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Casio CZ-101
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Casio CZ-101

Digital Synth from Casio belonging to the CZ series

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Desmodue Desmodue
Published on 01/21/06 at 04:56
We will not recall the features, see the presentation and prior reviews. This is a mini synth (in size) that can feed on mains or batteries (for hiking and camping!), Where batteries are essential to the preservation of sounds in memory. Another thing also for the stage: it can be worn over the shoulder like a guitar or some keypads. For exhibitionists only ... Personally I consider it more as a sound module on which we have grafted a rudimentary keyboard and also very noisy, a real typewriter! The memory expansion cartridge (now found almost) is almost essential to use a "live".

UTILIZATION

Editing sounds is easy for the pure digital, and it was sold with a material very well done, very educational, including the physical principle used, with lots of examples of sounds "basic". The synthesis method used is not the FM dear to Yamaha, the results are much more predictable. There are also, although this is not an absolute necessity, publishers-computer of its banks. Especially useful as a storage for your sound findings.

SOUNDS

Sounds ... It is always very subjective. As usual and in virtually all manufacturers including the most famous, the factory sounds are pretty bad in one or two nearby.
on the other hand if we made the effort to get started this little plastic thing is capable of producing a lot of varied and often sounds very impressive, envelopes more complex than the traditional "ADSR" are not for nothing. Add it to ring modulation and mode "dual" (unfortunately there from 8 to 4 notes of polyphony), a set of eight waveforms well thought out, that's the recipe. No velocity or after touch, much less built-in effects, mono output: this thing has over 20 years old! About effects there are enough segments on the envelope to make a kind of "delay" very clean and in "dual" the superposition of two sounds to simulate a chorus. Curiously sounds obtained are closer to the DX7 last analog, DX 11 and others.

OVERALL OPINION

I have since 1991, bought used for a few tickets 100 F, and I use it always with pleasure. It was my first synth ... Question fiablilté, mechanical level must be careful (100% plastic touches quite fragile). At e I once repaired, fortunately the components used are common architectural references except one or two manufacturing Casio and therefore unavailable. Be careful with batteries: too old they may leak and spread in a sweet juice and little appreciated driver electronics!
Completely overwhelmed technically it is still very interesting musically, especially for big bass or some good ground, or in mono mode that allows the sounds huge stacking all oscillators, filters and VCA on the same note.