Yamaha secured a trademark registration for “AN-X”

22/06/2022 Yamaha secured a trademark registration for “AN-X” as it pertains to Musical Instruments. Something new or an evolution of a classic 90s virtual analogue? AN1x
Well, of course, one immediately thinks of the Yamaha AN1x synthesizer. I think they called it “retro-analog” at the time, but we would call it virtual analogue and was Yamaha’s answer to the Roland JP-8000. It used DSP modelling to generate analogue-style waveforms and then gave you 10 notes of polyphony, 8 knobs for tweaking parameters and a pretty phenomenal arpeggiator.
Yamaha AN1x brochure

Yamaha AN1x brochure

Even though it was digital the AN1x was a proper synthesizer with the traditional VCO-VCF-VCA architecture. Some say it had a bit of Prophet-10 character in there which is interesting if you consider that the much-missed Dave Smith of Sequential worked for Yamaha and on the technology behind the AN1x.
AN-X

So if the AN-X was an evolution, why not call it the AN2x? While something along the lines of the AN1x seems likely there may be no connection at all. There was also the Yamaha AN200 groovebox based on the same technology and the guts of the AN1x turned up on the PLG150-AN plugin board for the CS6x.

Most intriguing.

Yamaha could do with another synthesizer adventure. The choice at the moment seems to be between the fun but limited reface mini keyboards and the huge and workstation like MODX and MONTAGE. Something fun and accessible in between that can compete with the Korg Modwave, ASM Hydrasynth or Modal Cobalt 8 would be awesome.