03.17.10
The Smaller They Come…..CZ 101
This was the secret weapon…..slightly larger than a Melodica with a power supply that weighed as much as the keyboard, this little beat rocked the high and low end. It was great for bells and chimey stuff but it really earned its stripes on the bottom end..it was a bass machine. Of course,you’d never know it from the presets.. the usual suspects of “demo” sounds that made you think..”oh,yeah, Casio..the digital watch makers..”. But with a little time programming,you could get really deep and amazingly percussive bass sounds (wicked fast pitch envelopes). The keys on the keyboard were only sightly larger than Chicklet gum so you had to use a MIDI connection to play it. Response time through MIDI was laser quick and it was a pretty roadworthy piece, considering that it was probably 100% plastic. I think that there were 16 user memory slots and you could save your own sounds via SYSEX (computer).
I’m not sure if the CZ-101 qualify as “vintage” (yet)..but I’m sure that it’s only a matter of time before eBay bidding goes through the roof.
I later “traded up” for the CZ1…same voice architecture but with full sized keys,velocity,more memory…but the “fun factor” was missing.
