ou can't have everything. Where would you put it all?"-Stephen Wright.

Actually, truth be told, the new Yamaha EX5 pretty much does offer everything-at least everything you could reasonably ask of a pre-millennium synthesizer workstation. Under the unassuming hood of this single instrument is the most complete collection of synth technologies you'll find anywhere, anyplace. We're talking old technologies (subtractive analog-style synthesis, FM synthesis, an arpeggiator, and an onboard sequencer with many of the same editing commands found in dedicated boxes produced by Yamaha and its competitors more than a decade ago), current technologies (sampling and sample playback, physical modeling, multi-effects), and new technologies (something called "Formulated Digital Signal Processing"-a complex series of algorithms that enable finely controlled pitch- or velocity-specific processing). Add to this a strong MIDI implementation, numerous expansion options (including, unusually, a professional digital output), and a 76-note keyboard. The result is a synthesizer that not only excels in producing some of the finest retro sounds out there (with particularly strong emulations of Seventies-style keyboards such as Rhodes, Wurlitzer, Clavinet, and Hammond and Farfisa/Vox organs) but also provides a broad palette of new tone colors never before heard and a massive set of tools with which to create your own sonic masterpieces.

In short, this is one serious instrument.

But, as Mr. Wright so aptly pointed out, there's a tradeoff for having all these goodies in box. The issue certainly isn't flexibility, and it isn't really price, either: The EX5's price tag of $2,695 is actually less than you'd pay for many competing 76-note keyboards. (There's also a 61-note keyboard version-the EX7-and the EX5R rackmount, both priced at $2,195.) Instead, the major restriction is computing power. One could reasonably argue that the EX5 is a bit under-endowed in this department, especially when you really put it through its paces. That said, this is still an amazing product-one that not only encapsulates the best of the past 25 years' worth of development but also gives a good sense of what the next generation of synthesizers is going to be about.

Physically, the EX5 is a beast; figure on having lots of available real estate and a heavy- duty stand to place it on. In addition to the usual complement of footpedal, footswitch, and breath controller inputs and center-sprung pitch-bend wheel, you'll find two modulation wheels (one center detented) and a ribbon controller (a personal favorite of mine), as well as a series of six "soft" knobs under the large central backlit LCD. All of these can be used to alter just about any aspect of the sound in real time (including effects parameters), and can also be assigned to independently transmit any MIDI control change message. This, along with the EX5's dual MIDI inputs and outputs, makes it well-suited as a master controller, either in the home studio or onstage.

Out of the box, the EX5 provides two analog inputs (for sampling) and four analog outputs; all are unbalanced 1/4" jacks. For another $150, you can install an optional board that adds an additional four analog outputs-or, for two hundred bucks, you can spring for a board that adds a stereo AES/EBU digital output on XLR jacks, as well as a word clock input to ensure proper synchronization. Unfortunately, there's only room for one or the other of these output options. Other expansion options include a SCSI interface ($250) and Flash ROM memory expansion (call Vital Technology at [877] 926-2425 for 16 meg modules, priced at around $200 to $300)-more about these shortly.

If you've worked with any of Yamaha's keyboards over the past ten years, much of the EX5's nomenclature (and, alas, the morass of nested menus) will be familiar. Individual sounds are called "voices," while collections of sounds layered, velocity-switched, or assigned to different keyboard ranges (and/or set to respond to different MIDI channels) are called "performances." The instrument comes loaded with 256 preset voices (including six drum kits) and 64 preset performances, and there are another 256 slots in which to store your own voices, plus 64 more slots for the storage of your own performances. Most of the presets are sonically excellent, and many of them, particularly the keyboard and string sounds, are absolutely superb.

Four basic synthesis techniques are available: sample playback (of both permanently stored ROM waves and your own custom samples), virtual acoustic modeling of pipe and string sounds (as found in Yamaha's VL series of synths), virtual physical modeling of analog synthesizers (the oscillator-into-filter-into-amplifier model found in the old analog synths of yore, as well as Yamaha's more recent AN series; here, this process is used to create FM sounds), and the previously noted "Formulated Digital Signal Processing" (FDSP for short). The latter provides models of devices like electric piano and electric guitar pickups (with user-defined properties, such as positioning and placement) and allows you to create the weirdest flanging, phasing, and ring and pulse width modulation effects you've ever heard, all of which can change dramatically as you play different notes at different key velocities.

Each of these synthesis techniques has its strengths and weaknesses. For example, sample playback provides the most realistic sounds, since they are digital recordings of the actual sounds themselves-but real-time control is limited. In contrast, virtual acoustic modeling sounds provide phenomenal expressivity but don't necessarily yield the most convincing sonic emulations. In recognition of this, the EX5 allows you to combine different synthesis processes within a single voice, though certain restrictions apply-for example, you can only combine a VL "element" with sample playback elements.

As you might expect, there's a huge number of editable parameters, making the EX5 a dream come true for propellerheads like me who enjoy customizing sounds or creating new ones from scratch. Although many menus let you adjust multiple parameters simultaneously via the six "soft" knobs, the fact is that there are lots of menus and way too little screen space for all the parameters that need to be viewed. This is one synth that will benefit greatly from a computer-based patch editor; while there will undoubtedly be a number of these on the market soon, it is unfortunate that Yamaha didn't develop one themselves for inclusion with the instrument.

There is, however, a Mac- and Windows-based sample editor provided on disk, but bear in mind that, while the EX5 can sample, it wasn't designed to be a sampler. This means that you can record your own CD-quality (44.1 kHz, 16-bit) sounds into it, but the onboard editing is sparse, and the storage capabilities are extremely limited. Out of the box, there's only 1 meg of RAM provided: This translates to a puny twelve seconds or so of mono sampling time, or six seconds of stereo. You can install up to 64 megabytes of additional RAM, using standard 72-pin DRAM SIMMs, but RAM memory is volatile, meaning that all your samples are erased when the EX5 is powered down. A better option is the aforementioned Flash ROM memory; it's currently available in only 16 megabyte modules (larger ones are being tested), but at least the data is held in memory even when the power is off.

Getting samples into and out of the EX5 is somewhat problematic, though. There is a built-in floppy disk drive that reads standard PC-formatted disks and is capable of importing WAV or AIFF files (as well as Akai S1000 files), but these must of necessity be small (less than 1.4 meg) and therefore short in length. To import or export longer sample files, you'll need to add the SCSI option, which allows you to connect pretty much any hard drive or CD-ROM player. This would be a good thing except for the fact that the EX5's SCSI implementation is way slower than the rest of the world's. As a result, loading and saving times are very poky, even if you hook up a super-whizzbang, extra-fast hard drive. You can completely forget about using SCSI to load samples into RAM during live performance; your audience will be filing out the door long before the transfer is complete. Instead, you'll need to opt for loading sample data into Flash ROM in the comfort of your home beforehand-an alternative that's both somewhat costly (adding $450 to $550 to the instrument's basic price) and limiting (16 megs vs. 65 megs).

The "workstation" label implies the presence of an onboard MIDI sequencer; the EX5 actually has three of them. One is a fairly standard linear 16-track "song" sequencer, which has 30,000-note capacity and 480 ppq resolution but unfortunately only holds one song in memory at a time. The second is an eight-track "pattern" sequencer, which allows you to record short, repetitive phrases, drum machine style. The third is the arpeggiator. All three offer pretty much all of the editing features you'd expect in a dedicated hardware sequencer, including event list editing and various quantization routines, such as a real-time "groove" playback quantization that lets you impose a predefined "feel" (one of the 100 presets or your own prerecorded groove) onto your recording. Integration between the three is especially tight-for example, you can not only assemble patterns into a song (and then overdub linearly on top), you can extract sections of specific tracks within a song and turn them into patterns or arpeggiation "styles"; you can even record the output of the arpeggiator into a song track. Arpeggiators are, of course, an important adjunct to techno music, and you're unlikely to find any more comprehensive or powerful than the one here. There are fifty preset arpeggiation "styles," many of which are highly syncopated; you can also create your own from scratch. Arpeggiation operation can also be written as part of a voice or performance, so it is easy to create a sound that is in fact a whole series of notes-a characteristic of some of the EX5's more esoteric presets.

And what would a modern synthesizer be without effects? As you might expect, the EX5 excels here as well. First of all, every element within a voice and every voice within a performance can feed independent reverb and chorus effects. (There are twelve reverb types and seventeen chorus types to pick from.) Happily, the reverb tails are smooth and exhibit little of the graininess often found in keyboard effects. In addition, there are two insertion effects, which can be applied to individual elements within a voice or (within certain restrictions) individual voices within a performance. These include many of the chorus effects types, plus EQ, compression, amp simulation, autopanning, and pitch change, as well as a number of clearly Nineties algorithms, such as low resolution, noisy, and digital turntable (complete with programmable click density and level).

There are loads of other features too. Space precludes listing all of them, but some of my favorites include resampling (where your playing of an internal voice or performance, including its multieffects, can be saved as a new sample), key mapping (where each note on the keyboard can be used to trigger a pattern or play back a sample), scene memories (which allow you to create and store two variations on a voice and then morph between them in real time with a wheel or footpedal), the ability to apply different tunings (including microtunings) independently to each element within a voice, a dedicated front panel effects bypass button, sample-and-hold LFO waveforms and the ability to modulate LFO speed (particularly useful in creating realistic vibrato), "controller sets" (collections of controller routings, allowing both multiple sources to a single destination and single sources to multiple destinations; up to sixteen can be programmed per voice), the ability to receive MIDI Time Code and to transmit MIDI Machine Control, and the ability to save sequence data as Standard MIDI Files (SMFs) and to play SMFs directly from disk (you can even accompany them in real time) without having to load them into the onboard sequencer.

As wonderful as all this sounds, there is a caveat, as we warned you at the beginning of this review. While the CPU at the heart of the EX5 handles basic operations flawlessly, it seems to fall short when you start placing demands on the instrument. For example, there is the SCSI issue noted above. There is also a noticeable delay when storing voices, and a momentary muting of all tracks when a single track is muted in the sequencer. And limitations and restrictions abound: While total polyphony is 126 notes, VL elements are monophonic and AN elements can play a maximum of only two notes. Only two voices can be layered together in performance mode (though a single voice can itself contain up to four layers), and a performance can only contain one voice that uses VL or AN synthesis. In these kinds of performances, only one insert effect can be applied, and only to one voice. (Even in performances that contain all sample-playback voices, the insertion effects can be applied only to a maximum of four voices.) Worst of all, there can be audible note smearing when playing dense chords of two voices layered in performance mode (either from the keyboard or via MIDI), and sequencer playback timing can suffer-sometimes tremendously-when asked to play back dense tracks or while overdubbing clusters of chords.

But, hey, this is the bleeding edge. Warts and all, the EX5 pretty much redefines the term "full-featured." It's a superb choice for recording or for use as a master controller in a MIDI home studio. If you're into programming your own sounds (and you don't mind battling a truly awful owner's manual), this is total hog heaven. For live use, I'd be a little more cautious, especially if you frequently need multitimbral operation or rely on using a sequencer to play "one-man band" accompaniments, but there's no denying the impact this puppy should have on keyboard players everywhere for some time to come. So you can have everything-now you've just gotta figure out where to put it all!

Special thanks to Athan Billias, Phil Clendeninn, and Avery Burdette.