The Liwaco LW-630, a Casio PT-30 clone

Everybody knows about those licensed Casio clones built by Radio Shack in the US, but few people know that there’s another cloner. Liwaco was a French electronics gadget manufacturer of the 1980s, and besides many LCD games, they also released quite a few (licensed?) rebuilds of Casio mini keyboards. Some of them come in a pretty cool, or at least unique, bordeaux-red case.

Here’s a list of the Liwaco’s I could dig up. All of these keyboards are very rare and obscure, and I haven’t got any reliable information about  any additional or left-out features, but everything I read (mostly small ads etc.) indicates that Liwaco just put the original hardware into a differently colored case — with French writing, of course.

Liwaco LW-60E: This is the Casiotone MT-11 (1982/83) in an ugly greyish-brownish case.

Liwaco LW-60E

Liwaco LW-80: This is a clone of either the Casio PT-82 (1985) or PT-87 (1987); both only differ in that the PT-87 is missing the headphone jack, so… It’d be interesting to know if Liwaco also offered their own ROM-Packs?

Liwaco LW-80

Liwaco LW-600: This must be the most obscure Liwaco, I only found one image where half of it is displayed. Judging from it, it is probably a clone of the Casio PT-1 (c. 1984).

Liwaco LW-600

Liwaco LW-610: Now it gets interesting: This is the venerable VL-1 (1981), of course — ever seen a mini-synthesizer in a bordeaux case? I’d love to get my hands on one of these, to complete my collection of VL-1 clones (I already got the Radio Shack Concertmate 200).

Liwaco LW-610

Liwaco LW-630: This is the great PT-30 (c. 1982), one of my favorite keyboards and definitively underrated. It was an early successor of the VL-1, and doesn’t feature the synth, but it has an incredibly complex editable sequencer that stores several short patterns and allow them to be played back in any order… Also, I love the separate chord keys.

Liwaco LW-630

Liwaco LW-640: The last one is a clone of the PT-80 (c. 1984), again with ROM-Pack. Actually, this came before the PT-82/PT-87, and it’s still got the chord keys of the PT-30/PT-50 — I don’t quite understand Liwaco’s numbering scheme.

Liwaco LW-640

Today, there is a Hong Kong company called Liwaco, but I don’t know if there are any connections to this French manufacturer.

The Casio MT-30, woodgrain version

When I saw it on ebay, where there was only an extremely fuzzy image. The vendor also didn’t seem too trustworthy, and I was really wondering if that wouldn’t be a rip-off. But nobody else seemed interested, so I bid and got this little piece of keyboard history for a few euros.

While Casio released many of its earlier full-size Casiotones in this weird and incredibly cheessy fake woodgrain design, this is, as far as I know, the only midsize Casio ever in that style — guess that Casio soon realized that the 1980s kiddies weren’t too hot on that 1970s home organ style… Apart of that, it seems identical to the usual off-white MT-30.

Together with the M-10, the MT-30 was the very first midsize keyboard Casio ever produced. It is already 8-voice polyphonic, but doesn’t feature luxuries such as rhythm or even accompaniment. This is 1981, folks! Still, it has vibrato and sustain effects, and the main voice sound is great, warm and analog-sounding — and they’re also amazingly varied and crisp, not at all like my MT-400V.

I also own the MT-40, which has exactly the same main voice hardware, but throws in analog beats and even some mega-cool monophonic bass accompaniment.  (By the way, the MT-40 rock preset was used in that great dancehall classic Under Me Sleng Teng — one of the few hit songs the feature a Casio home keyboard. This “Sleng Teng Riddim” is also the fully electronic dancehall “riddim”, thus earning Casio its well-deserved place in music history. ) The MT-40 is a pretty cool collector’s item, quite rare and expensive, while you can get MT-30s for next to nothing — but not woodgrain ones.

In consequence, it is one of the few keyboards I could sell without missing a single sound — but, hell, this woodgrain case is just too cool! And I also like to think it is super-duper-rare… Is it really? Has anyone ever seen another one of this — or another woodgrain MT? Pray tell.

Some Casio keyboards of the mid-1980's

Following the first part of my History of Casio Keyboards, this is the story of the years 1984 to 1988, when Casio unsuccessfully tried breaking into the professional music market, unfortunately neglecting the home user business. While Casio’s first years are marked by constant innovation, this innovation started becoming rarer in the mid-1980s.

While their first attempt to build a professional instrument (the Casiotone 1000P in 1982) didn’t meet with success, Casio tried again when they released the CZ line of synths, their first fully digital machines that emulated Yamaha’s FM synthesis with Casio’s house-brewerd PD (Phase Distortion) synthesis. The CZ quickly were a big success. Unfortunately, all attempts to repeat this success flopped — either due to bad marketing, or to overcomplex user interface; additionally, Casio still suffered from their “pocket calculator company” image reinforced by its first great success, the VL-Tone 1. Even such sophisticated instruments like the FZ-1 sampler didn’t gain recognition.

While, as I said, Casio neglected the home user, they released at least one groundbreaking instrument which is as famous as the VL-1: Released in 1986, the Casio SK-1 is often claimed to be the first low-budget, lo-fi sampler. Also interesting were the “Super Drums” keyboards, where you could switch between different rhythm variations. But Casio’s masterpiece of this years appeared in 1984: The MT-400V, and its fullsize brother CT-410V, combined the flexible accompaniment variations of the D930/D931 hardware family with an analog resonance filter that could even be applied to rhythm and accompaniment — no other keyboard of the 1980s has this mighty feature, making it, in my eyes, the single most fascinating and powerful home keyboard of the 1980s. Unfortunately, instruments like these increasingly became the exception. Most keyboards were just clones of earlier hardware, mostly with stripped-down features.

Another trend among Casio’s keyboards of these years was the digital revolution. While Yamaha had completely switched to digital in 1983, Casio still used semi-analog hardware, that slowly began to be replaced by digital technologies. From 1985 on, the percussions became digital; finally, in 1988, Casio exclusively started using wavetable synthesis for their keyboards. This, however, was pretty much the end of Casio as producer of wonderfully weird keyboards. The new instruments completely lacked effects and rhythm or accompaniment variations. Even worse, Casio started literally flooding the market with even more, and even more identical, clones. From 1988 on, you have to look hard for innovations in Casio keyboards.

Finally, not only did the features of Casio keyboards get more boring, but also their designs. While many of the earlier keyboards are really beautiful, Casio now put less emphasis on design, most of the keyboards are boring black or grey boxes. Well, it’s a matter of taste, I know, but still.

But let’s start in 1984, and see what wonderful instruments Casio built in the year of Big Brother…

1984: Masterpieces & Boomboxes

1984 was an interesting year for Casio. Not only did they work on their line of digital Cosmo synthesizers — which would be released as the CZ line –, they also released two of the greatest keyboards ever in this year.

Casio MT-400V

The first was the Casio MT-400V. Using the same hardware as the MT-65, the NEC D930/D931 hardware with its many accompaniment variations and effects, the MT-400V added a unique feature: a fully analog resonance filter. Even more unique is the fact that this filter can not only be applied to the main voice. No, a switch allowed you to also filter the rhythm, accompaniment and even a noise generator (generated from bass drum), allowing the weirdest sounds and noises, including wind and wave effects! The filter can even be controlled by an LFO, which makes this machine Casio’s closest equivalent to a (semi) analog synthesizer. Combine this with the many sound effects and accompaniment variations (lacking only the arpeggio, but adding a stereo chorus with adjustable speed), and you get one of the most flexible and powerful sound machines of the 1980s. While everybody knows about the VL-1, the Rapman and the SK-1, only few people know about the amazing MT-400V, which I consider to be Casio’s true masterpiece. The MT-400V was the first keyboard I bought, and is still the one I use the most and love best. I also looks incredibly cool with its detachable “Micky Mouse” speakers. There also is a fullsize clone, the CT-410V.

Casio KX-101

The other killer Casio of 1984 is the Casio KX-101, a weird combination of boombox, complete with tapedeck and radio, and keyboard. The keyboard seems to be similar to a 4-voice polyphonic PT-30, and includes a complex, editable sequencer whose content can be read from/written to cassette tape. Strangely though, it is not possible to directly record the keyboard sound to tape. The KX-101 is very rare and much sought after today, getting killer prices on online auctions.

Casio PT-7

The third legendary machine of 1984 is the Casio PT-7, even weirder than the KX-101. Its unique design consists of a detachable, thin foil keyboard — the main hardware was in a white box. I really don’t know what Casio thought when building this — and as it is pretty rare, it is a popular and costly collector’s item.

Another innovation of 1984 was the introduction of digital percussion synthesis. While all earlier keyboards used analog percussion, the Casio MT-35 and Casio MT-200 apparently were the first to generate their percussion sounds through waveforms. The MT-200 is also the only Casio that featured the PA-1 computer interface, which is totally obscure, like many of Casio’s interfaces (TA-1, RAM-Packs); even Tablehooters knows nothing about it.

Casio PT-1 (pink case)

Finally, Casio reactivated its NEC D1867 chip, used in the honorable VL-Tone 1, in its PT-1, which is the simplest PT you can imagine — no synth, no sequencer, no accompaniment, just the sounds and rhythms. Despite of that, it is still quite popular among collectors, either because it’s a really cheap way to get the VL-1 sounds, or maybe just because of its many, many color variations — some including colored “black” keys, like the lovely pink PT-1 pictured here.

1985: Going Pro & Super Drums

In 1985, Casio released the first of its line of CZ synthesizer, beginning with the CZ-101 (the only midsize CZ) and its bigger brother, the CZ-1000. The CZ synths used a synthesis method called PD (Phase Distortion), which is functionally similar to Yamaha’s FM synthesis. Especially the CZ-101 was very successful, which encouraged Casio to concentrate on the pro market — unfortunately neglecting the home market in the process.

Casio CT-6000

Casio also a few high-end home keyboards which use PD synthesis for its presets, the first being the Casio CT-6000. The CT-6000 had many professional features, many of them unique for Casio home keyboards, and may well be the most sophisticated home keyboard of its time: Not only does it feature key velocity with aftertouch, it also comes with a pitch bend wheel and MIDI support. Also interesting is its “Super Accompaniment”, meaning that the accompaniment reacts to key velocity and chord progression — from what I know, this is unique for Casio keyboards. It also comes with a chord sequencer.

Casio MT-52

Another innovation on the home market in 1985 was the introduction of “Super Drums” keyboards, which allowed the user to select different rhythm variations for each of several rhythm tracks (base, snare, hi-hat etc.), allowing you to create a great variety of rhythms. The first Super Drums keyboard was the Casio MT-52, which also is (with its fullsize variant, the CT-320) the only Super Drums keyboard with analogue percussion — the many Super Drums keyboards of the following years already feature sampled percussion.

Casio MT-210

Speaking of which, sampled percussion also was introduced in 1986, with the Casio MT-210 and CT-430. Both keyboards apparently still use the successful NEC D930/D931 chip combo, as they still feature similar bass and chord accompaniment variations.

Still, Casio started using new chips, beginning with their ROM-Pack keyboards. The MT-18, a midsize version of the PT-80, complete with single-key accompaniment à la PT-30, used the HD61703A01 chips (it apparently is the only one using this hardware). The PT-82 used the HD61703B01 chip and was a stripped-down clone of the PT-80 without accompaniment.

Casio CK-200

Finally, the Casio CK series also appeared in 1985, which can be considered a successor of the KX-101, as they feature a radio tuner and/or tapedecks. While the CK-10 (radio only) and the CK-200 are based on monophonic PT hardware, the “high-end” CK-500 uses the D930/D931 combo and combines its accompaniment variations (as usual without the arpeggio feature) and effects with radio and a double tapedeck.

Casio CT-810

Ah, I nearly forgot: Among the most absurd-looking Casio surely is the Casio CT-810, witch its oversized knobs for volume, tempo and stereo chorus speed. Otherwise, it’s one of the most advanced ROM-Pack keyboards, with key lighting, learning features, and a live sequencer where melody and accompaniment could be entered separately — much like the smaller brother, the MT-800.

1986: Lo-Fi Sampler & More of the Same

Around 1986, Casio’s innovations started to thin out on the home market. While the earlier years still had many firsts, 1986 brings us only one real innovation — but a legendary one.

Casio SK-1

The Casio SK-1 is the first of Casio’s SK line of lo-fi, lo-price samplers. It is often claimed to be the first of its kind, but according to Yamaha, its VSS-100 came out a year earlier. Of course, the SK-1′s sampling features are quite limited. Memory cost was still quite high in these years, thus the sampling rate and sample length had to be greatly reduced. Still, the SK-1 is capable of holding four short, lo-fi samples, which is enough for good fun. The SK-1 also features portamento — unique for small Casios –, and Casio also managed to squeeze an additive synthesizer and a simple editable sequencer into the SK-1′s small case — a real little workstation! Unfortunately, and unlike later SKs, the SK-1 is not able to retain its samples when switched off, even with batteries, which in my eyes severely limits its use. Despite of this, the SK-1 is today one of the most well-known and sought after Casio keyboards. The SK-1 was also the first Casio home keyboard featuring fully digital synthesis based on samples, using the OKI M6283 chip.

Casio MT-500

Otherwise, not many interesting keyboards appeared in 1986. Among the most interesting are the advanced Super Drums keyboards, the Casio MT-500 and Casio CT-510, with drum pads, more rhythm variations and the ability to plug in Casio’s external drum pads, the DP-1. The CT-510 also was the first Super Drums Casio with HD61702A03 chips, which were subsequently used in all Super Drums Casio.

New chips also were used in beginner’s and ROM-Pack keyboards this year, namely the HD61702A02 used in the the CT-350, the CT-805 (with sequencer) and the MT-820; otherwise, these keyboards offered nothing new.

Casio CT-6500

Somewhat more interesting are the successors of the high-end PD home keyboards CT-6000. While nothing much is known about the obscure CT-5500, the CT-6500 lacks its predecessor’s key velocity, but now has two wheels for pitch bend and vibrato. It is also one of the very few Casios where the user can freely select presets for bass, chords and obbligato accompaniment tracks. Among its many features is a portamento (with adjustable speed) and a “Dual Voice” feature, combining two presets to allow a whopping 1128 combinations. It also features a live chord sequencer.

1987: High-End Lo-Fi Samplers & Toy Keyboards

In 1987, Casio’s next attempt to enter the professional market was the HT/HZ series of synths. These used a synthesis called “Spectrum Dynamics“, which apparently is just a new word for good old Consonant-Vowel — somewhat expanded and made editable, of course. But semi-analog didn’t go well in the late 1980s, and the synths also suffered from bad marketing: Casio launched them as advanced home keyboards, with editable auto-accompaniment and rhythm patterns (except the HZ-600, the only pure synth in this line). While this is indeed a pretty cool and powerful feature, it made the pro’s quite sceptic of the machines powers, especially considering Casio’s image. Still, if you’re looking for a cheap semi-analog synth, I think these machines can be recommended (I have yet to check them out). Casio also released to home keyboards with non-editable SD presets, the MT-600 and the CT-630.

Casio MT-520

Otherwise, Casio released its last Super Drums keyboards in 1987; especially the MT-520/CT-510 are considered as being the most flexible, as they feature a whopping eight drum pads, and they also are the only Super Drums keyboards where individual rhythm tracks can be muted.

Casio SK-200

After the success of the SK-1, Casio also released many more lo-fi samplers in the SK series. All of these were able to store two “long” or four short samples (in the same mediocre 8-bit sound quality of before), and they featured more sampling effects, including “reverse”. Sampling memory finally was battery-buffered, so that you didn’t lose your samples when switching the SK of. Among the new SKs were the small SK-5 and the SK-8 — the former with four effect pads, including “Dog” and “Surf” sounds; the latter with a ROM-Pack slot instead of effect pads. While these are quite common, Casio also released some “large” SKs that are mostly pretty rare. Like the HT keyboards, the midsize SK-100 and SK-200, and the fullsize SK-2100, feature a pattern sequencer.

(There also was an obscure variant called SK-8A, where you could change scales to Arabic scales. It wasn’t the first “Arabic” Casio though; an obscure Casiotone 405 variant called AT-400 was first.)

Casio EP-30

Finally, Casio released its first toy keyboards in 1987, the EP series, all Muppets-themed. The EP-10 used the NEC D1867 (also known from the famous VL-1 and PT-1), while the EP-20 was based on PT-82/PT-87 hardware, but unlike them, didn’t offer a ROM-Pack slot, but rather came with a with fixed integrated ROM-Pack. The most interesting EP keyboard is definitely the EP-30, which is based on SK hardware and indeed allowed lo-fi sampling. Not bad for a toy keyboard! Unfortunately, all EP keyboards are quite rare.

On the other part of the scale, Casio also released its professional sampler, the FZ-1, and its electronic guitars of the DG and MG series in 1987. Especially the FZ-1 had some very advanced features (e.g., you could literally “draw” your own waveform), but, as with the HZ line, it didn’t go strong.

1988: Leaving Pro & Going Digital

In 1988, Casio started its last attempt to repeat its CZ success on the pro market. The VZ series of synths used a synthesis method called iPD (interactive Phase Distortion), an greatly expanded version of the the CZ’s PD synthesis. Unfortunately, and unlike the earlier CZ synths, the iPD was complex and hard to program, and the VZ’s cumbersome to use, which meant another flop for Casio, which after the VZ-1 decided to retreat from the pro market (of course, they also offered the incredible DH “Digital Horns” before doing so…)

Casio CT-370

On the home market, Casio finally decided to abandon its semi-analog Consonant-Vowel synthesis and switched to fully digital keyboards with wavetable synthesis for its MT and CT line. The first chip used was the NEC D938GD, which allowed the 20 or 30 presets to be combined via “Dual Voice” feature, resulting in 220 or 465 combinations, respectively (that’s why Casio boasted “220/465 Tone Bank”. These keyboards also finally had MIDI, and they often came with a simple, live non-editable sequencer. Unfortunately, they had no effects at all, and also didn’t have any accompaniment variations — and the accompaniments are grossly over-arranged, making the useless for creative music-making. In my eyes, a big step backward from the greatly flexible semi-analog keyboards of the classic NEC D930/D931 age — although it has to be said that the wavetable sound actually is very good and clear.

Casio CT-660

Although precise dates are hard to obtain, judging from the design, the first NEC D938 keyboard seemed to have been the CT-370. In the following years, Casio literally flooded the market with many similar variants, most of which with stripped features — the cheapest keyboards of this hardware family came without sequencer and MIDI. The most advanced keyboards where the MT-540 and its 61-key brother, the CT-660, which additionally featured some totally cheesy “atmo” sounds (ocean waves, forst atmo, sci-fi or western movie).

In the last part…

The next and final part of this series tells of the few interesting machines Casio built from 1989 to the mid-1990s: the first SA keyboards, the famous Rapman keyboards, and finally the VA-10 and the SK-60. Casio still built many, many home keyboards, but most of them are not much more than clones of earliers keyboards.

Stevie Wonder gives keyboard to quake survivor

I mean, of course it’s nice of Stevie Wonder to donate his instrument — or rather, one of the probably dozens of instruments. But why does he have to do it on TV, for all the world to see? It gives the whole thing a bad taste. “Look at me”, it sounds, “I, Stevie Wonder, do something good to some poor soul.” That’s something that makes me sick.

The worst part is the following, this self-righteous laugh of the CNN man:

While this is more or less disgusting, the hilarious part is Stevie Wonder’s musical message:

Great, Stevie! Finally, I know why you’re considered an artist.

PS. Actually, Romel got even two keyboards by Stevie Wonder, see this live interview between Stevie Wonder and Romel Joseph. He also got a violin, this time by R.J. Storm, however.

The Victor Concert

What a design! Like right out of a science fiction movie! I love it.

I stumbled upon this organ on the Japanese Yokohama Music site. Unfortunately, my Japanese is non-existent, thus I have to rely on Google’s automatic translation for the few information I found.

Apparently, Victor (the translation calls it “Victron”, but the image clearly shows “Victor”) was a JVC’s Japanese organ brand name, which built their first organs in 1966. This specific organ, the Victor Concert (not even sure if that’s the real model name; the name “Konsatobikutoron” also pops up) was probably built in or around 1974 and played by the (model?) Midori Mori on TV. Victor went out of business in 1991, apparently because of “sluggish” sales.

Some more info about Victron organs can be found on (Japanese) Wikipedia that seem to confirm this. Apart of that… ??? Out of Japan, this organs seems to be completely unknown. If anyone knows more about it — please let me know!

Early Casios

This is the first in a series of three articles where I retrace the development of Casio keyboards from 1980 to the early/mid 1990s. Instead of listing all keyboards, I’ll concentrate on the innovations that makes the world of Casio keyboards of that time so exiting and weird, and I’ll of course present such legends as the VL-Tone 1, SK-1, KX-101, and Rapman, as well as some other wonderful crappy cheesy Casio’s home keyboards that I consider often vastly underrated.

I’ll start with the story of the early years, 1980 to 1983. This definitively was Casio’s time of innovations and experimentation, where Casio made its first experiences creating musical instruments.

Mainly because of their lack of experience, some of their designs are just plain stupid and totally flopped — the “sine-wave disaster” is a great example.

But at the same time, it is this exact lack of experience that led to some of the most wonderful keyboards during its early years, with great, weird, flexible, easy-to-use features that were never seen before and after, as nobody who knows anything about it would even think of features like “Harmony Arrangers”. All of the keyboards of this time are just great fun to play with and are worth owning; some of them (especially the VL-1, the PT-30, and the MT-65) belong to the greatest home keyboards ever.

Unfortunately, Casio was a quick learner, and from the mid-80s on, they concentrated less on innovations and started building more or less boring keyboards with pseudo-realistic sounds and less fun features. Many of the best features were dropped when Casio (in its attempt to imitate Yamaha?) tried to become “professional” or even “user-friendly”.

Apropos user-friendly: One lovely thing about the early, (semi-)analog keyboards, both Yamaha’s and Casio’s, is their intuitive user interface. Everything is controlled through knobs, sliders and switches, and every change is immediately reflected by the instrument. This lets you create really weird shit by quickly switching rhythm variations or tones. I was appalled when, after knowing the MT-400V, I got a CT-660 and realized that rhythms are only switched at the end of each measure — no “samba-waltz-disco-swing-rock” fun any more! Even later, they forbid tone switching fun by forcing you to punch in numbers…

Anyway, were not there yet, let’s go back in time to the year 1979. Everything started when…

1979: Humble Beginnings & A Melody Calculator

Casio Melody-80

Casio was already well-known as manufacturer of LCD watches and electronic pocket calculators when, in about 1979, they released the “Melody Calculator”, the Casio Melody-80. This little pocket calculator had a unique feature: You could play it pretty much like a keyboard by punching the calculator keys. Although it is not much more than a gadget, the Melody-80 is a pretty cool one; and it is also, by my knowledge, Casio’s first foray into the world of music.

In the following years, Casio built many more ML calculators. But at the same time, Casio had the idea to apply digital chip technology to build portable home keyboards. Until then, electronic home keyboards were organs — bulky, heavy things, not much lighter than a piano. Casio — and another company, Yamaha — realized that you could do basically the same in a much lighter version by replacing most of the analog circuitry by chips.

1980: The Very First Casiotones & Consonant-Vowel Synthesis

Casiotone 201

In 1980, Casio and Yamaha released their first “portable electronic instruments”. Both were 8-voice polyphonic, but while Yamaha’s keyboards — the “PortaSounds” PS-1, PS-2 and PS-3 — were quite small and featured rhythm and auto-accompaniment, Casio’s rather bulky Casiotone 201, which lacked both, had the advantage of having a much better sound and much more presets — a whopping 29, compared to Yamaha’s meagre 8.

Casio achieved this by using a sound synthesis method they dubbed “Consonant-Vowel synthesis”. It basically consists of two multipulse waves, processed by independent envelope-controlled filters, which are then mixed together. While this didn’t produce truly realistic sounds, it provided for a vast variety of acceptable sounds — from pianos and guitars to organs, violins and flutes.

As for the rhythm, Casio wasn’t lazy and soon started to catch up. The first Casiotone with rhythm was the Casiotone 301, released that same year.

Casio M-10

Also in 1980, Casio released its first midsize keyboards, first the small Casiotone M-10 with but four presets,  closely followed by the MT-30 with 22 presets. Both keyboards lacked both rhythm and accompaniment.

As an aside, the MT-30 also was released in a very rare brown woodgrain version (maybe called MT-30W, of which I happen to be the proud owner; I never saw it mentioned anywhere). It is the only small/midsize Casio I know of with that weird 70s design; while Casio exclusively used woodgrain for their fullsize keyboards until 1984, the early smaller models were nearly always white. I guess Casio quickly realized that a woodgrain keyboard isn’t something for those fashionable gadget freaks of the early 1980s.

1981: The Little White Wonder & The Great Sine Wave Disaster

Casio MT-40

Automatic accompaniment, however, had to wait until 1981. The midsize Casio MT-40 featured only monophonic bass accompaniment, and also one of the coolest fill-in buttons I know of. At first press, you get a “four-to-the-floor” bass drum beat; at the next, you get an 1/8s snare drum roll — simple, but very effective. You can also switch back and forth within the same measure, which gives a virtually unlimited variety of weird fill-ins and breaks. The MT-40 also has the honor to be one of the few Casio keyboards whose sound is well-known from a classic song: Everybody who loves reggae knows the warm, lovely sound of the MT-40 bass — it’s the basis for the famous “Sleng Teng Riddim”.

The  fullsize Casiotone 401 is much less well-known, but it was the first Casio keyboard to finally feature full, fingered polyphonic accompaniment, complete with fill-ins and and even rhythm variations.

Casio VL-Tone VL-1

The most famous Casio keyboard ever, however, is probably the legendary Casio VL-Tone 1, Casio’s first mini-keyboard. It was not much bigger than a chocolate bar. It used a simple sound synthesis with only one filtered multipulse wave. It was monophonic, and all sounds were unrealistic, obtrusive and cheesy. It had buttons instead of keys. But it truly was a technological marvel. For just about 70 bucks, you didn’t just get those incredibly minimalistic rhythms (low blip, high blip, noise); you also got a simple, but fully workable synthesizer, complete with selectable waveforms and editable envelopes. Casio even managed to squeeze a complete editable sequencer into the little box, with realtime recording and step-by-step editing. And finally, and best of all, it came with a fully working — calculator. In fact, this thing was based on a calculator; it’s hardware is similar to the 1979 Melody Calculator. The calculator memory in fact is used for storing the synthesizer parameters — you can literally add, subtract, multiply, divide and extract roots of sounds with this thing!

The VL-1 got a lot of publicity, and at the price, it became a smash hit. (People on Ebay keep pretending they’re rare, which makes me laugh. The VL-1 is everything but rare: it is the single most common keyboard, even after nearly 30 years. There’s at least one, often two or even three, VL-Tones available, at any time.) Even professional musicians fell in love with that little white plastic box — probably the most well-known being the German band Trio with it’s “Da Da Da” –, and still do so today.

The publicity Casio got for the VL-1 had a downside, however: It reinforced Casio’s image as “pocket calculator company”. While this wasn’t so bad on the home keyboard market, Casio never really got a foot into the professional market. No matter what they tried, and despite many inspired innovations and high technological quality, Casio’s instruments were always considered inferior compared to products by, say, Yamaha, who has had a century of experience in manufacturing musical instruments.

Casiotone 701

Casio, however, lacked this experience — which can be clearly seen when, still in 1981, Casio released their first keyboard using sine wave synthesis similar to the Consonant-Vowel method, but with sines instead of multipulses. At that time, sines were much harder to create electronically than multipulses, so Casio probably thought that would be better. But as anyone who knows a bit about sound synthesis could have told them, sine waves much less suited for sound generation, as they are pretty much immune against frequency filters.

Despite having advanced features like complex editable sequencers, complete with barcode readers for input, and key lighting the Casiotone 701 and its successors (including the midsize MT-70) sold only poorly: They may have had good, realistic organ and flute sounds — everything else sounded like bad organs and flutes.

1982: More Little Wonders & The First Professional Flop

In 1982, Casio started its PT series of mini keyboards by releasing the Casio PT-20. While it lacked the synthesizer of the VL-1, it was the first mini-keyboard with polyphonic accompaniment (played using special “chord keys”) which could also be stored and edited in the built-in sequencer. The sequencer also had another unique and totally weird feature called “Harmony Arranger“: You can automagically create the “right” chords for a melody stored in the sequencer! (This feature was revived in the mid-90s for the Casio VA-10.)

Casio PT-30

Released one year later, the PT-30 had bigger chord keys, an LCD, and an even more advanced sequencer: You could record up to eight different parts, which could then played back in any order. It is also the only Casio mini-keyboard to feature three separate, analog volume sliders for main, rhythm and accompaniment — all other PTs just have main volume buttons. Finally, and somewhat more esoteric, the PT-30 is the only PT able to save its sequencer content to a tape cartridge, the TA-1 — which is so rare it’s almost mythical.

In my eyes, the PT-30 is one of the best Casio keyboards ever, even more usable than the VL-1, as it is the perfect musical notebook for the travelling componist.

Casiotone 1000P

Another innovation of that year was Casio’s first “pro” keyboard: The Casiotone 1000P was the high-end model of Casio’s unfortunate sine wave keyboards. Featuring 61 keys, and lacking rhythm, the 1000P (P for “programmable”) essentially was an additive synthesizer that featured an arpeggio sequencer — unique in the world of Casio keyboards. Still, it was awkward to use, and it fell through among the target audience — Casio’s first failed attempt to enter the professional market.

Also in 1982, Casio released its first midsize keyboards with polyphonic fingered accompaniment. While the MT-70 is again based on sine wave synthesis, the MT-45 and the MT-60 use good old Consonant-Vowel. While the latter (and its bigger brother, the Casiotone 403) are said to be the best sounding of all Consonant-Vowel keyboards (I haven’t heard them yet), the MT-45 has many accompaniment variations with arpeggio and two bass variants. This was made possible by the versatile NEC D930G accompaniment chip, whose greatest moment was yet to come. Another peculiarity of the MT-45 is that accompaniment cannot be switched off — in fact, the lower part of the keyboard is hardwired to the accompaniment chip and the upper part to the voice chip.

Casio MT-45

The MT-45 and MT-60 are also, in my eyes, by far the most beautiful keyboards ever built, with their off-white case, angular yet elegant design, and round switch buttons… absolutely lovely. Even if I never use it, I simply cannot sell my MT-45. The keyboards of the early 1980s generally had the nicest designs, which gradually got worse since then. The 1990s were completely dominated by ugly black boxes, while the 2000s brought us extremely ugly silvery monstrosities. Ugh.

1983: ROM-Packs & Infinite Possibilities

While Casio released relatively few keyboards in 1983, most of them belonging to the last of the ill-fated sine wave keyboards, but some of them introduced much more successful and interesting features that would characterize Casio keyboards throughout the mid-80s.

Casio PT-50

The first being the famous ROM-Pack. Introduced with the Casio PT-50, the ROM-Pack replaced the barcode reader as Casio’s input medium for its home keyboards. (Yamaha had introduced the similar “PlayCard” for its keyboards a year earlier.) A ROM-Pack is a small cartridge on which songs are stored, which can then be simply played backed or used for learning features. On the PT-50, however, ROM-Packs can only be played back. Otherwise, it is pretty similar to its predecessor, the PT-30, with slightly different presets and rhythms, a fill-in added and, unfortunately, sequencer realtime recording removed. Besides ROM-Packs, the PT-50 could also save melodies to a “RAM-Pack”, but while Casio released dozens of ROM-Pack keyboards until the late 1980s — mainly pop hits and movie songs –, the RAM-Pack was abandoned soon; the PT-50 is the only keyboard able to use it.

Casiotone 405

Second, Casio released the Casiotone 405 and its mid-size brother, the Casio MT-65 in 1983. These were the first keyboards of the “classic” NEC D930/D931 family, which undisputedly is the most versatile and successful hardware in Casio’s history. Especially the accompaniment chip D930G, already used in the MT-45, is pure genius: With 12 basic rhythm/accompaniment patterns, switchable arpeggio, and four independently selectable patterns for bass, chord and arpeggio, this gives you over 1,500 accompaniment patterns (3,000 when you count rhythm-only as accompaniment) — an incredible number at that time, and impressive still today. (The first wavetable keyboards in 1989 had no variations at all.)

Casio MT-65

The main voice chip NEC D931C fades in comparison, but with its 20 presets, vibrato/delayed vibrato, sustain/reverb, and two envelope variations per voice (the latter only on the Casiotone 405), this still makes 360 voice variations in all. I know of no other home keyboards with such a wealth of options. As with all Casios of this time, all of the controls are simple analog switches and sliders, which makes these keyboards perfect for live play, creative exploration and experimentation.

Casiotone 610

Apparently, the same chips were also used in two advanced keyboards with 61 fullsize keys, the Casiotone 610 and the high-end Casiotone 7000, both the first stereo keyboards by Casio. Although both feature the same sound and rhythm preset names, both come with only very few accompaniment variations and only sustain as effect. While the 610 featured a stereo chorus instead (depicted here is a beautiful, but rare, gold version; most were brown woodgrain), the 7000 had many other new features: You could position each track (melody, accompaniment, and rhythm) independently in the stereo field; it had a complex editable sequencer whose content could be saved to and loaded from magnetic tape; and a “Dual Keyboard” feature allowed to store two user-defined settings (consisting of preset, panning and effects ).

While Casio had constantly changed their hardware for their home keyboard, the D930/D931 “dream team” became the basis for all mid- and fullsize Casio keyboards until at least 1986. Unfortunately, Casio soon began its practice of increasingly cutting down on the hardware features made available to the users — all later keyboards lacked the arpeggio, for example, even if the hardware was still there. (This was done probably in order to save a few cents on buttons, wiring, and memory.) Thus, the MT-65 and Casiotone 405 are the only keyboards that fully exploit the features on these two chips — not surprisingly, the MT-65 is highly valued on the collector’s market, while I got my Casiotone 405 for 20 €…

Still, at least at the beginning, Casio sometimes added some interesting new feature instead. I can live without arpeggio if I get a fully functionable resonance filter controlled by analog sliders! And this is what Casio did — but you’ll have to wait until my next creative surge to learn about the single greatest home keyboard ever built.

Stay tuned.

Retro home keyboarders of the world: Rejoice!

Unlike Yamaha, Casio has only very limited support for older models — the only official way to find a few manuals is over at Casio New Zealand –, making some of these manuals hard or impossible to dig up. While most of these keyboards are so simple that manuals aren’t really needed, for some models, a manual is definitely needed for squeezing the most out of your ole, trusty tablehooter.

In order to correct this grievance, here are the user manuals for most keyboards of the older Casiotone / CT / MT / PT / SK / SA and VL-Tone series, and also those for some esoteric weirdosities like the mythical KX-101 and the insane VA-10. I also included some manuals (such as for the PT-30) that Yours Truly made himself.

All of these manuals are PDFs; most of them are in English. Where I could only find a manual in another language, I included it — better a Spanish or German manual than none.

As for the missing keyboards, in most cases, there are very similar keyboards whose manuals can be used — many Casios use the same or very similar hardware. I am planning to write a history with a useful “genealogy” of Casio’s 1980s keyboards in later posts, so stay tuned.

Great big thanks to J. (you know who you are!) and to Tim for providing missing manuals (check out his homepage — he’s the world’s leading expert on Casio ROM-Packs :)

I’m still looking for manuals not listed here, so if you have one, please share it! (Easiest way is to write a comment, giving your e-mail; I will contact you, and nobody else will be able to see your address).

So here we go, ordered by series and then by model number: