Bad Gear - Yamaha SY-22 - The Soundtrack Machine

You want full tracks, extended jams, sample packs, confidential information about gear featured in the next episode, vocoder shoutouts and/or general awesomeness? Become a Patron!!!

Chapters:

00:00 Intro tune
01:19 Overview
05:25 Hate
05:51 Jam 1
06:48 Jam 2
07:58 Finale
08:29 Verdict

Welcome to Bad Gear, the show about the world's most hated audio tools. Today we are going to talk about the Yamaha SY-22 Dynamic Vector Synth. Why is this soundtrack machine with a joystick not as popular as its sibling, the Korg WaveStation?

[tristancaver]

Lmao!. That "Moby" is aging better than I imagined.

[designhappens]

1990 Korg Wavestation ad: "A synthesizer that will make waves beyond the year 2000"...How true!

[craigie]

The way you're going you'll be going through my whole studio. My SY22 was my first ever full size keyboard. Still love it.

[fortyeth]

I used to be a volunteer Youth Services Worker and our department held travelling music workshops for 12-24 year olds around the county I live in. We had an SY-22, along with an Alpha Juno 1 and a Kawai K1 that we took on the road and the SY-22 was the most popular keyboard with the kids because it attracted their attention with the joystick and got them interested in learning more. It could in the day perform well and was surprisingly rugged on tour (sometimes kids got over excited using it!)

[TrazomGV]

Well, whoever lived in these years when this synth was released must understand that enormous joy and excitement these machines produced in every young musician who was raising along with the technological development of keyboards. Musical trends strongly followed those novelties, pop-groups introduced many iconic instruments almost immediately in their brand new songs and young keyboardist like me watched very carefully what gear they use in videospots and live tv-shows. I owned Yamaha DX21, replaced it with Kawai K4 (very good synth), Yamaha V50 and additionaly I purchased SY77 that I posess even today. The main point is that almost every keyboard of middle class price, so to put it, can be very useful in hands of creative player who has time enough to dig and explore capacities of sound synthesis. Clever musical thinking in line with elementary production skills can make unbelievably a lot using nonexpensive equipment, low entry keyboards and cheap second-hand digital multitrackers, all you need is time for organizing the job and a bit of planning making music.

[NateHorn]

"The SY22 has a joystick therefore is ticking ALL the boxes" YES

[drsamurai]

I have the TG-33 and it pulls off a very good Solina String machine sound with it's samples, detuning motion and effects. Definitely more than the sum of it's parts. Being Multi-timbral is a big bonus. I wish more modern synths would include this option. With a Seaboard, I can pull of some great individual note poly pitch bends playing the same patch over several Multi slots. Very expressive.

[Mechanicoid]

Lofi samples, FM sounds, Dune and Lawnmower Man clips? It's like you're reading my mind!

[keykrazy]

"If you grew up playing this [shows image of Atari 2600 console] you need to schedule a colonoscopy."

Thank you for keeping Safety First, AudioPilz! ;-) (No kidding: i've just scheduled my first physical exam in a few years and came back here to comment. As silly as this is, i really do appreciate that reminder as i'd been putting it off for a while.)

[AlexBallMusic]

If you're into joysticks, the Korg Sigma had _two_ back in 1979. Pioneers. 😜

On a serious note- The SY22 is interesting because Yamaha acquired Sequential, asked them what they'd build and then let them go and built it without them. Quite an odd one.

[lagooncity]

A thing that gets overlooked a lot with the SY-22/TG-33 is that the joystick defaults to the same CC numbers as a Wavestation, so you can pair it with a Wavestation SR and control them both at the same time with a single joystick, plus use it to program vectors in the SR. So the SR fills in a lot of the shortcomings in the SY/TG's multi mode and the SY/TG helps make up for the SR not having a joystick.

EDIT: Also the joystick works in multi mode on the TG-33, but only for one patch at a time.

[cooptrol]

My first 💕❤💕❤💕❤ I was so happy in the 90s playing with this joystick, didnt even know what FM was.. And I am a Skinny Puppy fan and never knew they used one!! Would have never sold it!!

[dreamingone]

Had the 33. It sat in a mix in its own space nicely. It could do some really dark stuff if misused creatively. And thank you to all the saints that make free midi editors for the elderly boards.

[KRAFTWERKK]

I had this little goldnugget back in 2009 and till this day i think it has one of the most impressive church organ sounds. It also felt a bit like it wanted to be a digital version of the CS80 and there was even a preset on board which i often used that had this CS80 kind of swelling brass Vangelis sound. Playing with the vector stick and making pads become alive and in motion, was really fun. This thing made me wanna get a Roland D50 and when i got it i sadly had to part from my SY22 for space reasons but i still look back at it very fondly :) It also had an amazingly playable keyboard. I liked the keyboard on the SY22 a bit more than the keys on the D50.

[gasolineandwine]

Found myself, quite literally, lol'ing with this one a few times. Also, I honestly loved the tones and textures this synth delivered. Really ballsy bass tones too.

[johnnythreshold]

Am in the uni library (just went back to school) and I FULLY forgot it was friday until the notification. No even watched yet and am jazzed :). thanks as always man!

[michaelgonzalez]

This has become my favorite show of all time!!! Thank you for all that you do!

[We.Are.Lockhart]

Yamaha SY22, Kawai K1 and Roland D-10 are the trinity of underrated budget digital synthesizers.

[rachelar]

From 2.23, "the stuff that 80s soundtrack film students dreams were made of" is exactly me in 92.That sound... Echoing on, like a Sylvian ambient intro/extro blew my mind and had me serenading my then love interest over the top. Like the dream it sounded, it couldn't last....

[matrixx]

@8:20 sounds great. you do an amazing job of making these synths sound great!