Overview
Yamaha describe the S08 as an 88-note weighted-action synthesizer, although this doesn't really explain what could be viewed as the baby brother of Yamaha's S80 workstation (reviewed in SOS February 2000). Sonically, the S08 features over 700 bread-and-butter GM2 and XG-compatible AWM2 sample-based sounds (with the basic architecture and some waveforms culled from the S80), 64-voice polyphony and 16-part multitimbrality. The S08 also features a custom Yamaha DSP chip to provide 24-bit effects in the form of a reverb unit, chorus unit, and what Yamaha describe as a Variation effect. This can be thought of like insert effects, where the reverb and chorus are basically sends, including delay and distortion