Yamaha’s CS-80 is among the most sought-after synthesizers in the world. Released in 1977 and used most famously by Vangelis on the original soundtrack for Blade Runner (1982), it’s revered for its expressive playability and incredible sound. Any synth nerd looking to pick one up should check out this listing on Reverb, which slashes the price of a second-hand CS-80 by a whopping $61,227. Does it make it any more affordable?…Eh.

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The savings bring the price down by exactly 50 per cent to $61,227. It’s definitely a luxury purchase, but you’ll be getting a bona fide piece of vintage synth history. Polyphonic aftertouch, a rich, warm and beefy analogue sound engine with a dual-layer voice architecture, and deep patch editing parameters all make this legend the king of pads and cinematic sounds.

Speaking to Electronics & Music Maker magazine in 1984, the late Vangelis said that the CS-80 was “the most important synthesizer” in his career.

“And for me the best analogue synthesizer design there has ever been,” he added. “It was a brilliant instrument, though unfortunately not a very successful one. It needs a lot of practice if you want to be able to play it properly, but that’s because it’s the only synthesizer I could describe as being a real instrument, mainly because of the keyboard — the way it’s built and what you can do with it.”

And speaking to us in 2022, Imagine Dragons’ Wayne Sermon said: “I had the chance to buy a CS-80 a while back for a great price. And I didn’t pull the trigger, and I regret it so much. Now, they’ve doubled in price. It’s just the coolest, most expressive, most impractically designed instrument ever conceived.”

Maybe we should drop him a message.

CS-80 alternative?

If you’re looking to keep the budget a little lower, we can recommend the Cherry Audio GX-80 plugin, which is currently discounted by 16 per cent on Plugin Boutique for Cyber Weekend. It emulates not only the CS-80, but also the Yamaha GX-1.

In our review of the GX-80, we said: “It’s an incredibly powerful instrument, not least because it’s actually two huge synths in one, and that means a lot of controls to contend with. This isn’t a criticism – you wouldn’t expect to buy a massively powerful piece of kit and breeze through it in an hour – and indeed you are quite free to just change the odd thing here and there and still get amazing results.”

Looking for more Cyber Weekend deals on music gear? Check out our guide to the best deals we’ve found so far. 

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