Yamaha SK-30
A three-in-one stage keyboard from Yamaha's SK Series. Organ, strings, and poly synth in a single splittable chassis.
Overview
The SK-30 sits in the middle of Yamaha's SK Series of multi-instrument keyboards. The SK-20 is below it and the dual-manual SK-50D is above. Yamaha's own advertising pitched the whole line the same way: one keyboard that covers organ, strings, and polysynth duties at once, so a player spends less time hauling, patching, and fuming and more time playing. The SK-30 adds a solo synthesizer to the organ/strings/poly recipe. The SK-20 doesn't have one, per the feature chart Yamaha published for the series.
The architecture is the interesting part. According to Yamaha's series literature, the SK-30's split keyboard lets a player assign different voices to the right and left hands at the same time. The instrument can also mix its several sound sources in a variety of ways, rather than forcing a single mode at a time. The organ section carries percussion voiced for the classic B-3 sound. Yamaha bills the tremolo as delivering "the best rotating speaker effect in the business" - that's marketing copy, not an independent verdict, though it shows what the designers were chasing. There's also an Ensemble for chorus effects, and a Leslie jack appears on the SK-30's feature row (the SK-50D gets three of them, the SK-20 one).
The synth side splits in two. The solo synthesizer is touch-responsive. The poly synth offers full oscillator, filter, and envelope generator control, so it's a programmable voice section and not a preset-only afterthought. The SK-30 also carries organ/string/poly-synth presets alongside those manual controls, and it accepts optional bass pedals, which the SK-20 lacks.
Per Yamaha's own chart, the SK-30 does not have organ bass or a second manual. Those are SK-50D territory. That makes the SK-30 the middle choice for a player who wants the split keyboard and the solo synth without paying for the two-tier flagship.
Contemporary British pricing put the SK-30 in a crowded field. A UK dealer listing of the period shows the SK-20 at £745 and the SK-30 unpriced in that particular column. The CS-series synths sit well below: CS5 at £225, CS10 at £295, CS15 at £375. A 1998 classified in Sound on Sound (August 1998, p.271) lists a used SK30 at £275. Earlier, a British keyboard roundup had already flagged the SK-30 and SK-50D as "just around the corner" while reviewing the SK-20. It noted that buyers would be reluctant to commit to the 20 before seeing the bigger models.
Collectors should treat the SK-30 as a gigging instrument first and a studio piece second. The draw is the split-keyboard layout and the combination of organ percussion, ensemble, and a programmable poly section in one box. The caveats are the usual ones for a multi-section keyboard of this vintage. The more subsystems Yamaha packed in, the more there is to service, and the touch-responsive solo synth is the kind of feature that either works or doesn't. Original UK pricing was steep enough that the SK-30 was never a budget item. The 1998 Sound on Sound classified at £275 is a reasonable anchor for what these trade at when they surface.
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