Got a EX5!

[EB5AGV]

Well, sometimes things align as they should

I had found a nice EX5, with SCSI board and in pretty good shape some months ago, but it was far from my home and seller nor me were eager to risk shipping it.

But today I had to come to a town close to Madrid and the seller has driven some extra hundreds km to meet me. Of course I have not yet been able to play it, as I had other things to do, but it is a really nice unit and it will sure complement my keyboard setup

So, yes, I am a happy camper today

Jose

[Saul]

Congrats on your new purchase Jose. No secret that most of us think the EX5 is a fantastic keyboard and so much better than the Motif range that followed.

[Derek]

Congrats. It is still one of Yamaha's best. Very deep. Be sure to check out the FDSP patches in the P2 bank, such as VFEX (note and velocity independent flanging), Silver Lake (watery tinkling) and Futopia (one of my favourites). And then of course the VL patches at the end of the bank. The EX5 is still the only synth in the world with FDSP onboard.

Don't forget http://ex5tech.co.uk/ for a plethora of free sound resources that will keep you busy until you are old and grey!

The free MarcE sound banks over at http://www.marce-music.com/index.html are highly recommended.

[Rara]

Nice
Your building up quite a studio.
I have not seen or heard an EX5 in person or online,
except for the what I heard in Derek's "mist on silk road". I must go look now.

Rara

[Derek]

Hi, Rara

If you have not heard the EX5, and like to listen to something different, then there is a plethora of free songs over at MarcE’s Website (which i put together to celebrate his patches and the music, and to be a launch point for his own music).

http://www.marce-music.com/tributesAbout.html

The quick story is that MarcE was a very prolific sound programmer for the EX5 (amongst others), and gave all of his excellent patches away for free. Around 2001 he became very ill, announced it on EX5Tech with a final patch collection called THE END, and sold all of his gear.

This made a lot of us over at EX5Tech web site very sad, and I organised some sonic tributes to give MarcE something back. The stipulation was that each song had to use at least one of MarcE’s patches, so with the tributes you can guarantee you are listening to the EX5!

The tributes ran for about 5 years until we had decided that had run their course.

The good news is that MarcE did recover enough to get back into music again.

[Rara]

Thanks for the tip Derek,
I have been listening, a lot of talent and lot of nice music, (much more to get through)
marce-music page is wonderful with all that dedication and tributes to Marce I hope he's doing well where ever he is
Certainly a nice and deep sounding synth, I can't believe I missed it completely.

Rara

[Derek]

Hi, Rara

The EX5 is one of Yamaha's best, but suffered a lot as it was released just as the internet was taking off, so there was a lot of public dissent (more so then ever possible before) regarding some design flaws that marred it (stupidly slow SCSI load speed, DSP resource limitations in performance mode - not present in Voice mode, etc.). And of course the internet made all of the dissatisfaction more public than ever before. Yamaha got stung by that (along with the failure of the FS1r - the world was not ready for an 8 op FM synth with voice formants that was even harder to program than a DX7!), and the Motif range was the start of the dumbing down as they started playing it safe. Thankfully, the Montage shows signs of the recovering their mojo.

But if you listen to the EX5 and its sonic power, you forgive its flaws, and MarcE was a genius at drawing out its power. And those songs you are listening to are an amazing showcase of its versatility and his patch programming prowess.

MarcE is doing fine now, thanks for asking. We keep in occasional touch. He is now following his dream doing solo concerts like the following (very heavily influenced by certain electronic music pioneers, who should need no introduction, when you listen to the music).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXlxFDRtElo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AFvjBJxdWk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlx5gWQIefg

Analogic Synthism Channel

[Rara]

Hi, Rara

But if you listen to the EX5 and its sonic power, you forgive its flaws, and MarcE was a genius at drawing out its power. And those songs you are listening to are an amazing showcase of its versatility and his patch programming prowess.

MarcE is doing fine now, thanks for asking. We keep in occasional touch. He is now following his dream doing solo concerts like the following (very heavily influenced by certain electronic music pioneers, who should need no introduction, when you listen to the music).

Thanks for the links, he has a new follower
no intro to the influences needed, I know who they are, i am reminded of one live gig of one of them,
where they where sitting on the floor playing away with a mirror above them
I have been reading pages on EX5, one person saying the SCSI load was 24 minutes for 64Mb
which is surprisingly slow I think that can be overlooked if an internal drive can be put in.
I read the EX5R can have an internal SSD. fascinating instrument I imagine quite a while before I set eyes on one.

Rara

[EB5AGV]

I have just found a recently updated WEB, plenty of interesting EX5 demo sounds and information, from a longtime owner:

http://www.kamodamusic.com/synth/Ex5.htm

Rara, you need one!

Jose

[Rara]

Good page with info there. There is a good distorted or overdrive guitar
patch on there Gt:KunimotoneH but why why play that
it's like walking into a music store and hearing someone play sweet child'o'mine riff

I know I need one, don't tease me

Rara

[EB5AGV]

This comment on than WEB makes me wonder:

EX5 with ASIB1 can load samples from Akai CD-ROMs

Does this mean I could use the EX5 with the 500+ CD-ROMs of AKAI samples I got with my AKAI S5000 some weeks ago?

Of course, samples alone are just that, samples. But, well, with such a huge set, for sure something should be interesting!. I see some hard work ahead

BTW my unit has the SCSI interface board and 64MB of RAM expansion. It has not FLASH RAM but this will be soon solved by adding a Sector101 FLASH upgrade

Jose

[Derek]

Hi, Rara

But if you listen to the EX5 and its sonic power, you forgive its flaws, and MarcE was a genius at drawing out its power. And those songs you are listening to are an amazing showcase of its versatility and his patch programming prowess.

MarcE is doing fine now, thanks for asking. We keep in occasional touch. He is now following his dream doing solo concerts like the following (very heavily influenced by certain electronic music pioneers, who should need no introduction, when you listen to the music).

Thanks for the links, he has a new follower
no intro to the influences needed, I know who they are, i am reminded of one live gig of one of them,
where they where sitting on the floor playing away with a mirror above them
I have been reading pages on EX5, one person saying the SCSI load was 24 minutes for 64Mb
which is surprisingly slow I think that can be overlooked if an internal drive can be put in.
I read the EX5R can have an internal SSD. fascinating instrument I imagine quite a while before I set eyes on one.

Rara

Hi. Yes SCSI was way too slow. 10 mins for 16MB (as much as I have ever done!). Sadly having an SSD will not change that, but of course will be neater than an external drive. If you wish to do this you need to find an EX5 with an ASIB1 interface (or find the interface separately, but they are pretty rare). Slow load speed is best mitigated by 16MB FLASH upgrade which retains its contents when you power down (so you only do the slow load when you wish to change the contents). Sector 101 (or very own Brian) does new FLASH kits if your EX5 does not have it, but you still need the ASIB1 card.

Glad you like the music, slight OT diversion, but worth drawing attention to!

[Derek]

This comment on than WEB makes me wonder:

EX5 with ASIB1 can load samples from Akai CD-ROMs

Does this mean I could use the EX5 with the 500+ CD-ROMs of AKAI samples I got with my AKAI S5000 some weeks ago?

Of course, samples alone are just that, samples. But, well, with such a huge set, for sure something should be interesting!. I see some hard work ahead

I believe that is the case, but you will need to build the Waves that use the Samples.

[DrSynth]

Nice
Your building up quite a studio.
I have not seen or heard an EX5 in person or online,
except for the what I heard in Derek's "mist on silk road". I must go look now.

Rara

The EX5 is some ways is still the most sophisticated synth Yamaha has ever made. It was the Kronos of it's time... multiple synth engines, huge timbral palette, lots of on board controllers.

As Derek noted, it's 'failure' was under-spec'd hardware. But still a fantastic sounding synth. I often get this -> <- close to buying one but never pull the trigger.

Truly a fun board to be involved with the dev and voicing, esp the FDSP engine which was a precursor to the current digital 'bit manipulator' audio-munching plug ins.

Manny

[Derek]

Fully agree with all of that, Manny.

Underspecified DSP resource for Performance mode was a key issue - Voice Mode is fine.

You really must try harder in bagging one!!

And the reason I went to the dark side in 2014 with my Kronos was because I wanted a modern day EX5, but Yamaha did not have one.

But I Love the Montage as well now.