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This box is the bomb! I am very fond of “lower grade” samplers, because of the characteristics they add to samples. One of my favorite samplers is still my Roland W-30, which samples at a maximum of 30kHz – very similar to this little Korg sampler.
The ES-1 is part of the first wave of Electribes, together with the ER-1 drum machine, and EA-1 synth. It is a rhythm sampler, very immediate and easy to use. The on-board effects are phenomenal, especially the most “extreme” ones like Ring Modulation, Distortion, and Decimator. The separate Delay is musical and lends itself very well to electronica styles.
The concept of Motion Sequence is superb, and it’s possible to record and play back your edits and “tweaks” in real time –
The sampling memory is a generous 90 seconds. I know that this doesn’t sound much in these days of gigabyte-streaming soft-samplers, but compared to old school samplers, is certainly more than adequate… plus, this is not meant to be a full fledged sampler, but a sampling drum machine, so the majority of sounds you will load in it will be extremely small drum, percussion and effect samples…
It’s now been superseded by the ES-1 MkII and the new ESX1, but it’s definitely a very useful piece of equipment.
My first “real” synthesizer, so it will always have a special place in my heart. I bought this used in a small Rome music store in 1987.
I upgraded to the wonderful world of “P.D.” (Phase Distortion) synthesis from my trusty Gem DSK-8, which my aunt bought for me (thank you, aunt!) on 5/22/1986 (still remember the day!), because even though the DSK-8 was capable of “realistic”, that is- pcm sounds, and even some mean weird sounds, I had occasion to play a Korg Poly-800 that belonged to a school mate, and fell in love with it.
A “real” synthesizer sounded so warm, full, interesting, and “polished”, as opposed to the “plastic-sounding” home keyboard I was used to.
So, for the modicum sum of 300,000 lire (back then the Euro was still in the dreams of some European functionaries) I became the proud owner of a Casio CZ-1000.
I spent many nights programming new sounds with it! I still have a notebook full of hand-written patches. I was totally in love with the CZ-1000, and literally fell asleep programming patches and recording the outcomes on my VestaFire 4-track cassette recorder!
I higly recommend reading the CZ-1000 (or CZ-101, it’s the same) manual if you are starting in the world of synthesizers!!! There are two books, and in the first there is an excellent explanation of how synthesis works, hands on examples, etc… it is how I learned!
The CZ series came after the mythical Yamaha DX7, so Phase Distortion sounds similar to FM, but does have a character of its own.
Don’t forget to check out the “Internal” presets! They are beautiful! To recall them, turn your unit upside down, and press the reset button with a toothpick or similar object: Ta-da, the Internal sounds are back.
The CZ is capable of a myriad of interesting sounds, the Factory and Internal sounds are only scratching the surface of what the PD synthesis can do…
I also have a couple of CZ patch books around, I have to find them…
Casio CZ-1000 audio demos
Note: I didn’t have my Indigo I/O with me when I recorded these samples, so I recorded through the laptop’s internal audio card. There is some background noise due to the laptop’s card, and also to the CZ-1000 – the AD/DA converters and the technology of the mid-80s weren’t so perfect yet.
Preset bank
Internal bank
Casio CZ-1000 specs
Year of release
1984
Polyphony
8-voice
Sound generation method
Phase Distortion (PD)
Preset memories
16 Preset, 16, Internal, plus optional on cartridge
Sample CD-ROM library in Roland S-770 and compatible format
Drumscapes Volume 1 is a collection of drum samples, including single hits and full grooves, formatted on CD-ROM for the Roland S-770 and compatible samplers and sample players.
From the CD-ROM’s booklet: “Drumscapes are direct to digital, live recordings of fully produced studio drum tracks. In addition, each song track includes every individual drum and cymbal hit for digital sampling.”
The recording quality is extremely good: the sounds are very punchy, full-bodied, and the drum patterns are tight and perfectly looped. The single hits also are recorded very well, so it’s easy to create your own drum kits, picking and choosing from the different volumes.
The vibe here is for the most part on the acoustic side of rock/pop, with the occasional venture into hip-hop or Motown – These samples are really good and if you play any of the styles listed here below, you will not be disappointed.
The styles included are: Rhythm & Blues Hip Hop/Rap Adult Contemporary/Light Jazz Ballad Medium Rock Fast Heavy Rock Power Ballad Fast Shuffle Slow Shuffle Pop/Country Ballad Fast Techno Rock Medium Techno Rock Uptempo Funk Slow Motown and as a bonus there’s also a full set of percussion samples. In order to use these CD-ROM you will need a SCSI CD-ROM drive connected to your S-series sampler or XV-5080. Keep in mind that certain sound data will need 32MB of memory, supported only by the S-760. The S-770 and 750 have less.
The Equinox is Generalmusic’s last effort (so far) in the world of pure synthesizers (they do keep producing professional accompaniment keyboards, and to tell the truth, nowadays the difference between the two is blurring more and more).
The Equinox starts pretty much where their previous synthesizer, the incredible-sounding S-series, left off. This machine is absolutely full of features: here’s a concise list of what’s available (from the manual:
• An immense database (16 Mb samples) with over 1000 preset Sounds and user memory locations to store more than 2000 new sounds. 112 Performance memories and a Groove machine featuring over 1000 user-programmable Grooves. • Unique Drawbar mode for instant access to vintage electronic organ sounds using the 8 panel sliders as drawbars with key-click, percussion, overdrive, etc..
• 250.000 event, 16 track sequencer with advanced song editing facilities. • Advanced Sound editing facilities with 64 note polyphony,128 digital filters with resonance, up to 6 oscillators per voice, 3 Lfos and up to 21 independent Envelopes with 10 segment resolution. • Sample Translator to create user-samples and load new samples of the most popular formats (Wav (PC), Aiff (Mac), Akai™, Kurzwail™, Smp, Snd. Future os versions will allow loading of Roland™, Ensoniq™ and Emu™ samples. • Full MIDI implementation – The Equinox is the perfect Master Controller for advanced MIDI set-ups (32 MIDI Channel control, 16 programmable Midi Zones, 8 programmable Sliders, 2 programmable Wheels, 3 assignable Pedals). • Flash-ROM memory which allows the instrument’s memory to be instantly upgraded by simply inserting a special floppy disk in the drive. • The Equinox can be fitted with optional memory (8 Mb backed Sample RAM and up to 32 Mb SIMMs), an internal Hard Disk (2 Gigabytes) and a SCSI port (compatible with CD-ROM, Zip™, Jaz™ external hard drives).
As you see, there’s a lot to this instrument!
What strikes me most about this synth is that it can definitely sound analog (just like its predecessor did). While it’s purely sample-based, there’s something about the way the sounds come across, that make it sound warm, not digital. The quality effects also help a lot in producing some of the best sounds on board.
This is definitely a strong contender to the other workstations that came out at the same time, like the Korg Triton, Yamaha EX5, and Roland original Fantom. For some reasons it wasn’t popular enough, apparently due to the first OS that could have been better. By the time the OS was improved, other workstations had come out and this ended in the forgotten back of the music store – until now! 🙂
Hit a button, and the Equinox becomes a full-fledged Hammond!!! Besides the sliders/drawbars, there are controls for click, percussion and Leslie speed. You can also save your own organ creations, of course. Very realistic 🙂
Drum Kits
Several great-sounding drums on the Equinox. Here are a few examples.
Grooves
A great feature on the Equinox is that you can create and assign full grooves to each single key. Here are a few examples of what is possible to achieve:
Misc. sounds
Arabic
On the Equinox, you can set a the Tuning Scale in different ways: Equal tempered, Inverse, Mean Tone, Werckmeister, Arabian, and you can make your own. For the Kanoun example, I used the Arabian scale to give it a more realistic vibe.
The DR-550 MkII is the upgraded version of the venerable, original DR-550. A big difference from the original model is the fact that the base ROM has been almost doubled and now features 91 drum sounds. The machine works at 16-bit and is fairly clean and punchy. Many of its sounds remind of its bigger sister, the Roland R-8.
Useful features include “tone color”, that allows you to modify the basic filter frequencies of each sample, and “decay”, that obviously lengthens or shortens the sample.
There are 64 preset patterns on board, and 64 more slots for your own creations. Also, as in other drum machines in the DR-series, you can chain patterns to forms songs – In the DR-550 MkII, up to 8 songs consisting of up to 160 measures each.
A big improvement from the previous 220-series is the inclusion of a basic MIDI IN port, which allows the unit to be synchronized to a sequencer, or another drum machine. There’s no MIDI OUT though, so in order to save your created patterns, you have to resort to the old-fashioned way of storing to cassette tape, using the tape interface.
BOSS DR-550 MkII audio demos
There are seven factory demo songs programmed in ROM, that show off the capabilities of this machine:
Boss DR-550 MkII Drum Samples (44.1MHz, stereo .wav)
The Casio Casiotone CT-370 is a light, portable, but surprisingly sturdy, well-built keyboard produced during the late 1980s. Like all members of the Casiotone family, this instruments features many sounds and auto-accompaniments. The CT-370 can be powered via DC adaptor, or by six D-size batteries.
To the left of the panel we find a single speaker. Two (one on each side) would have been better, but there are many other Casio models that are stereo. Under the Casio logo lays a green and white message: “Pulse Code Modulation” – this is to remind us that the CT-370 is based upon PCM samples. In the 1980s, this was still a big deal. Following to the right there’s a series of five sliders: Power on/off, Main Volume, Accompaniment Volume, Rhythm Volume, and Chord type. While the first four are self explanatory, the fifth slider allows you to choose the way your keyboard is set up: you can have the full keyboard dedicated to one sound, with no left side auto-accompaniment, or you can set up two types of accompaniment, and the Casio chord feature (a simplified auto-accompaniment, where you press two keys and you get complex chords – useful for beginners).
Continuing to the right, there are three red buttons: these are the Synchro/Fill-In, Start/Stop, and Intro/Ending controls. They allow the user to: start the rhythm/accompaniment as soon as you touch the keyboard, start/stop the rhythm, and finally create a brief introduction, or finish in style with an automated ending. Very, very useful for performing live. Two grey buttons are dedicated to the tempo: faster, and slower.
A series of ten grey buttons allows you to choose the rhythm, while a lone blue button toggles between two settings, to access the remaining ten rhythms. The same for the Tone section.
Finally, two green and a yellow button that strangely are not well labeled: the first green button allows us to mix and match any two of the preset tones, for a whopping 210 tone bank. The second green button is the auto-harmonize, which harmonizes the right hand to the chord you’re playing on the left. And lastly, the yellow button is dedicated to the demo song.
The keyboard itself feels pleasantly light, and while this may be very bad for piano sounds (especially since it’s not dynamic), it’s perfect for organ or synth sounds. The back of the unit is very Spartan, with only the power connection, a 1/8″ mono output, and a tune knob.
This is not a bad keyboard, and now it may be even considered “PCM vintage” is there were such a thing 😉 The tone mix feature adds a lot to the overall sound – even though it obviously cuts the polyphony in half to five voices (hey! that never stopped the Prophet-5 😀 )
Today, the Casiotone concept is still going strong, with the CTK-series.
Casio CT-370 audio demos
The Casio Casiotone CT-370 factory demo (“Night Birds”, by British group Shakatak. A very similar version of this demo is also featured in the Casio CSM-1 module (CSM-1 DEMO SONG) , and it sounds pretty similar – I suspect the on-board ROM is based on the same samples)
The third chapter in the Datafile series. This one definitely has a more modern look and feel, and orbits toward the very “British” side of dance music. Again, like with its predecessors, many high quality loops, synthesizer sequences, percussion, fx samples etc.
This was the very first sample CD I bought. In 1991 or 1992, when this disc came out, sample CDs were just starting out, replacing the huge business of synthesizer sounds sold on RAM cards that had been popular the years before (remember the huge market of third-party sounds for the Yamaha DX7, Roland D-50, and Korg M1?).
The Datafile series was very popular because it was very versatile. It offered a one-stop solution for the early 90s samplist. Sounds drafted from the Datafile One were abundantly used in many hits of the day.
Zero-G Datafile One sound demos
Some classic loops including Funky Drummer that opens the set.
