Yamaha E-70, E-50 and E-30 Electone organs ad #2, Contemporary Keyboard 1980

Yamaha E-70, E-50 and E-30 Electone organs ad #2 from page 9 in Contemporary Keyboard Magazine June 1980.

This rare advertisement only ran once or twice in Contemporary Keyboard in mid-1980. Which is common for Yamaha. After the initial ad for the E-series ran semi-regularly from November 1977 to July 1978, Yamaha didn't run ads for these organs too often. The second ad didn't start running until a year after that first one stopped, and then only ran four or five times over the next year and a half, with the last one appearing in January 1981.

Then, it was four months later that this ad finally showed up. Unlike the second ad, which had no reference-like ad-copy at all, this third ad finally provided readers with a few more details about what this beast was capable of. And it begins with a large font and very clear language. 1. It's an Organ! 2. It's an Orchestra!

The black and white close-up images that accompany these two tag lines highlight these two features of the organ nicely, and the ad-copy goes on to explain some of the more musical features of the presets. And one of the first things Yamaha tries to get across to readers is that when the orchestra presets are "combined with the Flute section, musical marriage takes place on the incredible Electone consoles".

Interestingly, friend of the blog and fearless E-70 organ enthusiast "FlameTopFred" (I'm going to lose the quotes around his name from now on), made a similar statement in a recent email exchange concerning comparisons between the E-70 and CS-80.

"When using the orchestral presets, a key feature is being able to bring in some of the flute sounds (Flute on Electone is really a Hammond clone type of drawbar sound). This gives you an additional bank of Hammond tones that can be quite useful. The CS-80 was great - but it was missing that bank of flute (Hammond) tones. "

I'm starting to think that maybe FlameTopFred wrote this ad... :o)

The one area that I feel Yamaha could have really made these ads punchier is by adding colour. The close-up photo of the E-70's orchestra buttons that you see in all their gray-shaded glory, are actually bright white, red, yellow and green in real life. Colour would have really made the ad pop.

In the E-70 manual I found online, it describes the colour-coding:

White: Flute. Red: Brass. Yellow: Stings. Green: Synthetic tones.

Looking at the orchestra buttons in the ad, it was all lining up nicely except the last two buttons. Rather than saying "synthetic" or "synth" on the preset buttons, Yamaha decided to go with "Funny 1" and "Funny 2". What...? Maybe this is why synthesizer enthusiasts have a history of not getting along with organ enthusiasts. :o)

And after seeing those "Funny 1" and "Funny 2" buttons, I was even more curious about the sounds of the E-70 and its comparison to the CS-80. The preset buttons certainly looked similar.

I turned to FlameTopFred for expertise in this matter. He has owned both, picking up his E-70 in part because he also thought those buttons looked mighty similar too. He bought his E-70 for $150 in 2008, and the more he played with it, the more he kept coming across sounds that resembled his CS-80 synthesizer.

"When people say the E-70 is not a CS-80 I remind them that most of the useful sounds on the CS-80 came from using the preset buttons and then using the panel controls for the resonance, the aftertouch and so on - - - you can do some of that on the E-70. No - they are not identical, but certainly very close and for $150 the E-70 is an inexpensive sound-alike for many musical applications. The E-70 is a remarkable instrument - and one that I think has been overlooked by synth aficionados.

Funny I and Funny II are very close to the Funky I and Funky 2 sounds [of the CS-80]. Violin on the E-70 was close to the Strings 1 sound on the CS-80. Trombone and Trumpet were close to the Brass sounds on the CS-80."

When asked specifically about the different presets and which sound most musical, FlameTopFred commented:

"For the wild filter sweep sound, it would be Funny I or Funny II, the two green buttons on the far right. From the red buttons, Trombone and Trumpet were very useful. Harpsichord and Banjo were good sound for bright, fast attack sounds. Clarinet was also quite good as a triangle or sine wave sound. Kinura at first listen was awful, but was one of the best for using the filter (Brilliance) control.

Just as on the CS-80, between the octave buttons and the filter (Brilliance) control, there is a range of useful sounds from each orchestral button. And because you can combine those together (by coupling the Lower Manual sounds to the Upper Manual) there are sometimes very useful and musical blends using sounds that might not normally work on their own.

The CS-80 was also like this - and people forget that. Most of the time on the CS-80 you're staring with one of the presets and working the other controls on the console. The Filter, the Resonance, and most especially with the aftertouch."

Of course, from my "analogue-synth" point of view, I was really interested in the Funny I and Funny II presets. When asked, FlameTopFred described the two "Funny" presets in more detail:

"They have a fast filter sweep - sweeping both the filter and the resonance, very quickly. Funny I has a gentler sweep, gentler resonance, Funny II has a rapid attack sweep, with a short filter decay to a nice sustain, with a little more resonance in the attack. You can almost blow your speakers on Funny II."

Thanks again to FlameTopFred for providing this useful information (and more for future blog posts!). He's done a fantastic job of bridging between the organ and synth communities.

Definitely check out his YouTube site if you haven't already. And, he credits a lot of his knowledge to other YouTube videos, Yamaha's manual library site, and the Electone museum Web site. FlameTopFred recommends that if you are planning to buy an Electone, definitely check out these sites.

I know I'm hanging out on kijiji.ca a lot more now. :o)

Yamaha E-70, E50 and E-30 Electone Organs, Contemporary Keyboard 1977

Yamaha E-70, E50 and E-30 Electone Organs advertisement from page 23 in Contemporary Keyboard November 1977.

Normally I'm not an organ fan. And as a general rule, I flip by piano, electric piano and organ advertisements when reading through old issues of CK. For the most part, that is all Yamaha advertised for the first 11 months of 1977 (well, that and Yamaha music courses). Call me a synth-snob, but these ads just don't catch my interest.

But, Yamaha had a good reason for putting organ, electric piano, and organ ads in CK. Tom Darter, editor for Contemporary Keyboard at the time this ad appeared, presented the late 1976 survey results in the "From the editor" section of the February 1977 issue. And according to the survey:

• 56% play acoustic piano
• 50% play electric piano
• 44% play electric organ
• 35% play synthesizer
• 11% play pipe organ
• 9% play harpsichord
• 5% play accordion

That's right. Only 35% of CK readers in 1976 played synthesizers. And so, Yamaha continued to advertise pianos, electric pianos, and organs throughout 1977, and I continued to ignore them - this ad included. Quite frankly, this ad and Yamaha organs in general would have continued to go totally unnoticed except that I was surfing around the Web and came across a small tidbit of information that I found rather intriguing.

It was recent comments on Vintage Synth Explorer's CS-80 page where "Flametopfred" wrote on January 20, 2011:

"In more recent years I have found the Electone E-70 and E-75 to be very good "siblings" of the CS-80 and retain many of the same sounds - - with the added bonus of dual sound banks, keyboard coupling, separate CS-80 bass synth, drum machine and arpeggiator."

And in response, "Mike Thompson" wrote on February 13, 2011:

"I also recently obtained an Electone E-70, and I am glad I played the CS-80 so I can now appreciate the similarities between the two..."

And "Bohemian86" commented on February 20, 2011:

"Yeah the E70 can be a quick shortcut to the CS sound. They also might be useful for parts for a non-working CS polysynth. I have one right now, unfortunately had to disassemble that beast to fit it down the steps. "

Well, ain't that intriguing! I hadn't heard anything about this apparent relationship between the CS-80 and the E-series Electones.

So, I decided to look up Yamaha's ads for the E-70 and it seems the E-series first appeared in CK in November 1977 with this ad for the E-70, E-50 and E-30 organs. . It continued to run fairly regularly throughout the winter, spring and summer until its last showing in July 1978. And, coincidentally, it was kinda replaced by an ad for the CS-80. So, timing-wise, these E-series organs and the CS-80 could very well have contained similar technology innards.

Reading through this ad, I found the ad-copy to be very "organ-y" until I came to the last paragraph, where it stated:

"What gives Yamaha's new Electone consoles such realistic voices and incredible versatility is a technology called Pulse Analog Synthesizing System, PASS for short."

Hmmm - "Pulse Analog Synthesizing System". Synthesis!

Actually, it sounded like a lot of hype to me. But, Yamaha wasn't really known for "hype", especially back in 1977.

A quick Google search brought me to the Electone Museum Web site, where it was explained that the E-70 (top of the line model), E-50 (mid-tier), and E-30 (smallest) organs all used PASS, which "took technology from the GX-1 and incorporated it into a consumer model instrument. The ramifications revolutionized the organ industry. Instruments voices began evolving towards emulating the true orchestral instruments rather than theater organ equivalents".

I recall I mentioned the GX-1 back in a June 2010 blog post about the Yamaha SY-2. Turns out the SY-2's filter has a connection to the GX-1. And the GX-1 has a connection to the CS-80. Ahhhhh.

Maybe PASS wasn't that "hype"-y a term. This whole thing definitely deserved more digging into.

But first...

Dinner. Stay-tuned for more research on the E-70 organ.

End note: Some of those other 1976 Contemporary Keyboard survey results are rather interesting too.

• Average age of CK reader: 25.6 years
• 86% of readers are male

• 75% play rock
• 62% play jazz
• 61% play classical music
• 51% play pop music
• 40% play the blues
• 28% delve into avant-garde music
• 23% play country
• 19% play traditional ragtime
  

• 65% are professional or semi-pro musicians
• 75% own TVs (what?)
• 91% own stereos

• 96% read standard music notation
• 44% have had more that 10 years of formal keyboard study
• average reader is a college graduate

• 24% also play percussion
• 15% work with brass instruments
• 12% with reed
• 9% with string

I wonder how this compares to today's readers of Keyboard magazine?