Yamaha SY99
General information about my SY99 Synthesiser

The Yamaha SY99 was the middle of the three big board synths from the SY range of synths.  Many people think that being named the Yamaha SY99 this was the last synth issued as it was the highest number.  But the Yamaha SY85 was actually release a year after this synthesiser in 1992. 

I acquired my Yamaha SY99 just after the world came out of Covid lockdown down at the end of 2021.  Other than some damage to one of the keys on the keyboard it appeared to be in relatively good condition.  

This synthesiser completed my desire to have the three big board synthesisers from the Yamaha SY range.  I acquired the Yamaha SY77 pre-covid.  The Yamaha SY85 during covid and then lastly this synth after Covid.

The Yamaha SY99 was the successor to the previous Yamaha SY77, but interestingly Yamaha choose not to issue a companion tone generator with this synth like they did with the Yamaha SY77 and Yamaha TG77 combination.

The Yamaha SY99 still used the Advanced FM (AFM) and Advance Wave Memory (AWM) to generate its tones / sounds.  The FM engine was an upgrade to the Yamaha DX7 FM engine.  And AWM was the Yamaha implementation of a PCM sample based synthesis, popular on many of the pivotal synthesisers of this era.   

The key bed was expanded from 61 keys on the Yamaha SY77 to 76.  Using a key leaf spring FS key bed to provide a semi-weighted synthesiser experience.  The key bed also had velocity and channel based aftertouch that could be zoned across the keyboard, a feature not on the Yamaha SY77, making it a good performance instrument and, in theory, a good choice to drive other keyboards and tone modules. Personally I have yet to test this functionality.

The other notable addition to the Yamaha SY99 was the ability to expand the onboard sample memory from the stock 512KB to 3MB by adding 5 x 512Kb memory modules. These were a user upgrade.  You performed this by removing a cover on the rear of the synthesiser and slotting in the upgrade memory module.  An additional 5Mb of memory was available from a third party supplier to give a total of 8Mb, but this upgrade is now pretty hard to come across and needs to be installed by a technician.  Personally I cannot think of a situation why you need to perform this upgrade, but I am sure as I delve into this synthesiser more it will become apparent.

The architecture between the Yamaha SY99 and Yamaha SY77 is similar allowing users of the prior synth to upgrade patches and tone from the former to the later, however you couldn’t go the other way.

The architecture of the Yamaha SY85 was completely different allowing for limited / no patch compatibility. I use the limited stance as you could import a base sample to reconstruct a patch, but really why would you?

Even though the upper skin of the synth is a molded hard plastic, there is a metal exoskeleton inside the synth for both the main circuit boards and key bed to be mounted to.  The rear of the synth is also metal, which makes sense as Yamaha intended this synthesiser to be gigged and the metal based would with stand the abuse of being placed on stands night after night!  What I am basically saying is the this synth is moderately heavy at just under 20kg, which combined with a width of 1.3m and a depth of 0.4m makes it an interesting synth to maneuver by one person.

The other notable difference is the inclusion of an effects system based on the popular Yamaha SPX900 effect unit. This provides 2 effects engines and a choice of 63 effects to include in your patch.

Once the restoration of this synthesiser is complete, (see separate page on this site), this synth will be going into my studio.  The thing is that even though this synthesiser is 30 years old. The tonal qualities of the sounds generated still hold up against many of the modern synthesisers being marketed today.  The main drawback really is the floppy disk medium (720kb, DDDS disks) required to back up directly from the Yamaha SY99.  Although I will be very quickly working out the MIDI configuration for working with this instrument.

If you can pick up a Yamaha SY99 for about £300 then this is a lot of bang for your buck added to your composition / playing arsenal!