Casio VZ-1 keyboard synthesizer

via this auction
"Velocity and aftertouch sensitive - quite a nice keyboard to play
3 mod wheels - 1 for pitch, 1 for LFO pitch mod, 1 freely assignable but to a limited range of options, e.g. portamento time etc
Comes with original owners manual (which is a little dog-eared on the front cover)
Also comes with an external ROM card (extra 64 presets, plus 64 Op Mem presets)
Also comes with Casio dust cover and standard power cable kettle lead
64 internal user patches
64 internal Operation Memory user patches (combinations, splittable keyboard, stacked, stereo layered patches etc)
64 card ROM presets
64 card ROM Op Mem presets
8 oscillators per voice, each with their own envelopes, pitches, mods and choice of waveforms, can be used individually or set into 4 lots of pairs for ring / phase / external phase modulation
16 voices
4 part multi-timbral / splittable / stackable either internally or over MIDI
Capable of enormously 'phat' sounds that evolve - very digital sounding, but in a good way
In numerous respects it is technically more capable than a DX-7, but although Casio targeted their VZ range at the DX market, the two are quite different sounding in practice. I have both and love both, neither is a pale imitation of the other.
Note that there is no filter in the conventional analogue style sense, but you can create excellent sounding digital filter effects using careful oscillator programming.
Neither is there an arpeggiator or in-built multi-effects - this is an old school, serious 'pure' synth...

This is a truly superb synth - with thick, phat monster bass sounds, very hard hitting digital leads and in your face sounds that are very snappy and cut through a mix with punch rather than just being bright. Very solid bass and top end - sub bass right up to crystalline harmonics. Compared to my DX-7IIFD the Casio often sounds much warmer and more analogue-like, and yet it can emulate the typical DX bell, bass and piano sounds as well.

Once you get your head round the programming, it is very quick to create new sounds, predictibly, with surprises along the way. I have struggled to get decent pad sounds out of it though, but it covers bass, electronic piano and digital hard hitting pure synth sounds with real class - seriously - the presets and the Casio name put most people off these so they became forgotten about over the years, but anyone who has spent a bit of time and effort learning how to program them knows that they are superb synths for the money...

Imagine 128 oscillators stacked onto 8 notes polyphony with 16 different digital sounds doing ring modulation / phase modulation / stereo panning etc, with evolving envelopes that come and go in the stereo field with a huge overall thick and purely electronic sound - and that is what I have programmed in Op Mem 1. It is one of the most exciting pure synth sounds I have heard for a long time.

The VZ-1 is built like a tank, so it should survive postage ok, and it will be well packaged. But if you want to collect it in person, I can give a tutorial on it to get you started. When you know what you are doing, it is quicker to program via the synth itself rather than an editor. One nice quirk is that once you have painstakingly programmed 1 sound with multiple parts, it is then really easy to get multiple combinations and variations of that sound as you bring in or take out each of the 8 oscillators - 1 good sound can become a whole bank of good sounds in next to no time.

In other words it is not as quick as an analogue style synth to make that first good sound, but just as quick overall once you have made 8 good sounds..."