View other reviews for this product:
mooseherman « Great little dinky Synth »
Published on 04/05/11 at 12:48This 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.
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.