@mylaemelodies: I have a cool tip for you... when drawing waveforms, you don´t have to push the right arrow button for each sampling point.... push the button and let it pushed while moving the Value slider... it will smoothly move from left to right while you actually draw the waveform... like on the DSS-1... and you can even hear all in realtime while you´re doing it.
I picked one of these up about 6 months ago and learned a few cool tricks through heavy googling and experimentation. The first is that drawing waveforms can be easier/quicker if you just hold down the directional button and move the slider instead of tapping it to edit each point individually. Second is that you can actually edit the preset waveforms and waves generated by the additive synth engine using the hand drawing tool. This is much easier than drawing everything from scratch in some cases. The third is that in order to save ram the crossfade loop function for samples actually cuts the sample rate in half, without any additional anti-alias filtering. An apparently somewhat popular trick to take advantage of the grungy-ness that this creates is to turn looping off by cranking the start and end values to max, then setting the cross fade value to it's minimum of 0001. This halves the sample rate without actually applying any looping, which can be useful for grunging up one-shots like drum samples. A few more things come to mind but this post is getting too long as it is haha. Hope people find this info useful, as there aren't many online resources for this unique and underrated instrument. Your shoestring tip is genius btw, I'm gonna have to try that on mine
The HT6000 has 8 analogue filters (all other HT models have a single paraphonic filter for the main voice), but the waveforms are fixed and digitally generated. They are more in line with hybrid synths such as the Korg DW series and Ensoniq ESQ-1/ SQ-80 that put digitally generated waveforms through analogue filters. The HT Casios are not analogue polys as per Roland Junos/ Jupiters, Korg Poly 6 or other classic era DCO/ VCO poly synths. Totally agree though that Casio have produced some seriously underrated synths, especially many of their mid to late 80s models. People are catching on to how good some of them actually are, and prices have risen accordingly. It's getting hard to find FZs, CZs and SKs at bargain prices nowadays!
It is great how you love to tell us how someone used it so much. This is how you should use instruments: as much as possible. Make music and noise with them and dont buy them to keep on dreaming on making music.
Incredible instrument. Just plunged in for mine on EBay. Casio was an amazing synthesizer making company, starting with somewhat budget CZ-series in 1985 and ending on the 8-oscillator iPD synthesis VZ-1 in 1988. After 1989, Casio withdrew from synthesizer market. Isao Tomita was involved in the development of the FZ-1, and the instrument was also used by Kitaro. The CZ-series was actually quite a seller, but the FZ-1 even though much less expensive than Emulator II was still pricey at $2,499 list. Bon Jovi's David Brian had 6 FZ-10M's in his racks. The FZ-series was amazing. And so was the VZ-1. VZ-1 was arguably better than DX7II, but we know which one ended up to be the bigger seller... For most there's nothing like the brand name power. Besides, sample based synthesizer like the M1 changed the whole ball game in 1988. Everyone wanted ready samples on board. Only after decades we learn how shallow we were back then going for things like brand names and ease of use...
I owned an FZ1 and loved it. I remember buying 1meg of ram for it and it cost me $900! I am the guy ( amnesia, on muffs and watmm) that mentioned AFX and LFO using the fz1 filter
These things are amazing. In '88, you were lucky to get 8 note polyphony, and this machine had 16. Plus, it has 8 outputs on the back, something no one seems interested in mentioning or exploring. And, the pre recorded sounds, like the 8 foot Steinway, is amazing, as is Atmosfear, an amazing synthesized airy vocal/string effect. I have three of these, and love them to death!!!
As a CASIO fan, I can say that they're trying really hard to go pro again after making basically toys. I have their currently most advanced workstation synth and it has a very unique sound for its price.
Really cool - love how you followed your influences and discovered that quirkiness of the 80's/90's digital gear. 90's digital gear will make a comeback just like vintage analog gear has. For me, it is easy to collect 90's gear - I just kept it since new ;) lol I remember when Mark died 2 years ago, it was quite sad - but at least he's left some cool noises for our ears to eat up!
I have a Casio vz1 that I bought brand new in 1989. On sale. I use it as my main midi Master controller still going strong in 2019. It also looks as good as the day it was bought. Pristine condition.
Used the heck out of one of these way back in the day! Memorized the menu diving paths so I could go as fast as possible - which was still not that fast at all... ah the good old days. Sequenced with my Alesis MMT-8.
The part at 16:00 is INSANE. This really takes me back! The FZ, was my first piece of "real" gear! I got mine from rec.synth.whatever, long before the days of ebay, feedback and buyer protection. $300 was a lifetime of paychecks for a teenager back in the 90's, when minimum wage was $4.25 ('four-and-a-quarter')... At least yours has blue buttons still, lol... Those things were tanks too. Thought of getting one again in rackmount form (since mine was sold off long ago). Nobody would think that Casio would have made a decent, "prosumer" sampler with a screen and multi-outs for such a good price. Not to mention, a [destined to be] signature sound. At least, I didn't. A lot has to be said for your reverb too! (When are you going to break out the Jupiter in the corner?! ;P )
I had a couple of FZ1's back in the early 90's; they were the bomb. I designed some real heavy bass sounds that I'm sure I've still got saved on disk somewhere. Badass!
I was trying to resist buying another vintage sampler when one of these came up on our local eBay type thingy, this video just rendered my attempts at resistance futile. Thanks :)
For me this was like a journey in a time machine. I was well into keyboard kit in 1987 and I managed to buy one of the first FZ-1s in the UK... which is dopey as I was never a keyboard player, more a very poor man's Jean Michel Jarre (and I mean poor) making soundscapes and layered synth stuff. I remember the gronking disk drive and straight away the sample size limits. Always up against the limited storage space... a losing battle. I remember the wordy menus and what I thought at the time was a weirdly 'naff' dot-line drawing of a wave form. It seemed SO difficult to control but honestly, I had very limited technical grasp on the whole business of synthesising sound so it was more my lack than Casio's. Having the FZ-1 coincided with me also buying (I think) and M-Audio digital sampled piano-in-a-box module which I hooked up to the FZ-1 and found myself avoiding the hard work of sampling / programming and wimped out playing plinky piano instead. My short honeymoon ended when I noticed a serious glitch in that the keyboard triggered full volume notes randomly when playing several notes polyphonically... so out of a nice soft piano piece a single note would fire out with a frightening "CLANNGGGG!!" enough to scare the shit out of you when the thing was amplified. Because of that I sent it back to the music shop I bought it from. I remember they were NOT happy but I said something like "Imagine playing this live and THAT happening as-and-when it feels like it?". They grudgingly allowed me to trade it in against a Roland D-50 which, once I got my hands on it, seemed like a million times better built and more robust. Of course, it didn't do the sampling thing but it made a shit-ton of great complex stereo sounds that made the FZ-1 sound like a DX-7 by comparison. I kept the D-50 for...must have been 20 years - although I'd got heartily sick of some of the criminally-overused pre-sets long before that. Thanks for this demo... I've not seen or heard that keyboard in all the years since and it brings back a lot of memories. IIRC it was something insane like £1800 even back in 1987!
Aphex used this on Syro to do that weird fake timestretch. Kinda obvious considering he says "Casio FZ" in the sample, but it's really cool and glitchy, so unlike the metallic sound of old Akais. Edit: Forgot to mention that he achieved the time stretch by setting multiple loop points, much like what mylarmelodies does in this video, and steps through them.
My first proper synth was a CZ101 and loved it even though it was a bitch to program. I remember copying in the parameters from a patch book and getting it wrong, mostly. I could make the best car alarm noises this side of Derby, oh yes.
I feel you!👍 my first shift was a CZ 3000 and I remember it being a bitch to program too, but it made such beautiful noises👌 I like to call them electric fireworks!🎹🎧💫😵✌
Yes! I had one too, it weighed 2 tons, very solid, hard to lug on stage, absolutely loved it! Yes the synth part, I know! They were so cheap compared to the Mirage, etc. Sorry mister, I sold mine to a friend over 20 years ago. ('cause my gear is always mint)
It’s October 2024 as I comment. I only became aware that this synth/sampler existed earlier this year. I’m from the American demographic conditioned only to think of Casio as a manufacturer of toy keyboards like the SK-1 with minimal tone-generating capabilities. Learning that they built something like this (or the FZ-10M and 20M modules) for the market of musicians who purchased a Mirage or an Emax because they didn’t have the funds for an Emulator II or III Prophet 2000 is incredible. Earlier this month, Espen Kraft demoed a new synth/sampler that’s got similar features to the FZ-1 (in a chassis reminiscent of the SK-1). It could be a temptation if it were marketed to the American buying public.
Love your passion for the Fz. Yiu should make a simple tutorial vid on how to actually navigate the buttons and menus. Would be of much service to us new fz users. The manual is a pain in the ass haha. 😂
I have one an FZ 1 as well, and a ton of samples on floppys that I bought used in the early 1990's. Joey Beltram made Energy Flash with one, he reveals it and talks about it for the first time on his interview on the DJ's and Beers podcast.
A wonderful feature that is mostly unknown is the "Mix Write" function. You can create a new waveform in an empty voice from two other loaded waveforms by mixing them together. The mixing is basic, just level and delay (the starting point of the second wave), but the detuning option is great. With that, you can detune a wave against itself, if you loaded it twice into two different voices before. Or, you can mix two sampled synth sounds that are an octave apart, and additionally detune them. I remember doing this very often. The parameters (envelope, filter etc,) of the two source sounds have no effect on the new sound. With longer source waves you can easily run out of memory, if you repeat that process for a few times, repeatedly mix-writing the detuned voice against the source wave, again detuning, it to create a "swarm";-)
Thanks for sharing. Had one of these on loan for a week back in the 90s and messed about with it and loved it. Weirdly just remembered and found your vid. Have an ensoniq eps that has been gathering dust for over 10 years that needs a clean but should still work. Think I prefer the casio with its squelchy filters and built in sounds. The ensoniq was apparently used by autechre, but again more a fan of aphex and lfo. Love the reverb on the casio aswell, great machine.
Had 2 of them, bought them new. Check out the additive synth part, made for some freaking awesome Hammond sounds, add a bit of overdrive and a Leslie - killer.
Cheers for the demo/video. Always seen you begging Audio Damage/Chris to produce a FZ-1 Filter for eurorack. Now I know what you were about :-) Although, with this synth, I'd love programming it for the first week and then I'd be too lazy, sadly.
I miss my FZ-1. Mine had a dud floppy drive but nothing a bit of brute force and lithium grease didn't fix! I wish I still had it, because that filter is absolutely brutal. The individual outs are a damn masterstroke, too!
I always say casio stuff is very underrated, I Have two casio CTks one a 611 and the other 811. Great instruments to play! Had them since new, and I cannot bear to part with them for something newer sadly.
Bought mine back in 1993 or so. Pretty cheap and included the expanded ram. Loved it, but between the weight of this synth and my KB amp is probably the reason my back hurts today. This synth is also known for having sticky keys. I sold it when I bought Logic on the Mac it had a decent sampler. But I really miss the gritty sound this sampler could deliver. It was just fun to play.
Do you have any new recordings with FZ-1? I`m trying to find some more content and its really hard to get any info, or sound examples recorded in DAW with good sound quallity examples.
The back lights are available on line at eBay, and they're really easy to replace. I've had to replace them on two of my FZ's. The third one is in pristine, perfect condition.
How am I just now finding this video? Maybe I have been stuck up euroracks ass for too long? I love old and odd hardware. So much character, and different ways of doing things. There is a lot of magical old hardware out there such as this FZ1 and the brother FZ10m rack.
Mylarmelodies, do you control your fz with midi ever? do you have footage of the fz playing sequences? I would love to see a demonstration of that. Hello & cheers from the US!! :D
Brilliant! My FZ-10m rack has a poorly floppy drive, but check out the filter env speed modulated by velocity ,then program an 8 step envelope. Also additive synth via overtones harmonics wave creation. Loved your vid - very inspiring thanks.
Bought a used one in 1991 for $1000. I used it for sampling beats and looping them. I used the hell outta that thing for 7 years and ended up giving it to a friend
did i get it right that mylarmelodies said he doesn't have a software that does wave drawing? if so, ever tried the good old program Sonix on an ancient Amiga computer by any chance? Sonix has a great software synthesizer controller and editor with very nice abilities ... Amiga's voice is made by a 4-channel stereo 8-bit chip of course but using it rightly alongside a truly powerful music writing and editing program such as Sonix, it can create really beautiful, deep and rich sounds that do resemble 16-bit and higher quality audio ... there are more advanced software and hardware additions for the Amiga just as well btw, which can make it produce 48-bit sound if someone really needs to go that high and far ...
This is kind of a weird ask, and I know the video is 6 years old, but would you be able to tell me the screws (sizes, lengths, types) used on it? I got one of these for free because it was broken (like, the side of the plastic casing snapped off), but for some reason it didn't have any of the screws. Surprisingly, it still works, so it'd be awesome to get it put back together. Since it's heavy, I haven't taken it to the hardware store to guess and test with different screws.
sorry, wish I could help but I don’t have it any more! - best thing as with all gear is google for the service manual - it’s got literally every last bit of the product listed and should even have the screws? Here it is www.synthxl.com/offwp/Casio_FZ_1_Service_Manual.pdf
Wondering what gear was used for Deeelite World Clique album, I noticed that Dimitri was playing one of these in their demo video for the power of love from 1989. I wonder if this is well he played on that album.
ALM are making a eurorack version of that filter called "fizzle gutz", only problem is you have to steal a MB87186 chip out of a Fz1 to use it lol, agreed lovely sounding filter.
So, just a question because I’m really considering picking one of these up! Does it have a jack that you sample into or do you have to do everything by a floppy disk sample wise? (Because I honestly hate having to sample across keyboards that way.) Sounds amazing though!
Just picked up one for 200 bucks in my area. the floppy is still working. I am in love with it and I will never part with it. What a low end it has. And what a grain
@@mylarmelodies Thanks! You video played a big role in me just jumping on it as soon as I saw it despite how unreasonably big it is for my little living room shelf studio. In the end it acts itself as a bigger shelf for my other gear. So everything fits very nice and snuggly on top of it. It's just the best.
For the game boy I had a clip on magnifying light, so u could play it in the dark. Reckon it would do the trick on this, gaffer, glue sellotape, Velcro or just blu-tak take your pick & your set 👍
The white keys are locked in my the black keys. So take the neighboring white keys out to take the black key out. It is needed to take the keys out as there are sticky materials in there that you can't see just staring down inside
I think you can also replaced the Floppy drive with a usb floppy simulator. You'll be getting a hundred of virtual floppy discs using just just a single thumb drive. They've done this in a Yamaha DX7-IIFD.
Thanks for the great demo! When you turned on "Vocals Tings" I felt like I heard a Selected Ambient Works 2 bonus tracks that I haven't heard before ;) I have a technical question - how much memory does the sampler have and how many seconds of sampling do we have in practice with it ?
did you ever end up picking up an alm fizzle guts by chance? i've been searching for an fz-1 for a while now with no luck but have also been really curious about the fizzle guts.
@@mylarmelodies Haha, awesome. Any chance you might feel like making a quick 2 min demo of it so i can hear how it sounds? Even just a couple sweeps. I don't think there are any at all on youtube that i can see.
Hardest thing about this machine to me is navigating the page /menu system and figuring out how to save your patches. I made a couple of patches tonight using the built in waves and 1 with the sine synthesis and when I backed out of a certain page one was gone. Later when I tried to use the Mix write mode to layer 2 versions of a patch which I thought you could do I didn’t save it :(
Disk not required to sample or load up and create waveforms, but you won't be able to save anything you make between power cycles without saving to disk!
Oh ok yeah thank you broI just got one so I'm going g to start playing something now whoo excited. I have zero floppy disks not even a blank 1 I was waiting until I got one to set everything up. I appreciate the incite have a great day.
Yep, unfortunately doesn't do much to mitigate the uselessness of the dying backlights that many of them will often have though. Right now I've got a desk lamp pointed at the screen on mine lol
@mylaemelodies: I have a cool tip for you... when drawing waveforms, you don´t have to push the right arrow button for each sampling point.... push the button and let it pushed while moving the Value slider... it will smoothly move from left to right while you actually draw the waveform... like on the DSS-1... and you can even hear all in realtime while you´re doing it.
like the slider when move to the next sampling point? (what do u mean by samling point)
@@TheLildrummerboy38 I think he means if you hold the right arrow button and move the value slider, it will automatically move step by step.
Nailed it 😂
@@markhewins8517 this cost $1,200 dollars today
how much did t cost when released?
@@robinsss About the same I think..
I picked one of these up about 6 months ago and learned a few cool tricks through heavy googling and experimentation. The first is that drawing waveforms can be easier/quicker if you just hold down the directional button and move the slider instead of tapping it to edit each point individually. Second is that you can actually edit the preset waveforms and waves generated by the additive synth engine using the hand drawing tool. This is much easier than drawing everything from scratch in some cases. The third is that in order to save ram the crossfade loop function for samples actually cuts the sample rate in half, without any additional anti-alias filtering. An apparently somewhat popular trick to take advantage of the grungy-ness that this creates is to turn looping off by cranking the start and end values to max, then setting the cross fade value to it's minimum of 0001. This halves the sample rate without actually applying any looping, which can be useful for grunging up one-shots like drum samples. A few more things come to mind but this post is getting too long as it is haha. Hope people find this info useful, as there aren't many online resources for this unique and underrated instrument. Your shoestring tip is genius btw, I'm gonna have to try that on mine
I’ve got a Casio HT-6000, their only 8-voice analog polysynth - Casio has some seriously underrated vintage gear
This is Wilson - I just bought a FZ-1 with a bunch of floppies for 600 AUD!
The HT6000 has 8 analogue filters (all other HT models have a single paraphonic filter for the main voice), but the waveforms are fixed and digitally generated. They are more in line with hybrid synths such as the Korg DW series and Ensoniq ESQ-1/ SQ-80 that put digitally generated waveforms through analogue filters. The HT Casios are not analogue polys as per Roland Junos/ Jupiters, Korg Poly 6 or other classic era DCO/ VCO poly synths.
Totally agree though that Casio have produced some seriously underrated synths, especially many of their mid to late 80s models. People are catching on to how good some of them actually are, and prices have risen accordingly. It's getting hard to find FZs, CZs and SKs at bargain prices nowadays!
It is great how you love to tell us how someone used it so much. This is how you should use instruments: as much as possible. Make music and noise with them and dont buy them to keep on dreaming on making music.
Incredible instrument. Just plunged in for mine on EBay. Casio was an amazing synthesizer making company, starting with somewhat budget CZ-series in 1985 and ending on the 8-oscillator iPD synthesis VZ-1 in 1988. After 1989, Casio withdrew from synthesizer market. Isao Tomita was involved in the development of the FZ-1, and the instrument was also used by Kitaro. The CZ-series was actually quite a seller, but the FZ-1 even though much less expensive than Emulator II was still pricey at $2,499 list. Bon Jovi's David Brian had 6 FZ-10M's in his racks. The FZ-series was amazing. And so was the VZ-1. VZ-1 was arguably better than DX7II, but we know which one ended up to be the bigger seller... For most there's nothing like the brand name power. Besides, sample based synthesizer like the M1 changed the whole ball game in 1988. Everyone wanted ready samples on board. Only after decades we learn how shallow we were back then going for things like brand names and ease of use...
I owned an FZ1 and loved it. I remember buying 1meg of ram for it and it cost me $900! I am the guy ( amnesia, on muffs and watmm) that mentioned AFX and LFO using the fz1 filter
Nice tip! I can totally hear Cliffs somewhere in the the sounds in this video. Love that track.
These things are amazing. In '88, you were lucky to get 8 note polyphony, and this machine had 16. Plus, it has 8 outputs on the back, something no one seems interested in mentioning or exploring. And, the pre recorded sounds, like the 8 foot Steinway, is amazing, as is Atmosfear, an amazing synthesized airy vocal/string effect. I have three of these, and love them to death!!!
it was 8 note poly, i had one back in the 80's
As a CASIO fan, I can say that they're trying really hard to go pro again after making basically toys. I have their currently most advanced workstation synth and it has a very unique sound for its price.
Absolutely love the sound from this synth.
I have a warm place in my heart for Casio.
Jet Lag I always preffered casio fm aka phase distortion over yamaha
Jet Lag and the rz1 deserves more fame at least up there by the 707
I love the filter hand at 19:22 - succintly sums up the sound of the filter better than 10,000 words ever could
I wrote some library for Casio for the FZ1 and FZ10M: Brings back memories!!
Really cool - love how you followed your influences and discovered that quirkiness of the 80's/90's digital gear. 90's digital gear will make a comeback just like vintage analog gear has. For me, it is easy to collect 90's gear - I just kept it since new ;) lol
I remember when Mark died 2 years ago, it was quite sad - but at least he's left some cool noises for our ears to eat up!
Still very very sad about Mark Bell, especially that there's obviously so much more written that we never got to hear.
I have a Casio vz1 that I bought brand new in 1989. On sale. I use it as my main midi Master controller still going strong in 2019. It also looks as good as the day it was bought. Pristine condition.
this cost $1,200 dollars today
how much did t cost when released?
Used the heck out of one of these way back in the day! Memorized the menu diving paths so I could go as fast as possible - which was still not that fast at all... ah the good old days. Sequenced with my Alesis MMT-8.
Same except with an Atari :)
Loved the mmt8!
The part at 16:00 is INSANE.
This really takes me back! The FZ, was my first piece of "real" gear! I got mine from rec.synth.whatever, long before the days of ebay, feedback and buyer protection. $300 was a lifetime of paychecks for a teenager back in the 90's, when minimum wage was $4.25 ('four-and-a-quarter')... At least yours has blue buttons still, lol... Those things were tanks too. Thought of getting one again in rackmount form (since mine was sold off long ago). Nobody would think that Casio would have made a decent, "prosumer" sampler with a screen and multi-outs for such a good price. Not to mention, a [destined to be] signature sound. At least, I didn't. A lot has to be said for your reverb too!
(When are you going to break out the Jupiter in the corner?! ;P )
used to have a FZ1 back in the 80's also had the entire library form casio.... sold it off long ago...nice to see someone getitng use out of em still
I had a couple of FZ1's back in the early 90's; they were the bomb. I designed some real heavy bass sounds that I'm sure I've still got saved on disk somewhere. Badass!
nice! would you share them maybe ? thx
I was trying to resist buying another vintage sampler when one of these came up on our local eBay type thingy, this video just rendered my attempts at resistance futile. Thanks :)
I enjoyed this video greatly. Totally on my wavelength.
Came here for the FZ-1, staying for the vibes, I like your style! (I'm a big LFO fan also).
For me this was like a journey in a time machine. I was well into keyboard kit in 1987 and I managed to buy one of the first FZ-1s in the UK... which is dopey as I was never a keyboard player, more a very poor man's Jean Michel Jarre (and I mean poor) making soundscapes and layered synth stuff. I remember the gronking disk drive and straight away the sample size limits. Always up against the limited storage space... a losing battle. I remember the wordy menus and what I thought at the time was a weirdly 'naff' dot-line drawing of a wave form. It seemed SO difficult to control but honestly, I had very limited technical grasp on the whole business of synthesising sound so it was more my lack than Casio's. Having the FZ-1 coincided with me also buying (I think) and M-Audio digital sampled piano-in-a-box module which I hooked up to the FZ-1 and found myself avoiding the hard work of sampling / programming and wimped out playing plinky piano instead. My short honeymoon ended when I noticed a serious glitch in that the keyboard triggered full volume notes randomly when playing several notes polyphonically... so out of a nice soft piano piece a single note would fire out with a frightening "CLANNGGGG!!" enough to scare the shit out of you when the thing was amplified. Because of that I sent it back to the music shop I bought it from. I remember they were NOT happy but I said something like "Imagine playing this live and THAT happening as-and-when it feels like it?". They grudgingly allowed me to trade it in against a Roland D-50 which, once I got my hands on it, seemed like a million times better built and more robust. Of course, it didn't do the sampling thing but it made a shit-ton of great complex stereo sounds that made the FZ-1 sound like a DX-7 by comparison. I kept the D-50 for...must have been 20 years - although I'd got heartily sick of some of the criminally-overused pre-sets long before that. Thanks for this demo... I've not seen or heard that keyboard in all the years since and it brings back a lot of memories. IIRC it was something insane like £1800 even back in 1987!
I had the rack version years ago. Now I want it back. Great video!
So many early Aphex feels here mate... Nice
The funniest BUT most informative video on the FZ1 I've seen, perfectly demonstrated and explained. Miss mine to bits! Thanks a lot for this mate :)
Aphex used this on Syro to do that weird fake timestretch. Kinda obvious considering he says "Casio FZ" in the sample, but it's really cool and glitchy, so unlike the metallic sound of old Akais.
Edit:
Forgot to mention that he achieved the time stretch by setting multiple loop points, much like what mylarmelodies does in this video, and steps through them.
Dale Johnson Yeah defo!
In an old article from 1992 richard states that he uses the fz1 on 80% percent of his tracks
I bet that's what 808 state did on their 1988 Compulasion 'release your body' early time stretch sample
V nice vid. Casual and informative and sweet sounding. Thanks, mate
Ian Bland (Dream Frequency) said he used it at the time.
Sounds like "dolls polyphony" on the Akira soundtrack!
My first proper synth was a CZ101 and loved it even though it was a bitch to program. I remember copying in the parameters from a patch book and getting it wrong, mostly. I could make the best car alarm noises this side of Derby, oh yes.
I feel you!👍 my first shift was a CZ 3000 and I remember it being a bitch to program too, but it made such beautiful noises👌 I like to call them electric fireworks!🎹🎧💫😵✌
@@maxmatson1578 Compared to Yamahas DX range CZ was easy!
Yes! I had one too, it weighed 2 tons, very solid, hard to lug on stage, absolutely loved it! Yes the synth part, I know! They were so cheap compared to the Mirage, etc. Sorry mister, I sold mine to a friend over 20 years ago. ('cause my gear is always mint)
like an SK-1 on steroids !
omsonic Or an SK1 is like this on meth!
omsonic Impossibly, an SK-1 is the heart of my rig! Still lust for an FZ though.
I have always wanted one of these, since hearing Mike paradinas used one. Great video!
It’s October 2024 as I comment. I only became aware that this synth/sampler existed earlier this year. I’m from the American demographic conditioned only to think of Casio as a manufacturer of toy keyboards like the SK-1 with minimal tone-generating capabilities. Learning that they built something like this (or the FZ-10M and 20M modules) for the market of musicians who purchased a Mirage or an Emax because they didn’t have the funds for an Emulator II or III Prophet 2000 is incredible.
Earlier this month, Espen Kraft demoed a new synth/sampler that’s got similar features to the FZ-1 (in a chassis reminiscent of the SK-1). It could be a temptation if it were marketed to the American buying public.
Love your passion for the Fz. Yiu should make a simple tutorial vid on how to actually navigate the buttons and menus. Would be of much service to us new fz users. The manual is a pain in the ass haha. 😂
I have one an FZ 1 as well, and a ton of samples on floppys that I bought used in the early 1990's. Joey Beltram made Energy Flash with one, he reveals it and talks about it for the first time on his interview on the DJ's and Beers podcast.
Fantastic! I thought my display was knackered but your tip worked. Now to see if 90s sample disks will load..
Sounds lush! Thanks for sharing your experience on this.
FKIN MAGIC! Also, Aphex Twin - Mold
A wonderful feature that is mostly unknown is the "Mix Write" function. You can create a new waveform in an empty voice from two other loaded waveforms by mixing them together. The mixing is basic, just level and delay (the starting point of the second wave), but the detuning option is great. With that, you can detune a wave against itself, if you loaded it twice into two different voices before. Or, you can mix two sampled synth sounds that are an octave apart, and additionally detune them. I remember doing this very often. The parameters (envelope, filter etc,) of the two source sounds have no effect on the new sound. With longer source waves you can easily run out of memory, if you repeat that process for a few times, repeatedly mix-writing the detuned voice against the source wave, again detuning, it to create a "swarm";-)
Such a good tip. Casio really made a banger with this thing
Wonderful. Takes me back to my w30 days. Soooo long ago! However this seems far better.
I wish my ensoniq mirage had a built in etch-a-sketch!
Matt I wish my etch-a-sketch had a synth/sampler/floppy-slotty !!!
Thanks for sharing. Had one of these on loan for a week back in the 90s and messed about with it and loved it. Weirdly just remembered and found your vid. Have an ensoniq eps that has been gathering dust for over 10 years that needs a clean but should still work. Think I prefer the casio with its squelchy filters and built in sounds. The ensoniq was apparently used by autechre, but again more a fan of aphex and lfo.
Love the reverb on the casio aswell, great machine.
Had 2 of them, bought them new. Check out the additive synth part, made for some freaking awesome Hammond sounds, add a bit of overdrive and a Leslie - killer.
Cheers for the demo/video. Always seen you begging Audio Damage/Chris to produce a FZ-1 Filter for eurorack. Now I know what you were about :-)
Although, with this synth, I'd love programming it for the first week and then I'd be too lazy, sadly.
Jasper Ha true! Then ALM went and did it - ultra limited edition tho
it has 8 separate outs, you can use it to trigger non midi drum machines
I miss my FZ-1. Mine had a dud floppy drive but nothing a bit of brute force and lithium grease didn't fix! I wish I still had it, because that filter is absolutely brutal. The individual outs are a damn masterstroke, too!
I always say casio stuff is very underrated, I Have two casio CTks one a 611 and the other 811. Great instruments to play! Had them since new, and I cannot bear to part with them for something newer sadly.
if you like 80's sounds get the CA 110
full size keys and great 80s sounds
I found one of those at Value Village, but the goddamned thing started smoking when I plugged it in lol!
Did you ever fix it???
holy shit I need to get my hands on one of these
I had an FZ-1 for a short while and loved it. Only moved on from it because I was gigging at the time and needed something lighter. It was a tank.
They really are heavy AF!
Bought mine back in 1993 or so. Pretty cheap and included the expanded ram. Loved it, but between the weight of this synth and my KB amp is probably the reason my back hurts today. This synth is also known for having sticky keys. I sold it when I bought Logic on the Mac it had a decent sampler. But I really miss the gritty sound this sampler could deliver. It was just fun to play.
this cost $1,200 dollars today
how much did t cost when released?
@@robinsss I bought it used for $1000. Sold it many years ago for around $350. Unfortunately, there isn't demand for samplers much anymore.
Have you tried plugging the eurorack into the pedal inputs on this bad boy ?
We ❤ the Casio FZ-1! Thank u 4 this vide👌
Do you have any new recordings with FZ-1? I`m trying to find some more content and its really hard to get any info, or sound examples recorded in DAW with good sound quallity examples.
The back lights are available on line at eBay, and they're really easy to replace. I've had to replace them on two of my FZ's. The third one is in pristine, perfect condition.
fond memories of mine. Worked great
Him Did the FZ-1 have the same patches from the Casio CZ series, particularly the classic organ sound feom the CZ series?
How am I just now finding this video? Maybe I have been stuck up euroracks ass for too long?
I love old and odd hardware. So much character, and different ways of doing things. There is a lot of magical old hardware out there such as this FZ1 and the brother FZ10m rack.
Hi, you are STILL the most enthusiastic, funny, informative Synth Nut on the interthingy. I'd propose to you, but my wife would accuse me of bigamy.
I had a Hohner HS1, the White German edition of the CASIO FZ-1, looked more like a Fairlight LOL. Great machine
Mylarmelodies, do you control your fz with midi ever? do you have footage of the fz playing sequences? I would love to see a demonstration of that. Hello & cheers from the US!! :D
Brilliant! My FZ-10m rack has a poorly floppy drive, but check out the filter env speed modulated by velocity ,then program an 8 step envelope.
Also additive synth via overtones harmonics wave creation.
Loved your vid - very inspiring thanks.
This is the keyboard Kitaro used it for its concerts across the US in 80s
Bought a used one in 1991 for $1000. I used it for sampling beats and looping them. I used the hell outta that thing for 7 years and ended up giving it to a friend
A grand?! Whats that aboout $3000 in todays money?!
Thanks for the tip on the screen . Its the same on the VZ1 . Only had it for 8 years lol Cheers ;-)
Would you have any interest in taking a look at a VZ1? Mainly good condition but has noise issues on particular settings.
I had two of these until 2013 that I had since 1988. They died beyond repair within months of each other
:( One couldn't go on without the other...
@@mylarmelodies Like an old married couple!
did i get it right that mylarmelodies said he doesn't have a software that does wave drawing?
if so, ever tried the good old program Sonix on an ancient Amiga computer by any chance?
Sonix has a great software synthesizer controller and editor with very nice abilities ...
Amiga's voice is made by a 4-channel stereo 8-bit chip of course but using it rightly alongside a truly powerful music writing and editing program such as Sonix, it can create really beautiful, deep and rich sounds that do resemble 16-bit and higher quality audio ...
there are more advanced software and hardware additions for the Amiga just as well btw, which can make it produce 48-bit sound if someone really needs to go that high and far ...
This is kind of a weird ask, and I know the video is 6 years old, but would you be able to tell me the screws (sizes, lengths, types) used on it?
I got one of these for free because it was broken (like, the side of the plastic casing snapped off), but for some reason it didn't have any of the screws. Surprisingly, it still works, so it'd be awesome to get it put back together. Since it's heavy, I haven't taken it to the hardware store to guess and test with different screws.
sorry, wish I could help but I don’t have it any more! - best thing as with all gear is google for the service manual - it’s got literally every last bit of the product listed and should even have the screws? Here it is www.synthxl.com/offwp/Casio_FZ_1_Service_Manual.pdf
thank you! fantastic sounds
Great sounds. Going to go and see if I can get anything similar with Shortcircuit...
Did email TAL who makes TAL-Sampler to beg he make an FZ filter mode for it, but he'd need one to model it...
Intriguing!
".... the green backlight is long since fucked" :):)))
There's a Casio fz1on eBay uk now pal! Have to say I found this video very funny. You write very good music.
Wondering what gear was used for Deeelite World Clique album, I noticed that Dimitri was playing one of these in their demo video for the power of love from 1989. I wonder if this is well he played on that album.
You could probably recreate the filter steppyness with a quantizer
ALM are making a eurorack version of that filter called "fizzle gutz", only problem is you have to steal a MB87186 chip out of a Fz1 to use it lol, agreed lovely sounding filter.
Yeah the fizzle guts actually reminded me to seek one out!!
My god I cry. So beautifull sounds come from this machine. There is also a drum sound internal the machine ?
So, just a question because I’m really considering picking one of these up!
Does it have a jack that you sample into or do you have to do everything by a floppy disk sample wise? (Because I honestly hate having to sample across keyboards that way.)
Sounds amazing though!
Just picked up one for 200 bucks in my area. the floppy is still working. I am in love with it and I will never part with it. What a low end it has. And what a grain
That’s a great deal. Treasure it!!
@@mylarmelodies Thanks! You video played a big role in me just jumping on it as soon as I saw it despite how unreasonably big it is for my little living room shelf studio. In the end it acts itself as a bigger shelf for my other gear. So everything fits very nice and snuggly on top of it. It's just the best.
Is the rack version the same as the keyboard ?
@@saren6538 It is basically the same with more RAM AFAIK!
For the game boy I had a clip on magnifying light, so u could play it in the dark.
Reckon it would do the trick on this, gaffer, glue sellotape, Velcro or just blu-tak take your pick & your set 👍
Thanks for the memories!
The white keys are locked in my the black keys. So take the neighboring white keys out to take the black key out. It is needed to take the keys out as there are sticky materials in there that you can't see just staring down inside
Oe! People need more FZ-1 content!
You mentioned LFO used it. Apparently, they used it for the bass sound on the epynomymous song.
I noticed the Yamaha gray virtual analog synthesizer on the right side, could you tell me which one it is? I forgot the name😅 thank you!🙏✌
Sorry for the delay - Yamaha AN1x!
I had a FZ1 from new - blue backlight
I think you can also replaced the Floppy drive with a usb floppy simulator. You'll be getting a hundred of virtual floppy discs using just just a single thumb drive. They've done this in a Yamaha DX7-IIFD.
Where's the LFO and aphex sounds in the video?
Thanks for the great demo! When you turned on "Vocals Tings" I felt like I heard a Selected Ambient Works 2 bonus tracks that I haven't heard before ;) I have a technical question - how much memory does the sampler have and how many seconds of sampling do we have in practice with it ?
1mb standard = Sample-time: 58 seconds max. at 9kHz, 14.5 seconds at 36kHz. Not long, but more than long enough to make a tune!
@@mylarmelodies That kind of limitation might be very inspiring : ] Those Vocal Ting samples are at 9kHz or 36kHz ?
Great sound! Great video!
It’s been ages since I had an FZ , but I think you can only have sample or synth not both , but I may be wrong ?
How good is the keybed? Thinking about getting this to use as a master keyboard.
Hard to say as I did modify mine, but not great I don’t think. Very light
did u manage to get all the fz1 libraries ? would love to get some : )
did you ever end up picking up an alm fizzle guts by chance? i've been searching for an fz-1 for a while now with no luck but have also been really curious about the fizzle guts.
Yep I did. In fact I gutted his machine as part of mine!
@@mylarmelodies Haha, awesome. Any chance you might feel like making a quick 2 min demo of it so i can hear how it sounds? Even just a couple sweeps. I don't think there are any at all on youtube that i can see.
Plus one for fizzle guts demo please!
Backlight on mine still works great. Disc drive too
Hardest thing about this machine to me is navigating the page /menu system and figuring out how to save your patches. I made a couple of patches tonight using the built in waves and 1 with the sine synthesis and when I backed out of a certain page one was gone. Later when I tried to use the Mix write mode to layer 2 versions of a patch which I thought you could do I didn’t save it :(
with love all wil stay well..... good job
I had one of these in rackmount Great synyh
Would love to get a rackmount one! I traded mine in to get the Eurorack module filter version but kinda regret that!
How is the keybed as a midi controller?
Not brilliant - keys a bit susceptible to age on this. But it could work if you had nothing else?
Do these work without a floppy disk or do you absolutely need to have on inserted before sounds come out?
Disk not required to sample or load up and create waveforms, but you won't be able to save anything you make between power cycles without saving to disk!
Oh ok yeah thank you broI just got one so I'm going g to start playing something now whoo excited. I have zero floppy disks not even a blank 1 I was waiting until I got one to set everything up. I appreciate the incite have a great day.
That display button + value slider trick works on the VZ series too.
Yep, unfortunately doesn't do much to mitigate the uselessness of the dying backlights that many of them will often have though. Right now I've got a desk lamp pointed at the screen on mine lol
Yeah clippy IKEA light is probably the easiest solution really...
Is the reverb from the FZ-1? Sounds beautiful, definitely reminiscent of early AFX.
No I think I stuck a bit of Valhalla Room on it!
@@mylarmelodies thanks :), I might consider investing as I've been stuck with the default reverb in my DAW and TAL-Reverb 1.