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Casio CZ-1 | |
SynthCheckArticle from International Musician & Recording World, October 1986 |
At last a fully professional, touch-sensitive, Phase Distortion synth! Jim Betteridge waves goodbye to auto-accompaniment forever.
As with the CZ-5000 it is possible to create 'Key Split' and 'Tone Mix' combinations of these voices: key split allows you to select a split point on the keyboard and select different sounds for each half, while the Tone Mix allows two sounds to be layered on top of each other across the entire width of the keyboard. In each case, because there are two sounds involved, you are restricted to four-note polyphony. An important feature of the CZ-1 not to be found on previous CZ models is that in addition to the 128 individual voice memories there are 64 'operation' memories in which can be stored Tone Mix and Key Split configurations. Though it can be changed overall, the keyboard split point is unfortunately not individually programmable for each memory. An alternative use of an operation memory is to store just a single voice plus an individual set of performance settings such as pitch bend range, portamento rate, etc. Such settings can't be stored along with a Tone Mix or Key Split configuration, so you have a choice as to how you want to use the extra memory facility; you might have 20 Tone Mixes, 30 Key Splits and 10 sets of performance memories — or however you decided to divide them up.
Changing the order in which the internal voices are stored is made easier with the addition of an 'Exchange' button which allows you to select any two of the 64 voices and swap their positions. On the programming front a 'Parameter Copy' facility speeds things up by allowing to copy envelope shapes rather than having to laboriously program each one individually.
Like the rest of the CZ range the CZ-1 is multi-timbral which means that it can be used with a sequencer in MIDI 'Mono' mode to allow up to eight musical parts to be written using eight different voices. There aren't eight separate outputs to allow individual processing via an external mixer, etc, but it is possible to change the balance between each of the eight voices internally. This multi-timbral ability is one of the great advantages of the CZ range.
Key velocity can be applied to any combination of DCAs, DCWs and DCOs to vary volume, timbre and pitch if desired. The aftertouch can be applied to either volume or modulation and the depth of modulation can be set independently of the modulation wheel setting which is great when you want subtler effects via the keyboard and wonkier sounds by throwing up the mod wheel. This comes courtesy of the CZ-1's 'Page 2' programming facilities, which is basically another level of programming offering a number of more complex options, the full extent of which we weren't able to plumb without an operator's manual, but it included such things as the ability to independently detune Tone Mix or Split sounds and have chorus, sustain pedal and octave shift individually on or off for either of the two tones involved. Though the lack of a manual once again left us floundering, it is suspected that in the Key Split mode the two halves of the keyboard will be able to be sent on two separate MIDI channels, thus making it possible to independently control two external MIDI instruments simultaneously. A simple but useful addition on the MIDI front is a MIDI on/off button that simply takes the CZ-1 in and out of circuit without any complicated programming procedure.
The sounds that come with the CZ-1 undoubtedly sound better than those with previous CZ models. Whether this is mostly the subjective effect of having touch sensitivity or the product of a more experienced progammer, I'm not sure, but it would seem that Japanese HQ is taking more notice of the advice of its Western colleagues. The voices are punchy, brilliant, round, jagged... there's a whole range of very impressive sounds including a particularly pleasing acoustic/jazz guitar sound that actually sounds like a guitar. The overall tone of the instrument is quite unique and thus it wouldn't replace a Roland or Yamaha instrument, although in some way it does come somewhere in between them — in the nicest possible way. The use of the number '1' suggests that the CZ range has reached its peak here, and indeed it seems that it has finally come of age with an instrument that real professionals should feel good about using. It has taken until now to fully shake off the 'fun keyboard' stigma attached to the Casio name, but with the CZ-1 there can be no doubt that they now demand serious consideration at a pro level.
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Review by Jim Betteridge
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