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There's a degree of UI design overlap between the CS-80 and Yamaha's electronic organs of the same period, and it's interesting to think about how this pays off for the CS-80.

One of the defining characteristics of an organ is that the sound of the note tends not to change over time and the keys are essentially just on/off switches. Hence, any kind of articulation you want to get into the sound has to be done by working the controls while you're playing.

You then take a synth which is vastly more receptive to having its sound reshaped in real time, and design a UI for it that encourages this, you get a synth that we're still talking about (and struggling to replicate) 45 years later.




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