Being creative – Polycheesy GX-800
This guy knows how to save some bucks 
No normal man can afford to own the synth of all synths: the Yamaha GX-1. So I decided to get creative. This is what I came up with It’s a Yamaha CSY-1, Yamaha’s first organ with an integrated analog synth. It actually contains GX1 technology. I made the synth fully programmable and exchanged the lower keyboard for a Korg Poly 800 . So now this isntrument contains an organ,a fully programmable monosynth with aftertouch and a polyphonic synth! This is just an improvisation but it gives an impression of what the isntrument can do.
The Polycheesy name comes from the row of yellow modulation wheels on the programmer. Bad joke, I know.
The GX-1 on the other hand was Yamaha’s first big polyphonic analog synth, and it was a beast! Considered the predecessor to the CS-80 (another huge poly-synth), the GX-1 featured a triple-tiered keyboard, pedalboard, ribbon controller, eight polyphonic voices, chromed pedestals and a $50,000+ price tag! OK, so it wasn’t designed for your everyday musician – less than 10 were ever made and have been owned mostly by legendary synth/keyboard players including Keith Emmerson, John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin, Stevie Wonder, Rick Wright of Pink Floyd, George Fleury, Richard James of Aphex Twin, Benny Andersson of ABBA, and Hans Zimmer who bought Keith Emerson’s.
Although it may look like an organ at first glance, it’s all analog heaven inside! The two main keyboards have 61 (velocity sensitive!) keys each, and are supplemented by a smaller (3/4 scale, pressure sensitive) 37-note keyboard and a 25-note pedalboard at your feet – 184 keys total! Eight voices of polyphony plus an additional monophonic are available and can be shared and layered or split up among the different keyboards. There are also organ-style drawbars and a ribbon controller for tweaking the sounds. Additional programming buttons are hidden away under drawers and panels on the front-panel.
The GX-1 used two analog oscillators per voice which are pretty much the same one’s used later in the CS-80, along with a mild 2-pole VCF filter, standard LFO and some ADSR envelopes. The GX-1 also had two “swell” pedals and a spring-loaded knee controller. It was truly a lush synth for its time, and its frequent use by many rock-legends helped cement its place in history as well as pave the way for the legendary CS-80.
Please note that there are no built-in speaker in the GX-1 as with many other organs, they are external. See the speakers on each side on the photo.
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