Does anyone know of or if there is in the works of a Yamaha SY99 synth VSTi plugin?

 

oh man i would love a vst of this

 

Free Yamaha SY77 Synthesizer Workstation VST Emulation VX7 by Speedsoft memory workstation
VX7 is a 6 operators FM synthesizer.
It can import DX7 patch and SY77 data.
https://plugins4free.com/plugin/2185/

 

The SY99 is the culmination the SY series... SY85 (TG500 rack), SY77 (TG77 rack)...
- overall awesome workstations, only surpassed by the Montage.

 

Arturia, are you listening?

 

The Yamaha SY99 was a high-end music synthesizer released in 1991. The Japanese company Yamaha brought it out as the successor to the SY77 released in 1989. In the broadest sense, both devices follow the tradition of the successful 1983 model, the Yamaha DX7. In 1991, the SY99's direct competitor was the Kurzweil K2000, which was released at the same time. The purchase price was around 7,000 DM. Big names in the pop scene at the time, such as Brian Eno, Toto and Vangelis, used and advertised this device.
Source: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamaha_SY99

 

which at the time, was my dream synth:
Kurzweil was for me the equivalent of a Rolls...

 

I freezed my (real) SY99 few years ago, it had floppy drive belt gone, replaced by a rubber band, working again for a few months, and again gone, display backlight gone, all internal (soldered!!!) batteries gone, and I should rip it off and and do a lot of fixing and heavy mods as per official Yamaha SY99 forum, but honestly I don't feel the urge.

It was a great workstation, great master keyboard, including 16 tracks sequencer, wonderful sounds, but immensely tedious if not difficult to program.

I don't know if there is a VST, but I can assure the real thing had a lot of stuff like high quality dsps including authorized Aphex Aural Exciter, and even if FM8 and the like can be superior in FM algorithm there are other things like convolution feedback between FM and samples that maybe are not still implemented (and yet the only sound I could get from this convolution was a distorted grunge!).

In spite of all this, my personal feeling is that SY99 is obsolete, and I prefer a lot much VSTs unrelated to vintage hw, though I really appreciate emulations of that old stuff that I couldn' even touch when VSTs were just SF.
I find a lot easier and fun and still much powerful Reason Europa.

Sorry if it sounded like a rant, it's not, I still emotionally love my old gear.

 

I'm a fan of repairs - unfortunately it all always costs a lot of money ...! We now have "repair cafes" here, but it's more a matter of luck to find someone who repairs something.

Repair Yamaha SY-99 Vintage Synthesizer Reparatur Service
Quote: " I repair and restore synthesizers, drumcomputer and tapedelays.I am also music producer and sound designer."
https://driessen-music.de/2021/03/21/repair-yamaha-sy-99-vintage-synthesizer-reparatur-service/

 

Last edited: May 27, 2021

Well, it's not really broken, except boot messages on batteries and useless drive, I could still use it as master keyboard and presets synth.
I could fix that myself, but it takes a lot of time and some amount of money, not too much if you buy components on RS, tutorials on everything about SY99 in this forum.
It's just that I find no use in it, having much more powerful VSTs.
But maybe one day...

 

I had an SY99 & a K2000 Rack. Man those were the days.

 

Of course you can also repair and sell them. Used on ebay - fully functional from 656 EUR - 710 EUR.

 

Last edited: May 27, 2021

I've performed the electroluminescent panel replacement, and I think you should be able to replace the floppy drive with a USB one with all the floppies on one chip.

I had a TG-77 and I regret letting it go.

 

https://www.native-instruments.com/en/reaktor-community/reaktor-user-library/entry/show/9885/

only emulation known

 

if you have the Katsunori UJIIE human clone expansion then you're in business

 

Old workstations are always tempting ... I already buy it a "Korg M3 , Yamaha EX7 , Korg Triton Rack and hope ane day to add this SY99 or atleast a SY77 to my collection...

 

It doesn't matter that it's 30 years old:
This synth still sound amazing.