that time and era.. Oh how I regret it now in these uncertain times! I thought I heard some TG100 AWM2 presets in there! That Geewwnnn synth bass is unmistakable lol!
I almost bought one to try and get something close to the mighty Prophet VS... but got a Prophet VS instead. The strings sound good on this video for sure. Maybe through a decent preamp with decent effects unit, could take away some of the 'plastic'? Dwayne Goettel from Skinny Puppy made it work like a beast, apparently.
I got my TG33 at about the same time as Skinny Puppy released Last Rites. The sounds are all over it, even the drum kit through a much better reverb, is present. Pairing it with a good sampler has been key to it staying relevant in my setup. I'll build crazy layers in multimode and then sample the results with an Ensoniq EPS or EMU EIV. Then you get the filters that it unfortunately misses. This turns it into a whole different animal.
I'm curious if the SY-22 has the same joystick midi capability as my TG-33. On my TG-33 the joystick can transmit its motion via MIDI CC so you can record the motion into a sequencer....or use it to control something else on the midi network. Need to review the manual. I have an opportunity to buy one of these locally for $75. I want to pair it with my TG33. I also have a TQ5 and want to pair it with a YS200. I love these "crappy" digital yamaha synths. You can have lots of fun by layering them and processing them with outboard.
I own an SY35 - better AD and more ROM waveforms. But to make these synths really come alive needs a decent external FX box. The sounds are a bit digital and "of their age" but a bit of effort getting into the vector programming really pays dividends. As a small side note, this makes a good master keyboard to play a Wavestation WS rack, adding the joystick functionality to the rackmount.
Basically the technology from the Prophet VS that was recycled in the KORG WS. I like both, but they may not be the right choice as your "only synth". Helps create some magic MIDIed together with your 01/W or TG55
There, it is that the presets of the time, with my patches, your opinion can change, maybe. 🙂 You can find my patches under my video "Yamaha TG33 (SY22/SY35) Patch Bliter".
Y22..sounds great..so owning it..this Synth..I am sure..it vl be an Asset for..All..Detailing of this Keyboard n Comparison..with similar Keyboard..by your channel..Very Useful..Nice..⛱️⛱️👍
Wavestation & VS are simply superior for vectoring no doubt...it's kinda interesting & hard to believe that Yamaha let korg get an edge on that aspect of synthesis technology...'cause personally I'd rather have an old brown original DX7 than have twenty-two SY-22's in the arsenal EK thanx again dude 😎
Well, even Korg is still a self owned Company today, it’s the same story as Apple, they got saved from death from a larger company that didn’t want them to die. We can thank Yamaha that Korg lived and got the chance to make some really wonderfull instruments along the path, and still exists today.
...not sure what your point is but korg wouldn't be & lucky they even are as so if it weren't for Yamaha lettin'em just show's how loyalty in the Japanese biz model work's dude
@@angelog.spicolaiii8021 I just ment what I said. It was Yamaha saving Korg as they were in trouble. They could have just enrolled their knowledge into their own business, as Korg is fairly small in comparison to Yamaha, but they didn’t. During the last 4 decades Korg have given much larger competitors a run for their money in cutting edge synth Technology.
You are wrong. The SY22 is not developed by Yamaha alone but also by the devteam led by Dave Smith. Originally the whole team was acquired by Yamaha before going to Korg (Yamaha owned parts of Korg back then)
Just thought I'd mention I ended up buying one of these off eBay (for the princely sum of £80) as a direct result of it being brought back into my consciousness by this video :) I guess it's true, there's no such thing as bad publicity.
I feel that those cheaper synthesizer from SY series are over-hyped. I've bought a cheap multitimbral FM workstation - the Yamaha V50 - for a fraction of what I would have to pay for a SY synth. The sound engine is enought to make modern sounding tracks.
Hi can anyone please help me - I cannot seem to transfer patches to my SY22 via sysex librarian. Is there a setting like on the D50 to initiate bulk loads onto the SY22? No internal or presets change after .syx or .mid file is sent :/
@@EspenKraft You certainly did. That's what made me think. You identified the string sounds (if I remember) and I just wanted to add that I feel they used it extensively. I quite like the sounds - very clean sounding and clear. But not having filters is a killer. Given PSB are a synth duo who rely on the depth of their sound, I wonder if the blandness of synth sounds in the mid 90s didn't help them at that time.
@@EspenKraft I have however said to my family to bury me with a synth. Maybe a DX7 🤣. Hopefully not for at least another 30 years! By the way, I mentioned to one of my Norwegian colleagues about the ‘stuffed relative’ thing you once mentioned, and he was perplexed!!
I have one of these too. I mostly use it as a midi controller as most of the sounds aren't great there is an odd on or two. but to be fair mines I onlyy got the set of presets I got no internal sounds on it. it is nice enough to look at but plasticky as you say and cheap feel...because it is cheap :) but still it is not utter crap. I heard worse.
I've got an SY22 but i can't really use it anymore, it's seemingly gone out of tune somehow and i don't know how to retune it. Kind of a shame since i really like how it sounds.
The utility menu has Master Tune and Transpose settings. If the individual voices settings have been altered the utility menu also has a Voice Initialize function that will rest the parameters of the current voice.
@@ryel4189 If it is too far out of tune for the voice reset and master tuning then it might have an electrical issue. The service manual is still available online. It has two crystal oscillators. They can go bad or the voltage to them could be out of spec. Would need some electronics experience to fix that.
I always recommend checking my video descriptions as I often add more information and sometimes perks as well, and the only ones that can claim those perks are those that actually read the descriptions. ;-)
@@EspenKraft oh nice the ex5 has always been a dream synth of mine I picked up a Yamaha qs300 today I'm enjoying it so far I think I'm going to get a sy22 or 35 next😁
I got SY77 in the end of 1989. Then bought an SY22 as a secondary synth, but I found it boring after the SY77 and sold. IMO the vector "synthesis" isn't a synthesis just simple mixing of voices. Later bought SY99, EX5, MODX and now I have yet an TG500 and a RM50... these are excellent instruments, the SY22 is nowhere near them.
Personally I like the SY22 sounds, but I can see why it's not to everyone's taste. I've also been enjoying the honesty of your recent videos reviewing hardware. It's nice to see someone willing to voice an opinion rather than just conclude everything is "good".
Cheers!
I picked up one of these for about £80. It had two broken black keys. Replacement keys were about £3 each. Not too difficult to replace but I had to remove the keyboard and pull out the rubber strip at the back to release the faulty keys. When you do that they all start popping out. Once it was all back together it plays fine. I use it every Tuesday night in the pub it is very light sounds fine. I use a Behringer rotary pedal with the rock organ voice. A lot easier to carry than my DX7. Thumbs up from me.
Trade or throw? Neither, keep! I had a TG33 back in the day & loved the sounds….still do.
The SY22 will always have a place in my heart, as it was my very first "professional" synth. I bought it brand new in 1993, when I was only 16 years old. The main reason I bought it was that it was basically the only synth I could afford back then! :D It was on sale at my local music store and so I went for it. Good times! ;)
Back then I was 20, I had a Roland U20 but a wish I had bought the SY22, they had it a local Music Store, but though their prices were always very expensive and around a decade later they went out of business.
@@Venatt1 I've always wanted a roland U20, it's the ying to the Korg 01w's yang
@@Am71919 back in the day I wanted a 01W $2100 but just couldn’t afford it, so I got the U20 for $1000
@@Venatt1 I was in high school when the u20 came out, I couldn't afford it then, so I got a Yamaha PSS 460, outside of midi, it did everything the u20 and the 01 W did and then some, I just picked up a PSS 570 the other day, did a few videos on it, I'm going to do many more because that little synth can do soooooooooo much
I think SY22 is still the most expensive synth/sampler/xyz I've ever had. I planned to buy it with my summer job money, and while waiting for the summer to end Finnish mark was devaluated and the price went up from 4500 to 5500 FIM. Well, my father helped :)
Alongside with the Kawai K-1 and the Roland D-10 the Yamaha SY-22 forms the trinity of underrated budget digital "vintage"-synthesizers.
Why is vintage in quotes? lol
You forget the Roland D-5 ;-)
@@suadcokljat1045 But putting vintage in quotes implies that the SY22 is somehow not like 30 years old lol
@@TokyoScarab So only analog is pure vintage? Got your point ;-) Cheers!
@@suadcokljat1045 I'm not. I'm just saying vintage is based on time and not because it's analog or digital. What are you even talking about? lol
I own Dwayne Goettel from Skinny Puppy's slightly smashed SY22. It came loaded with a bunch of wonderfully nightmarish patches.
Another great video as always Mr. Kraft!
that is so awesome!!! i wonder what they sound like!!
Would you consider posting his patches online, or at least putting up a video demonstrating them? He was a sound programming genius, both with synths and samplers. A big fan of the SY77 as well from what I've read.
I'm a big fan of acquiring equipment from artists I like, so big ups to you!
Thanks!
@@chriswareham Sadly I lost them as at the time (20 years ago or so) I didn't know how to back them up and the memory card ran on a watch battery. I wrote Cevin Key on Patreon about a year ago to ask if he maybe had the patches backed up but he didn't have them either.
I did discover that by using the random function in the windows editor you could get in the ballpark of those sounds pretty easy after a couple of tries by messing with a few parameters.
Just wanna say it sounds really good to me. A nice distinct flavor from analog.
Oh, yes, multitimbral was something in the 90s, we didn't have money to buy a lot of synths and having one which could play a bass on one note, a pad with 6 notes and an ear-candy on another single note was realy a thing.
@gridsleep ? 🧐 In my time it was we did, different sounds from one cheap module. If you did have a big multitrack recorder you could do many things with layers but I didn't have such an expensive thing so I did that when I was 20. With a TX81z, a QX21, a juno1, a TR505, an 8 track mixing desk, a cheap Torque spring reverb and a cassette deck. 👨🏼🦳
F L H 3 is right, back in the 80s and 90s poor musos (most of us) used to try to get a few sounds out of one module. We would hook it up to an Atari ST, primitive Windows or Mac and control it that way. The programs on the computers were reffered as sequencers, not DAWs as there was no recording back then. You would record the stereo mix to cassette or maybe a WAV file if your computer could manage audio too!
Some of us still work this way ☺️
@@glenesisyep me! 😂
I will always keep mine because I brought it from Moby he used those strings all over his tracks.. I just recorded a track with it on my channel with the Analog four and Pro 3 the SY22 strings fit in perfectly right away.
Yayy! Good!
I totally agree - strings on SY22 sound real good and have tons of character.
I have to say I like the SY22. I ended up getting it in a 2 for 1 deal which included a Korg Microkorg. Got them both for $190 USD. Both were in mint condition. I got lucky with this deal. A few weeks later I ended up getting a mint SY77 for $100 USD. Not bad for deals within 1 month. Great video. 👍 👍👍👍👍
Cheers!
MOBY was all over this synth in the 90s. He once said 'Hi, I'm Richard Melville Hall and I am the Nineties'!
I like it. It sounds like low-budget early-90s cop show soundtracks you used to see on night time TV.
I like that idea, I just have other "lo-fi" synths I'd rather use for that soundtrack. ;-)
These were incredibly cheap to buy second hand, so I got one on a bit of a whim a few years ago. I found it way too limited in terms of programmability, and never found a use for the vector control - for me at least it seemed to be a useless gimmick. Sold mine and stuck with the "full fat" FM synthesis of the SY77.
I have the tabletop version (TG33). It was the first synth I purchased that could be considered 'professional'. I have found it works best when run through good external FX (internal are absolute crap) and sampled. The SY35, which is closer to the TG33, had better DA. I've sampled mine a lot and I've recently been converting my personal patches to work on the Korg Wavestate.
There are somethings the Yamaha got right, for example the Vector recording (which was more like a motion sequencer than an envelope) was superior, I think, to other vector synths that only let you have a simple 3 or 4 stage env.
In addition, there is editor software that lets you get in and actually modify the 2op FM synthesis parts. Without that, it's largely a preset box with very little control over the FM voices.
It's flawed, but it has an interesting niche in my studio.
"The SY35, which is closer to the TG33" >> The TG33 was actually based on the SY22...but with additional outputs and more polyphony.
Hi Is there a chance you'll sell me the SY samples plsase ?
The SY35 actually has a different sample set (not sure if all the samples are different, but some definitely are). It's still got some grit, but less than the SY22/TG33.
@@sauermusicDE but SY22 sounds pleasant .... TG33 more cold ... like TG77
@@infindebula I've once seen and heard SY35. I remember it sounding very high quality compared to SY22/TG33 (indeed different sample ROM and perhaps resolution, I don't recall that now). Also, it didn't sound interesting. Couldn't think of switching to SY35 for higher quality sound... It just got worse with SY55, all ROM samples (but: filter!). SY55 also has a sequencer, but IMO not enough memory (to record my acid tweaks).
My first ever Synth was a SY22 where I learned to program Sounds. It uses FM and Samples combined and could sound better with a good external chorus and reverb. The "Itopia" on this Synth sounds beautiful . Thank you for demonstrating ,cheers ;-)
Same here, my first synth. Swapped to TG33 later and won't sell it :)
The vector stick and the ability to record the vector movement are great, bought one for those reasons alone.
Me and my brother bought one around 1992. We still have it! :)
My school bought one at the same time as an Atari running Notator in 1990/91. It was useful for GCSE Music where you had to compose a piece of multi part music as part of the coursework. I remember it easily ran out of polyphony and started note grabbing. They also had a Yamaha V-50 (which was how I learned sequencing) a Yamaha RX7 and a 4 track Tascam portastudio, all underused by most people but for a few of us. It did the job to be fair, so some of these sounds were a pure nostalgia trip. Shouldn't there be an unspoken rule.... Never throw out a synthesizer! 🤣
The thumbnail is of course just for fun. I'd never throw out a piece of gear. I did trade it though. ;-)
First synth I ever played. My dad bought one a few years after it came out.
SY-22. One of my favorite digital synths.
The SY22 sounds good (in the "so bad it's good" way), but people nowadays ask too much for it.
Had a TG33. Regret selling it, to be honest. Some of the orchestral sounds were way ahead of more expensive ROMplers of the day and I managed to coax some good noises out of it using the vector recording plus the very limited, 2-op FM engine. Some of the presets are pretty great, too. I'm not sure that I'd use it as much now as I did back in the day but it has a few inimitable noises that would stand up in a contemporary context.
I have an SY22 and SY35. Along with the Wavestation, these had input from former Sequential staff. They've started going up in price recently. They were £100-120 synths, creeping up towards £300 now. But they were never expensive, more curiosities.
None of the people from Sequential worked on the SY22. I have this information from John Bowen himself.
I would be amazed at anyone who would buy a SY35 for £300.
my sy22 was £599 when new
The keybed was fantastic on these models. I really didn't need it but I regret selling my SY35 for that reason.
@@EspenKraft you are wrong. John Probably means tbat Josh Effe, Tony Dean and Chris Meyer did not work it (they were the original developers of the ProphetVS) but they did not work on the SY22 but neither on the Wavestation.
I had a tg33 since it first came out until about a year ago when i sold it and it took me almost a year of convincing myself to sell it. Mostly sold it to free up space as i wasn't using it as much as i used too. I too found it had a certain niche in my setup.
Very good sound, it was a very good introductory synth. Very good sound.
Reminds me of fact that I still have three SY35’s staring at me, that I have to clean and do some minor maintenance and repairs on.
In general I agree with the idea that there are instruments that are good but you just don't get the click using it. I've owned several SY-Series synths. The TG-55 and the TG-500 were not bad at all but I never found my way towards them and so I sold them again.The SY-77 and my TG-33 on the other hand have a save place in my collection.
I own a SY55 I bought more than 30 years ago, it still looks and works as the first day 🙂, much better than this model I suppose, although I use it mainly as a midi keyboard.
GX Dream is one of my all time favorite factory patches of all the synths I have owned over the last 30 years. :)
You never hear anything about the SY55. I was starting to think there was no such thing as an SY55 even though I own one.
Haha same! Love it and it never really gets mentioned almost like it’s been forgotten. I love the ethereal sounds like St Michael, Voyager and as well as the synbadbass, get lucky and sax sounds which are great for making 90s dance tracks
Still sounds beautiful as always.
Not only do I like the Sy22, but I really dig the HummingBird shirt. We have a lot of those birds here in Southern California. Thanks for bringing the SY22 to our attention - I may need to pick one up. I hope your trade goes smoothly Espen. :)
I love shirts with birds on them, although I don't wear many in my videos. Must be cool to have hummingbirds right outside your door. Where I live we have wolves and elks. ;-) The trade was done some time ago. When videos are published they're often not very new. ;-) The video description will tell what I got instead. Cheers
I had the chance and I took it. For ambient.. film or FX is very good. I was kinda sad... had to sell it in order to complete money for the new addition to come: An EX7. And is way better in every sound to SY22. So, I'm glad I made up my mind. Can't denie there's some nostalgy for that vector.. and some sounds. But I cover more with the EX7.
That vector control was a pretty neat way to gloss over the limitations of this synth. Truthfully though, I have a (admittedly much newer) consumer-grade Yamaha synth that can produce bigger and better sounds than this. Looking forward to seeing what you get in trade!
The trade is in the video description. ;-)
I just got a TG-33 and a few RAM cards and I'm loving it. Might not be the greatest synth ever made but it and the 22 were good value for the time.
If you like it or not depends only on your own needs, and what you make out of it. In general you cant say good or bad, just be creative! The joy Stick could never impress me.
I own a TG-33 myself, and even as someone who generally likes 80's and 90's digital synths that aren't trying to be analogs, I'd admit that this synth and the TG-33 have (broadly speaking) a narrower niche than most digital synths. I think a huge driving factor for that is that the PCM sample palette is quite slim and REALLY pushes the edge of the low end of sample quality/fidelity. This is far from the only synth that, in my opinion, had a great underlying engine but was simply too sparse in samples or underlying horsepower to really shine though (Fizmo and first-gen V-Synth come immediately to mind).
Me too!!!
Love that joystick!
The best thing about the sy22 was the scratch samples in the drum set. "Rockit". You should buy the synthesizer for that alone.
KEEP IT!
Seriously, I’ve been debating for nearly 20 years on getting a TG-33 module. I’ve had lots of opportunities, and I’ve never taken one. There’s no explanation for that. It is the only Victor synthesizer that has ever called out to me.
Of all the silly things that I’ve been darting around TH-cam and search up, it is whether or not this synthesizer or that module generates the waveform - oriented sound of a Yamaha electric grand piano. That’s not a reason to say yay or nay on anything, but it would almost be like the cherry on top to know that it does.
By the time of my comment, Espen, you probably have already swapped out this model for the one you were after. If I were you, I would’ve given it a second chance. Recent TH-cam demos have shown the SY models had it in them to rattle their analog polyphonic precursors.
Oh, it's long gone. I never look back. Gear come and go, they're just tools, not treasures. ;-)
If anybody should understand that position, Espen, it’s me. I definitely know about buying, selling and interchanging gear.
I like the sound of the SY22 personally!
Same here, as a PSB-FB i had to try it, but i liked the PVS and the Wavestation more.
I’m sure it will come to safe and welcoming hands… 😉😁
I think so too. :)
If you want to make similar sounds and have a joystick control, you could trade this one for the Wavestate. I bought mine a year ago and it's always fun, it has the kind of digital late 80s / early 90s sound that defines an era. Art of Noise, Pet Shop Boys, Jarre. And they are a lot cheaper brand new than many other boutique brands. I love Korg.
I find the looks of the Wavestate very off-putting. ;-)
This synth has a soul. I'm serious, try the randomize elements and vector and yo will see. Some voices that come out from that are out of this planet.
Love the sy22 our go to synth in our music back in 2005 😀
I wish I had NOT sold off all my synths from that time and era.. Oh how I regret it now in these uncertain times! I thought I heard some TG100 AWM2 presets in there! That Geewwnnn synth bass is unmistakable lol!
I almost bought one to try and get something close to the mighty Prophet VS... but got a Prophet VS instead. The strings sound good on this video for sure. Maybe through a decent preamp with decent effects unit, could take away some of the 'plastic'? Dwayne Goettel from Skinny Puppy made it work like a beast, apparently.
I got my TG33 at about the same time as Skinny Puppy released Last Rites. The sounds are all over it, even the drum kit through a much better reverb, is present. Pairing it with a good sampler has been key to it staying relevant in my setup. I'll build crazy layers in multimode and then sample the results with an Ensoniq EPS or EMU EIV. Then you get the filters that it unfortunately misses. This turns it into a whole different animal.
@@noisetheorem Was it 'Last Rites' it was used on most? Cool - thanks for the info.
@@joeltaylor2830 Oh yes. Its all over it.
I'm curious if the SY-22 has the same joystick midi capability as my TG-33. On my TG-33 the joystick can transmit its motion via MIDI CC so you can record the motion into a sequencer....or use it to control something else on the midi network. Need to review the manual. I have an opportunity to buy one of these locally for $75. I want to pair it with my TG33. I also have a TQ5 and want to pair it with a YS200. I love these "crappy" digital yamaha synths. You can have lots of fun by layering them and processing them with outboard.
I own an SY35 - better AD and more ROM waveforms. But to make these synths really come alive needs a decent external FX box. The sounds are a bit digital and "of their age" but a bit of effort getting into the vector programming really pays dividends. As a small side note, this makes a good master keyboard to play a Wavestation WS rack, adding the joystick functionality to the rackmount.
Wonder if a little reverb and chorus could bring it to life
Very good video I don’t know this synth very well. Thanks
Cheers!
The 22/33 layer well with other gear in a midi stack. They are inexpensive and complement an analog synth especially well.
Great performance 👍👍👍 Have a nice day and new week 😉 Greetings 😎
Basically the technology from the Prophet VS that was recycled in the KORG WS. I like both, but they may not be the right choice as your "only synth". Helps create some magic MIDIed together with your 01/W or TG55
There, it is that the presets of the time, with my patches, your opinion can change, maybe. 🙂 You can find my patches under my video "Yamaha TG33 (SY22/SY35) Patch Bliter".
Y22..sounds great..so owning it..this Synth..I am sure..it vl be an Asset for..All..Detailing of this Keyboard n Comparison..with similar Keyboard..by your channel..Very Useful..Nice..⛱️⛱️👍
Wavestation & VS are simply superior for vectoring no doubt...it's kinda interesting & hard to believe that Yamaha let korg get an edge on that aspect of synthesis technology...'cause personally I'd rather have an old brown original DX7 than have twenty-two SY-22's in the arsenal EK thanx again dude 😎
Well, even Korg is still a self owned Company today, it’s the same story as Apple, they got saved from death from a larger company that didn’t want them to die. We can thank Yamaha that Korg lived and got the chance to make some really wonderfull instruments along the path, and still exists today.
...not sure what your point is but korg wouldn't be & lucky they even are as so if it weren't for Yamaha lettin'em just show's how loyalty in the Japanese biz model work's dude
@@angelog.spicolaiii8021 I just ment what I said. It was Yamaha saving Korg as they were in trouble. They could have just enrolled their knowledge into their own business, as Korg is fairly small in comparison to Yamaha, but they didn’t. During the last 4 decades Korg have given much larger competitors a run for their money in cutting edge synth Technology.
Oooooo, floaty version of running up that hill.... 😃👍
You are wrong. The SY22 is not developed by Yamaha alone but also by the devteam led by Dave Smith. Originally the whole team was acquired by Yamaha before going to Korg (Yamaha owned parts of Korg back then)
No, I'm not. John Bowen was very explicit about that when I talked to him about it.
Way better than a CS80, in particular if you have to pay for it.
Nice cliffhanger! 😎 For me it sounds too 9% like a D-50, but what do I know... 😁
Thank you Espen, a great review as always, did I hear you play a bit of Kate Bush's Running up that hill, cheers from New Zealand.
Cheers!
Just thought I'd mention I ended up buying one of these off eBay (for the princely sum of £80) as a direct result of it being brought back into my consciousness by this video :) I guess it's true, there's no such thing as bad publicity.
SY synth are really good sounding.
I feel that those cheaper synthesizer from SY series are over-hyped. I've bought a cheap multitimbral FM workstation - the Yamaha V50 - for a fraction of what I would have to pay for a SY synth. The sound engine is enought to make modern sounding tracks.
I believe the Sy22 was made with Dave Smith based on the VS after Yamaha took over Sequential
According to John Bowen, no one from Sequential worked on the SY22.
The SY22 is whatever to me. That watch looks awesome, though. It wasn't in the description, so I'm wondering what kind it is.
It's a Parnis GMT.
Thats a beautiful watch Espen, what model is it?
It's a Parnis GMT.
Are you saying it sounds "cheap"? 😅 I think it does. I think you came out better with the DX9.
The outro tune you played reminds me of the theme to Profondo Rosso
It is that, just changed it here and there to avoid a "strike". ;-)
@@EspenKraft Cool! Definitely one of my favourite Goblin soundtracks.
Mine too.
Kinda surprised you didn’t throw it out considering how much enjoyment you seem to get from trolling people 🤣
I'm not a troll, I eat trolls though. ;-)
Gotta love the Kate Bush at 7:00
I had one…sold it, but wish I had it back. Lesson: Just keep everything.
The Wavestation was developed by Dave Smith and he also developed the SY35. But I guess Jon Bowen must have been part of the developing team.
Not according to John Bowen. None from Sequential worked on SY development.
@@EspenKraft th-cam.com/video/gz5KTuDnwvo/w-d-xo.html
I wouldn't part with my SY22. It was my first ever keyboard with full size keys, so I have an attachment to it.
Nostalgia is everything, I respect that.
Hi can anyone please help me - I cannot seem to transfer patches to my SY22 via sysex librarian. Is there a setting like on the D50 to initiate bulk loads onto the SY22? No internal or presets change after .syx or .mid file is sent :/
Check in setup if ex is ena
Seems to sound fatter than wavestation?
How much prices now for sy22?
reminds me of the "thin" sounds of a Kawai k1. not sure itd be worth much as a trade but i wouldn't consider throwing it
Sound-brother of Kawai K1 )
I Have One !!...NEED PARTD KEYS.. Anyone know where yo get them??
I reckon PSB used this (or its module equivalent) a lot in the 90s.
Isn't that what I say in the video? ;-)
@@EspenKraft You certainly did. That's what made me think. You identified the string sounds (if I remember) and I just wanted to add that I feel they used it extensively. I quite like the sounds - very clean sounding and clear. But not having filters is a killer. Given PSB are a synth duo who rely on the depth of their sound, I wonder if the blandness of synth sounds in the mid 90s didn't help them at that time.
Never throw synths away! Hopefully you were only joking ;-) Throwing synths away is like throwing books away 😳😱
It is of course a joke. I never throw anything. The video description has the full story.
@@EspenKraft I have however said to my family to bury me with a synth. Maybe a DX7 🤣. Hopefully not for at least another 30 years! By the way, I mentioned to one of my Norwegian colleagues about the ‘stuffed relative’ thing you once mentioned, and he was perplexed!!
You obviously didn't watch that JX-08 video to the end then? Always watch my videos to the end.
is there anywhere to download these patches for the SY22?
I have no idea.
I have one of these too. I mostly use it as a midi controller as most of the sounds aren't great there is an odd on or two. but to be fair mines I onlyy got the set of presets I got no internal sounds on it. it is nice enough to look at but plasticky as you say and cheap feel...because it is cheap :) but still it is not utter crap. I heard worse.
What's the difference between the SY22 and SY35?
SY22 is 12-bits where the SY35 is 16-bits. There are other differences as well. A quick Google search get you there fast.
I've got an SY22 but i can't really use it anymore, it's seemingly gone out of tune somehow and i don't know how to retune it. Kind of a shame since i really like how it sounds.
maybe a factory reset could help ?
The utility menu has Master Tune and Transpose settings. If the individual voices settings have been altered the utility menu also has a Voice Initialize function that will rest the parameters of the current voice.
@@robb1165 Ahhh, alright i'll see if changing master tuning fixes it
@@ryel4189 If it is too far out of tune for the voice reset and master tuning then it might have an electrical issue. The service manual is still available online. It has two crystal oscillators. They can go bad or the voltage to them could be out of spec. Would need some electronics experience to fix that.
@@robb1165 Don't think i need to do that, retuning it worked. Also thanks a lot for the info!
Is this the synth that the late Dave Smith worked on?
According to John Bowen, no one from Sequential worked on the SY series.
@@EspenKraft Thanks
Profondo rosso ? At the start of the vid
It is. I've just taken some liberties with it to avoid a strikeout.
Profondo Rosso! ❤️
Can you do Phenomena?
I do horror themes occasionally. I have top-10 horror themes video with more Italian composers.
Thanks this review maybe trade it for a DX 100
What I traded it for is in the video description. ;-)
@@EspenKraft ok I guess I better pay better attention 😆
I always recommend checking my video descriptions as I often add more information and sometimes perks as well, and the only ones that can claim those perks are those that actually read the descriptions. ;-)
@@EspenKraft ok 👍 I will pay attention better lol
Trade or throw? I'd say keep
Did the trade.
@@EspenKraft what is your opinion on the sy 85?
Don't have one. Never used it. I had the EX5 that was great though. That's the last workstation type synth I had.
@@EspenKraft oh nice the ex5 has always been a dream synth of mine I picked up a Yamaha qs300 today I'm enjoying it so far I think I'm going to get a sy22 or 35 next😁
If you have one and don't like it, just send it to me!
Already gone.
I got SY77 in the end of 1989. Then bought an SY22 as a secondary synth, but I found it boring after the SY77 and sold. IMO the vector "synthesis" isn't a synthesis just simple mixing of voices. Later bought SY99, EX5, MODX and now I have yet an TG500 and a RM50... these are excellent instruments, the SY22 is nowhere near them.
TQ5 FTW.
Parnis Pepsi GMT Homage 40mm w/ non-jubilee band
Someone told me that Dave smith designed this which didn't make sense
He didn't.
Give me that Yamaha ;)
Best thing about it is the digital sound. Otherwise it is pretty meh.
If you not traded it already I would trade you SY 55. Just an hour away :D
Trade is done some time ago. Videos are always old when they're published.
Sounds nice why would you want to get rid of it lol. ;-)
Sometimes the love isn't there as I say in the video and I have other tools that are better suited to the job. That's what synths are, tools. ;-)
I dont think its a throw if you have a corner keep it.
I never throw synths of course, it was just a joke thumbnail to illustrate mye point of not liking the synth. It's been traded off.