images via this auction."Interfaces: 1 Audio out (mono) 1 MIDI In, 1 MIDI Out Synth capabilities: Digital Phase Distortion synthesis 8 Oscillators, up to 4 per sound Effective polyphony: 4 4-part Multi-timbral Keys: 49 mini, not velocity sensitive The Casio CZ101 was a popular entry point into the world of digital synthesis, putting a surprising amount of power into its home-keyboard style case. The unit's Phase Distortion technology is capable of some surprisingly complex sounds, including chunky bass, not least owing to the fact that up to 4 oscillators could be combined into one patch. This would reduce the polyphony to a mere 2 parts though! The 101 came with 16 presets and 16 user patches, which could be edited and stored via SysEx. Close siblings to the CZ101 included the CZ230s which came with a pattern-based sequencer, and the CZ1 which had a full size keyboard and double the number of oscillators. Bottom line is this is practically showroom perfect which is very difficult to find in this condition. It has a nice 80's synth feel and supports midi. Various patch editors out there allow easy patch transfers back and forth."
I have two and really, really like them. Very punchy, especially when stacked. Pitch bend is sadly quantized, though.
ReplyDeleteI once forgot to power off when removing a sound cartridge -- it scrambled the patches, leading to some "impossible" sounds with reported envelope stages (11-20ish?) that exceeded that allowed by standard, unwigged patches. Crazy stuff and fun to listen to.