1987 (Dec.)
Initially sold for ¥91,000
The Yamaha TX1P piano tone generator is a one rack-space tone module that offers five sampled voices: grand piano, upright piano, electric piano, harpsichord, and vibraphone. The unit features 16-note polyphony, full MIDI implementation (including full velocity sensitivity) and three built-in effects: chorus, transposed delay and chord play.
The TX1P seems to be the earliest commercially available product from Yamaha to feature the AWM tag. The Advanced Wave Memory engine uses 12bit factory samples to generate sounds, and it's based on the same idea that powered sample-based drum machines and generic samplers.
Although the mainstream product that introduced this technology was the SY77, this unit could be one of the first Yamaha's attempt to get something out of it. The TX1P functionalities are very limited: only 5 tone presets with some digital effects that could be added on top.
Reviews of the sounds appear to be generally positive, and although they cannot compete with today's romplers, they were indeed very realistic for 1987.
