Posted by: acb | http://dev.null.org | Tue Mar 5 12:45:29 2002
No expansion slot. Wasn't the VL-1 a pocket-sized beastie? This one's a bit over a foot long.
This does have "Casio chords" for the bass part; which seems to play a major chord on the note held down; there's also an arpeggiator, which only runs when you run the rhythm patterns.
Posted by: acb | http://dev.null.org | Tue Mar 5 12:49:38 2002
Other controls include a selection of 8 instrument sounds, which are named (presumably as a mnemonic of some sort) "piano", "elec.piano", "organ", "pipe organ", "harp", "accordion", "clarinet" and "violin", a "sustain" slider which controls the release time (the closest thing to envelope control), and 8 rhythm accompaniments which don't sound too bad, if you're going for electronic retro.
Didn't the VL-1 have a rhythm generator consisting of two beeps and a white-noise sound?
Posted by: Ben | http://leviathan.weblogs.com | Wed Mar 6 00:32:44 2002
Rock and ROLL!!!!
Posted by: Jimbob | http://the-fix.org | Wed Mar 6 04:57:36 2002
Yeah i got one of the 4-instrument, foot-long, 100-note Casio's. I plug it in through a Boss Octaver, Ibanez Sonic Distortion, and CryBaby Wah, and it sounds pretty damn fat. The Octaver gives it the couple of extra octaves the thing badly needs.
Posted by: acb | http://dev.null.org | Wed Mar 6 06:18:53 2002
Heh. I found out that the Line Out on mine doesn't work. The headphone socket works, though it distorts a bit; still, that may be desired. It was clean enough to record all the drum sounds, which I'll probably make into a LM-4 drum kit.
If one wants to be lo-fi, one can just mike it up.
Posted by: Graham | http:// | Wed Mar 6 12:21:21 2002
Not pocket sized. Still pretty small, about the size of a large pencil case.
And of course, the killer feature is "German Folk Song".
Ah yes, Jimbob, but did you get it for Christmas 1982 after spotting it at the newly opened Dick Smith store and dropping great big hints to your parents?
Or did you just buy it at Cash Converters like every other bandwagon jumper? :)
Posted by: acb | http://dev.null.org | Wed Mar 6 12:37:50 2002
You'd be lucky to find it at Smack Converters these days; all the indie kids buying them up to start garage bands have driven the price up. It's not quite near TB-303 level yet, but give it time.
Posted by: Jimbob | http://the-fix.org | Thu Mar 7 00:08:22 2002
Mum actually got it from Harris Scarfes in about 1987 I think :)
Posted by: Graham | http:// | Thu Mar 7 11:50:31 2002
heheheh. indie kids are stupid.
Posted by: acb | http://dev.null.org | Thu Mar 7 12:23:20 2002
They're a notch up on the evolutionary ladder from goths though.
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Posted by: Graham | http://grudnuk.com/ | Tue Mar 5 11:49:59 2002
Ahhh! Same size but slightly less ancient than the VL-1, pretty much the same presets, "Fantasy", 100 note memory, etc. Main drawback is that there isn't that weird ADSR nonsense which is programmed from the calculator memory. Hmm... Personally, I'd probably want to get one of the slightly larger casiotone things that had the chord accompaniments for the rhythm bits. Big plus if it was one of those ones that had that goofy expansion cartridge slot.