Yamaha Reface CS

Ever since my childhood, I was obsessed with the sound of old-school analog synths. Especially 70s prog, Minimoog, Yes, ELP and so on. Back in the early 2000s, getting those sounds seemed unattainable for me, so I put it off. Recently, I decided to revisit my passion and the Reface CS delivered beautifully. I can dial in pretty much any 70s sound easily, and it's enormously satisfying. Hard to believe that such a compact package can be so versatile. It also neatly fits on the top of my Roland VK-7 without any mounting.

Besides the 70s monosynths, it can do 80s poly beautifully too. I gravitate towards rock and pop from that era and after a year and a half, I'm yet to find a retro analog synth sound that I cannot satisfyingly recreate with the CS. It's very inspiring, addictive and plain FUN. I always find myself experimenting and jamming with it. Hard to put down at the end of a session.

I was a bit skeptical in regards torwards buying this synth, however I must admit I was surprised by it's amazing potential. What this synth will give you that other won't is simple:
- Great controls
- Good quality sound
- The 2 speakers are a welcoming addition
- You can create anything because of the freedom of the controls

Considering that there are no presets with this synth (Which can be both a good or a bad thing) I was hoping to be able to store my own presets, which you can, but you need an Apple based product to do so, and since I own a Samsung, I can not store any of my previously made sound combinations, so at time it might be hard for you to remember how exactly you made a specific sound.
However, this synthesizer is not meant for such performances, this synth is intended for you to have maximum creative options and be able to manipulate the sound in any shape or form for your pleasing.
Overall, I highly recomend this synth, considering the price and the quality that you are getting for what you have paid for.

As you might have imagined by the pictures and the price, the keys are plastic and the sound coming out of the reface speakers is simply bad.

One would think that the sound generated from this device is just as toy-like. But they'd be wrong.

For most of us, the crappy keyboard and low quality speakers were never necessary in the first place - but then how would Yamaha attract attention towards yet another module? I guess they tried to be quirky, and frankly, thanks to the mobility of the device, I've started to carry it while travelling just to play it whenever I get bored. And at the end of the day, I'm glad they took the decision to include these cheap peripherals.

While I can't describe sound with words, I would say that this is sitting next to a Moog One and a Prophet, and it's still seeing use. The limited knob space is brilliantly utilised by having one knob do several different things depending on your choice of oscillator, for example.

This cute little gadget would be my recommendation to anyone trying to learn subtractive synthesis quickly. It just fits so much power into such a small package. As for people who already own quite a few synths - it really depends on what synths you already have in your studio, and whether you're a fan of the oldschool Yamaha sound. As for me, this will be sitting on top of my desk for the foreseeable future.

The Yamaha Reface series is astonishing.
This little synth is very powerful, sounds great and is packed with a lot of interesting features (even though I will list some things I wish Yamaha would have done).

What I like:
- the sound: it sounds great and it feels very organic. You can get a lot of well-known 80s sounds, ranging from big lushful saw waves pads to chunky fm basses.
- it's fun and easy to use: even if you know nothing about synthesis, it is very funny to mess around with the faders and, surprisingly, most of the times you end up with good sounding presets just adjusting faders randomly and listening :D
- it's cheap and practical: let's be honest, it doesn't get much better than this in this price tag. If you're in a studio and you have plugins, there might be cheaper options, but if you play in a band or just want a physical synthesizer, it is a very good option for a budget.
- the app: the Soundmondo app comes in handy to save presets. Also, you can use it live to change sounds fast.
- comes with midi and therefore you can connect it to another synth or keyboard to control it.

What could be better:
- the app is only compatible with browsers and iOS devices, not Android. The browser app is slow and therefore not usable live and the mobile app, while good, is only available in iOS devices.
- only one envelope: the synth has only one envelope and a "mix" fader, that lets you control how much of the envelope affects the volume and how much of it affects the filter.
- you need a midi adapter, sold separately, to use the midi of the keyboard.

All in all, it is a veeeery good synth, at a cheap price. I recommend it a lot, especially if you want to use it live and not use computers which, as we know, fail when you need them the most.