Yamaha Reface

Reviews | Yamaha Reface CS
86
Y
amaha had one of the fi nest
sounding VA engines around
in 1997’s AN1X (that still
stands up today) and it’s
great to see Yamaha making synths
once again. The Reface CS is built into
the same high-quality plastic enclosure
as its Reface brothers, but this time it’s
white – it’s also lightweight yet weighty
enough to feel sturdy. There’s some
movement in the slider tops but
underneath are metal shafts meaning it
should stand up to long-term abuse,
while the included two 2W speakers
sound pretty good (you could mic them
up and blend the speaker sound with
the line out for different textures too).
When using battery power (6 x AAs),
the CS becomes a great board for
jamming/writing on anywhere and
there’s a keytar kit available for all the
Refaces too. Battery time is around fi ve
hours but this is dependent on battery
type and usage.
The three-octave mini keyboard
while not transmitting velocity (or
aftertouch) to the internal engine, does
receive and transmit velocity over MIDI
and the keybed is surprisingly playable.
Compared to the nasty-feeling keyboard
on my DX100 it’s light years ahead,
though a couple more octaves would
have been nice. Round the back,
there’s MIDI In/Out over USB and (via
an included breakout cable) there’s also
Web MIDI, plus a foot volume input,
headphones and L/R outputs (on
full-sized jacks) and an aux input on
minijack, though this doesn’t route
through the sound engine.
Hands-on control
There are 21 sliders (which send/
receive MIDI) and consequently the CS
is a very hands-on instrument/
controller. What you see is what you get
which is great on the one hand (as
there’s no menu diving) but, as there’s
no patch memory, when you do stumble
on a great sound (which happens a lot!)
there’s no way within the hardware to
capture that sound. This is a shame,
especially bearing in mind the number
of controls that need setting up per
sound – the CS would have really
benefi ted from some onboard preset
memory and a small screen. Thankfully,
there’s a workaround as Yamaha have
developed an App called Capture
(currently iOS 8+ only) which allows
you to capture individual sounds and
share patches and setlists via the
online SoundMondo community. Be
aware though, for onstage where you’ll
Yamaha Reface
CS | £347
The Reface CS includes
a basic MIDI looper
which can record up to
2,000 notes (which
according to the manual
equates to 10 mins at
120bpm). It allows
real-time overdubbing too
(in poly mode) and can
be MIDI-synchronised to
other MIDI hardware
such as DAWs and other
sequencers – thus the CS
can integrate with all
MIDI set-ups.
Operating the looper is
mostly child’s play –
move the slider to Record
and you’ll hear the
current sound triggered
to use as a click (shame
there’s no dedicated click
sound), then record some
notes and fl ick the slider
to Play. (Move quickly
from Record to Play to
avoid a jump in the
loop!) You can then
mangle the loop using
the onboard controls and
FX, though you can’t
record slider tweaks.
The onboard FX are all
very musical and hugely
useful – you’ll fi nd a
tubey sounding
distortion, a wide and
warm chorus/fl anger, a
psychedelic phaser
that can add subtle or
intense movement to
sounds (using the depth
and rate sliders) plus an
authentic dubby tape
delay which at short
settings also works as
a nice reverb. These
greatly expand the
synth’s sonic palette,
making the CS nicely
self-contained.
Looping And Effects
Not since 1984’s CS01 Mk2 has there been a
Yamaha CS with mini keys. Dan ‘JD73’ Goldman
takes a look…
WHAT IS IT?
Three -octave mini-key
Virtual Analogue synth
with versatile oscillator,
looper and FX
CONTACT
Who: Yamaha
Tel: [phone]
Web: www.uk.yamaha.com
HIGHLIGHTS
1 Sounds unique with a very
tangible texture and great
character to its sounds
2 The onboard FX sound
great and the looper
is handy
3 Inspiring to tweak,
with lots of hands-on
control for sculpting
sounds in real time
INCLUDES AUDIO
l
vault.futuremusic.co.uk
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receive and transmit velocity over MIDI
and the keybed is surprisingly playable.
FMU298.rev_reface_cs.indd 86 07/10/2015 09:28