Casio VL-1

This is a two and a half octave analog synth that was made by Casio. While it was originally very cheap and didn't really hold up to a professional level, it's child-like, toy-sounding qualities lend an endearing and interesting charm to music. In fact groups such as Talking Heads have used it and it's sounds have been featured on several hit records and singles despite their absurd quality.
It has five voices as well as a sequencer, and inexplicably, a calculator. There are vibrato and tremolo effects but there are no other effects. There is a drum machine with ten basic patterns to choose from.

UTILIZATION

There isn't really a whole lot that can be done with this five-voice, two and a half octave synth. If you are looking for a simple, kind of dumb-sounding melody or a lo-fi drum machine, this is a good choice. Otherwise this isn't really a great keyboard at all. It certainly isn't going to give you many options, and there is no way to learn how to play on this thing.

OVERALL OPINION

The sounds are the farthest thing from realistic you can imagine. They have names like guitar, piano, flute, and violin, but unlike a mellotron which actually comes close to approximating those sounds (at least in the case of flutes and violins), these sounds don't even remotely approach their "sources". That being said, sometimes, especially nowadays in lo-fi indie rock and "twee" genres, sounds like this are actually desirable. So there is a certain kind of value in this machine assuming you are looking for a very specific aesthetic.

31 buttons kind of notes with one octave up / down 3 positions to cover a wide set of notes, one of the few whose synth keyboard can also be used as calculator
A one key play that allows you to dfiler a series of notes put in memoirs
Six instruments including a paramtrable synthesizer, monophonic course
Ten beats the authenticity of an electronic purity has any evidence

A revolution in the music school and the world in the beginning of the 80's with his memoirs liquid-crystal display and> high tech class for age

USE

Primitive, ideal for mobile taler to carry around your melody on highly typ robotic rhythms, or to calculate the amount of your purchases at the store on the corner.
For rgler internal synthesizer send a digit series in memory and you're pl.
is simple.
In the studio you plug it into a chorus or Mtal area according to your tastes

NOTICE GLOBAL

Boom boom tchiquita quitchiqui -> da, da, da
Add him a guitar and a voice in the style dpouill it enough for him to make a tube ....
What adj dmontr t ......

He was the forerunner cheap long before his gameboy

Two and a half octaves. Buttons of type "calculator" (no velocity, no aftertouch, of course).

We can still transpose an octave up, or down an octave.

Six stripping sounds (piano, fantasy, violin, flute, guitar, ADSR). No effect. No editing of sound, except the last (ADSR) that "program" by entering an 8 digit code.

1 + speed voice polyphony independent also has a voice polyphony (only one "plic", "plop" and "Chak" at a time).

There is a small built-in sequencer very practical and clever. It's so simple and clever that I can not find words to describe its operation.

UTILIZATION

Not too easy to use. No need to book.

OVERALL OPINION

Sounds completely stripping. Sounds worse than Nintendo or Commodore (more kitsch, actually). No realism. No expression. It's like playing on a calculator.

The sounds are used in electronic music kitsch.

- What type of keyboard (synth, piano ...)? How many octaves?
What a strange question! The VL-1 has a unique feel, inimitable for performing glissandos murderers, fingers immediately feel in harmony with the cosmic machine and regularly produce unintentional marks that are dictated by the user's deepest unconscious . With the VL-1, the most mediocre musician is changed to a smuggler whose lightning energy leading researchers of the laboratory Casio have not yet managed to solve the mystery. How many octaves? How much?? But you must open your spirituality as a poppy flower in the dew of spring to see that the octave is a measure of narrow, low earth which is transcended when your fingers begin to dance on the slider to transpose and notes to jump start such cheerfully nihilistic these frogs in the Amazon over the foaming river.
- What controllers (pitch, modulation, sustain ...)?
Do come back more on the implementation. Let us not dwell either on its natural wha-wha (already mentioned by other adventurers). We have one LFO sync with hypnotic rhythms of the instrument.
- What connection (Audio, MIDI, Pedal ...)?
Here again we must understand that this instrument has been designed to survive for centuries to come. What will remain of it after twelve o'clock jargon meteorites, atomic explosions and giant locusts will be shot down on our old earth? I say to you: at lunchtime will be a dead language, dialect indecipherable to future dominant species, mode of communication completely obsolete, symbol of our civilization in decline. The only concession to the present time these demiurges Funky Casio is to be resolved is the audio output so narrow that it masks the sensitivity of the beautiful built-in speaker. Forget the connections that bind us to our vulgar modern! Let's be ready to answer the call of the eternal spheres which revolve in this wildly interstellar space.
- How many sounds, effects? What styles? Are they edited?
The sounds that can come out of this gem are infinite. Chants that would strip nostalgic tears to a dock by the stridency pale Bulgarian wolves howling. Everything is within reach of your hand, my friend, provided you are willing to sacrifice years of your life to reflect on the magic numbers that can tame this beast timeless.
- Via a utility Mac / PC?
I repeat, no concession to the present. Like ancient Rome, the empire of Bill G. one day collapse. While the VL-1 Solar sing his symphony on the smoking ruins.
- What is polyphony? ...
No polyphony, forget the agreements of Western music, free your mind.

UTILIZATION

- The general configuration is it simple?
What is the absolute simplicity, may, for the tortured and morbid brains that we have seen as an insurmountable mystery. But patience, O traveler.
- Publishing of sound effects or is it easy?
The magic numbers, remember. Pythagoras would be the wise, apparently, VL1 dreamed of the sixth century BC.
- The manual is clear and sufficient? ...
I have misplaced the manual for several years. But a community of explorers was formed and was able to share his discoveries through the web. I was able to introduce me to the secret sealed in these figures that make the animal more docile when whispers in his ear.

OVERALL OPINION

- The sounds they are suitable to your style of music?
The question is: will I be strong enough, free enough to experience the heartbreaking beauty of these unique sounds? Only did I not too stuck in my era?
- Are they realistic?
Another question asked wrong: this machine is inimitable. What would it need to be compared to instruments that will end all in museums?
- The effects are they effective and responsive?
You defeated effects, they are just window dressing. When an evening of nostalgia these trifles will take you by the throat, pours your tears on the VL1 while stroking its speaker, effects you will use only organic.
- The expression is good? (Response to velocity, aftertouch to)?
Another criterion moved. Expressionism is the closet for years. Make the leap forward you need.
- What are the sounds you prefer, you hate ...?
As an outgrowth of VL1 you find your soul. It becomes your mirror. Do you love or hate in yourself you will meet.