From ***Enter.your.Internet.E-Mail.ID***@cyprus.comWed Jan 31 11:59:38 1996 Date: Wed, 31 Jan 96 12:15:28 -0800 From: ***Enter your full name*** <***Enter.your.Internet.E-Mail.ID***@cyprus.com> To: machines@hyperreal.com Subject: Casio VZ1/10m [The following text is in the "iso-8859-1" character set] [Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set] [Some characters may be displayed incorrectly] Ive seen a lot of people asking for information regarding the Casio VZ series so here goes: 16 note poly, VZ8 has 8 8 oscs per voice with 8 waveforms per osc 8 stage envelopes 2 envolopes per osc (pitch, amplitude) split/layer capabilities velocity/position crossfades 8 voice multitimbral backlit graphic display with adjustable contrast (great for editing envelopes and KF curves) stereo outs as well as balanced out I bought one of these a year ago (new $200 couldnt pass it up) and Ive been very impressed. I has a unique sound that is somewhere between a CZ3000 and a DX7, I use it mostly for additive synthesis but the synth engine is REALLY powerful. For example, the 8 oscillators are set up in pairs, they can be listened to directly or one can modulate the other using phase or ring modulation, in addition each pair can modulate the next pair so you can have osc1 ring modulating osc2 phase modulating osc3 and so on with the last oscillator being heard. Its sort of like an 8 oscillator DX7 with user programable algorithms and 8 waveforms per oscillator. By the way, the wavforms available are: sin, saw1, saw2, saw3, saw4, saw5, noise1 and noise2. Each of the sawtooth waves varies in the amount of upper harmonics, noise1 is straight static and noise 2 has some fundamental added. Programming this thing takes some patience! It is very difficutlt to come up with good sounds but when you do they are unique and once you start layering the machine sounds great. The factory presets are so-so but there are some good electric pianos, great pads and very interesting sound effects (car horn is one of my favorites!). I have a Super JX and the VZ works well with it. Ive seen these things for sale in the back of keyboard magazine for $299 with 2 extra rom cards (the machine comes with 1 already). If youre looking for something that sounds unique and youre willing to tweek parameters than this machine is for you, if youre looking for instant gratification go buy an XP10. Happy programming!:) Al Curatolo **Note: Although this machine uses phase distortion like the cz series it is not a cz, thus it will not read cz sounds and it is not as easy to use as the cz series was (power has its price!).