Yamaha RX5 Drum Machine - a detailed demo and tutorial

We present a detailed demo and tutorial of the RX5, Yamaha's flagship drum machine from the 1980s. It is often overlooked in comparison to the better known Roland drum machines of the era, but it is a classic in its own right with its own sound and feel. We go over its many features for making patterns, songs, and creating and editing your own sounds using the built in PCM waveforms or addition waveforms from a ROM cartridge.

00:00 Intro
00:10 History of the RX5
00:42 Basic Presentation
02:34 Working with patterns
09:42 Creating songs
13:36 Key Assign features
15:25 Edit Voice features
20:00 Working with external ROM sounds

Some of our music videos that feature the RX5:

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[ymotechnopopfan]

This and the Yamaha RX-11/15 are soooo underrated.

[Shred_The_Weapon]

There has been an RX5 sitting in the apartment where I live as of March 2024 since before I got here in Dec. 2010. It doesn’t have a power supply, unfortunately. The consolation is that I have a different Yamaha device, the DTX Multi 12, which I enjoy playing with my hands and is loaded with RX tones. Retro city.

[mrbungledisco]

Best tutorial on YouTube for this device, thank you!

[alexreis]

Thanks for this, bought a RX5 recently and this is the best tutorial on youtube!

[johnnydiamondsmusic]

I have one. Once you have recorded the drums on separate tracks and using eq and effects it really starts to sound awesome in the mix.

[breadbarn]

You're a lifesaver! Really appreciate the in-depth tutorial as I've been trying to navigate Song Mode on my RX7.

[nkryptedmusic]

Great in depth video. "Let's go wild with the pitch!" 🙂

[minecraftavatarofhunterbiden]

Coool video my guy! Thank u for creating! Awesome awesome machine 😊

[devingademan]

Excellent and fun to watch video. Thank you for sharing! Yamaha RX Series rocks! I have to make a few more videos about this unit for my channel and I hope to record them soon. It is one of the most fun drum machine to play around with and it sounds great! :)

[a_nick_t]

My favorite drum machine. Good demo! 😎👍🏼

[wehappyfewmusic]

Thanks very much for making such a detailed tutorial on the RX5, I’ve got one arriving tomorrow! How long did it take you to get your head around using it?

[jovancurry]

Thanks for this great guide! This past week I’ve been debating on purchasing an RX5 or RX11 myself to create some nice 80’s sounding tracks 😊

[arturobrisindi]

Just got one of these for $50! Can’t wait to get into it.

[FlatG]

One of my first drum machines i got for cheap when I was a teenager. Pretty lacking in the bass frequencies, but to make up for that it has some really cool editing abilities. Really cool to pitch down the crash cymbals like 2400% for some very awesome special effects! 😀

[Gatopanzon_]

just got one a month ago! thanks for the tutorial :)

[chrismossy]

This drum machine was used by Aha on every song on the album "Stay on these roads"!
Sometimes I wonder why they didn't use other ones as well to get some variation. On previous albums they used extremely pricey gear such as the Fairlight sampler so the RX5 was a quite cheap and "simple" choice.
Though they use various sounds, the high hat sound is the same on most songs except "This alone is love"/"The Blood that moves the body/"Hurry home". "Out of blue comes green" has the best overall combination of sounds including latin perscussion . But the snare on "Touchy" is too lame and cheesy and is the same snare used in the cheaper RX17 which I owned as a teenager. The high hat was also the same and I was quite surprised but also a bit proud that Aha used the same sounds as I had on my own drum machine.

These old drum machines make me feel nostalgic as I grew up with these sounds and also worked in a music store where I could try all kinds of gear which at that time was very expensive and had an aura of alien high tech. I have no interest in today's tech which all seems like plastic toys despite the better sound quality.

The late 80s was a golden era with amazing revolutionary keyboards with new features such as the Roland D50, the multi-timbral D10, Korg M1 and so on.

If you own the RX5, you will love the "Stay on these roads" album! Please take listen!

[iixorb]

Great - thanks 😊. I have had an RX7 for years which I never really got into but want to soon. I guess much of this translates for the RX7 ?

[Juliana_So_Unique]

This sounds like an Oberheim DX but with more options.

[anyme]

Some of these comments are cruel I thought this was a great video 😊

[TayWoode]

I’ve got the RX7 the cheaper version, the only difference is it only has stereo outputs so you have to get the levels correct before, but it has 100 voices instead of 24 and has a effect to apply a different pan tune and level to a voice up to 4 times like a multi tap delay instead of the reverse effect on the RX5. I never understood why this was the flagship except just for the outputs and so much more expensive