> she used the Yamaha CS-80 as her main composition instrument. She seemed to favour it particularly for its touch-sensitivity, and it was one of the few synths that offered the feature at the time.<p>This undersells the CS-80. It had polyphonic aftertouch, which most synths don't have today.<p>Most have velocity sensitivity, meaning each note transmits how much initial force you applied. And most have aftertouch, meaning they transmit how much force you continue to apply after hitting bottom. But for most it's just channel aftertouch, meaning it transmits the aftertouch of the key you're pressing the hardest.<p>The CS-80 transmitted aftertouch of each individual key, and had nice controls to to adjust how it used that information. A lot of synths can use polyphonic aftertouch but only a few new ones actually have poly-AT keyboards. The ones I know of are the Hydrasynth (out for a couple years now), the Behringer UB-Xa, and the Iridium keyboard (both introduced this year).<p>Vangelis was also a huge CS-80 fan and used it on the Blade Runner soundtrack. Incidentally, a boutique synth that replicates the CS-80 pretty well (without keyboard) is the Deckard's Dream. It's $4000 but that's way less than a vintage CS-80.