it's not there Casio CZ-101

Casio CZ-101





The baby of the Casio CZ range, the 1985 CZ-101 used to be a good cheap option to get some extra sounds as well as a small compact master MIDI keyboard into your home studio setup. Nowadays they are increasingly seen as a little classic synth in their own right.

The Casio CZ range from the 1980's used Casio Phase Distortion synthesis to generate their oscillator wave shapes as well as emulating filter sweeps & this was similar to Korgs square wave harmonic waveform oscillators or the Yamaha FM oscillators in that the carrier or an original waveform is modulated to create waveshapes & timbres.

 

However the Casio system is not the same as Yamaha or Korg & while the Korg can sound very 'classic polysynth' with it's analog filters & VCA's etc the Casio CZ's like the Yamaha DX series tend to create sounds more in the 'digital' timbres ball-park but the Casio CZ is also capable of nice and hard chunky basslines, glistening and/or warm EP's and can even muster up warm & almost analog polysnth sounding pads.

 

If you want to get into classic Casio CZ sounds but don't have the hardware you can use Plugin Boutique's VirtualCZ Synth available here - This plugin can load and use actual Casio CZ patches so can also act as a librarian software for the physical hardware units: https://www.pluginboutique.com/product/4-Synth/1158-VirtualCZ

 

 







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Total Stars: 56
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Category:

Products » Synthesisers » DCO synthesisers »

Added: 19 December 1998
New price: discontinued
S/H price: £250 - £350
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This product is part of
Casio's
CZ series

CZ-1000

CZ-101

CZ-5000


Resources

Casio CZ-101 manual
Casio CZ-101 & CZ-1000 service-manual
16 Behringer links
Behringer TD-3 audio examples
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casio cz-101

Comments

Analog Kid

04-May-99

It always seems to find its place in my mixes. I use mostly for FX and basslines. It's far away from a workstation, it has dinky keys, presets suck (you can find lots in the Internet) and it does not emulate real intruments very well. But for what it does and for the price they're going second hand (I got mine for free for a studio job I did!)they are excellent! Get one before they become trendy and expensive!


Mike

30-Jun-99

I love this thing! I picked mine up for $90! The presets are gut wrenching though, but the fact that it is 4 part multitimbrel gives it the ability to make some crazy FX! I'd give it a 5 if it wasn't for the fact that it has no memory.. if you don't get the memory cartidge for it, you only get like 8 slots to save (i'm pretty sure anyway)


d.krupicz

25-Dec-99

Weblink: link

This machine is great considering the wide variety of sounds you can get out of it. The factory presets suck, and it looks like a chinsy radio shack toy, but the "Ring MOD" button gives it away as a cool synth. Don't expect it to sound like a minimoog and use it to create harsh and annoying clangs and clattery sounds.


Eric Anastas

25-Dec-99

Weblink: link

Yay my first keyboard, I really got it just cause I needed a midi controler keyboard that would fit in my dorm. The keys are really small, which is good and bad. Bad for the obvious reasons, but it's kinda cool to be able to strech your fingers across and entire octave or two. Yes the presets suck, but I have yet to start messing with presets off the internet. For $60 it's a great deal. Also if the size is a problem get the CZ-1000, it's the exact same thing but full size. BTW Check out

http://students.washington.edu/aireq/images/studio

for pictures of mine, and other equipment


Eric


Jasper

02-May-00

This is a great little synth for dirty warm bass sounds and also excels at horrible techno style hollow sounds due to the ring mod.

The presets are terrible but fortunately this is a piss easy synth to learn even without a manual. No LFO but you do get 8 stage envelope generators for tone, wav (acts same as filter) and amp.

Midi spec is simply note on/off and sys-ex data but if you have a sampler then this doesn't matter.

In fact coupled with a sampler, this is a great sound source rather than tediously surfing cd's.





Last added comment


HereBoy

09-Jun-00

Weblink: link

This little synth sits solidly in any mix
- on it's own it can sound cheesy, but
sat behind the drum n bass, it bites!
Also, if you have a randomizer
program, or just change parameters
randomly, you get f*cked up soundz
like nothing else!


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