Casio Cz101 (1984)

 

Cute mini-synth based on digital synthesis PD-Phase Distortion engineered in the mid eighties strongly inspired by Yamaha FM technology (like DX-7).

Is still PD synthesis interesting today? what kind a sounds does it generates? are CZ family members still worth a buy? let's find it out!

KEYBOARD mainly made out of plastic in pure '80 fashion featuring 49 minikeys with no Velocity and easy to carry around (about 3Kg weight)
The main panel features 52 push buttons (no membrane unlike cz-1000) and a 16 x 2 lines display with no backlight.
On the left side (PIC) there is a Wheel for pitch bending and some functions dedicated to Real time performance such as Vibrato On-Off / Portamento On-Off / Portamento Time / Bender Range.

Back panel and right side (pic) have the following connections: Midi I/O (no Thru) cartridge slot (has a switch protection) Line out (jack mono) and Headphones out.

The machine works with 6 x 1.5 V batteries or with an external power supply type DC 9V negative in center 800 mA feed - original factory model is labeled "AD-5" (pic).
--> A special switch tab "APO" turns off the machine if not played for more than 7 minutes...a kind of battery life-saver.

PD SYNTHESIS The CPU generates 8 digital sinusoidal waveforms is stored in the CZ ROM.
If you play this wave at different speed, the pitch is altered resulting in different notes, in any case speed read is kept constant (linear) from beginning to the end. If this speed became non-time constant, the sinusoidal will be altered for time dilatation and compression effect, creating a dynamic distortion that generes more complex waveforms.
-->PD distorts the phase angle of a sine wave (or cosine) when reading the ROM stored digital waveform and the relative amount of harmonic distortion is determinated by the DCW EG

VOICE one or two digital oscillators (with detune and ringmodulation with no depth ) per voice with eight different "sine wave pattern reading" waveform presets: Saw / Square / Pulse / 2x Sin / Saw-Pulse / Resonance TRAPEZOID / Resonance TRIANGLE / Resonance Saw - digital PD waveforms 1 to 5 can be combined together. A white noise generator can be added with fixed Amplitude, but you have to turn off the ringmodulator.

PERFORMANCE up to eight parts, four if two voices are stacked.

EG 6 Envelope Generators in total.
"DCW1" "DCW2" are fundamental for Phase Distortion process has 8 stages, 8 levels and 8 Sustain points (determines the level at which a sound is held as long as a key is pressed).
"DOC1" "DOC2" for PITCH both with 8 stages, 8 levels and 8 Sustain points.
"DCA1" DCA2" for Amplitude both with 8 stages, 8 levels and 8 Sustain points.

LFO 1 VIBRATO (Amplitude) with 0-99 stepped Frequency, Delay Start / Depth modulation and four waveforms Triangle / Square / Up-down Sawtooth.

MIDI pretty good Midi interface but sometimes I noticed some strange latency when used in multitimbral mode or when loading a patch... probably a poor Midi buffer memory.
Sounds can be externally edited with external software (compatible with Cz-1000).

MEMORY There are 16 non-writable ROM sounds and 16 free slots that can be saved to a computer or to a Ram card model "Casio RA-3" (pic).
The memory RAM needs the internal 1.5V batteries to retain sounds (no lithium battery inside).

CZ FAMILY

cz-1000: the same but bigger and normal keys plus membrane buttons (INFO HERE) cz-3000: 16 voices 1 DCO or 8 voices 2x stacking 61 keys and chorus effect cz-2000S: same as 3000 plus internal stereo speakers (also known as 2600s for other market) cz-230S: tiny as cz101 but preset non editable + speakers + pcm drums cz-5000: with (difficult) sequencer and 61 keys cz-1: the biggest with keys velocity with Aftertouch (no sequencer)

 

Funk Metal bass Bass deep (+drum) Magic PD anloglike (+drum) temple of sid Bubble sound softskuare Jazzy (+drum-stereo split) Cz overdub Enot lagay! +drum Demo sent by demo by andy matic

- esoteric Pd synthesis
- cute and easy to carry

- Display/ editing
- memory
-Multitimbral bad timing

very gritty especially good for digital noises and droning.

The Casio Cz-101 is not the most powerful of CZ nbut surely the cutest and most sought-after for its The cheap 80' design with minikeys.

still worth a buy? mmm.yes!