Yamaha SK-20
A polyphonic strings-and-organ machine from Yamaha's early-1980s ensemble line. It got a full review in the March 1981 issue of Electronics & Music Maker.
Overview
The SK-20 is a Yamaha polyphonic synthesizer built around strings and organ voices. It belongs to the same "Symphonic Ensembles" family as the SK-30. Period print confirms that much. A 1981 dealer advertisement listed "Yamaha's Symphonic Ensembles (SK-20, SK-30)" among the hard-to-get keyboards of the moment, and Electronics & Music Maker ran a dedicated review of the SK-20 in its March 1981 issue.
The used market adds a little. A classified in a British musicians' paper offered a three-month-old SK20 at £525, described simply as "polyphonic synthesiser, strings and organ". That matches the family positioning exactly. It suggests the appeal was less about deep programmability than about getting usable string and organ sounds in a single polyphonic package.
The SK-20 is an early-1980s Yamaha ensemble synth, documented in the British music press of 1981-82, with a small but real paper trail. It is not a CS-series programmable monster and shouldn't be bought as one. The record supports a working instrument with strings and organ voices, a review in a major UK synth magazine, and enough presence in contemporary classifieds to suggest it moved through real players' hands. Voice architecture, filter design, keyboard feel and exact production run are not documented, and this archive won't invent them.
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