Casio CZ/ VZ/ FZ - Pro Series

At 06:55 PM 5/30/2004, steve_the_composer wrote:
>--- In CZsynth@yahoogroups.com, "Simon Beck" <simon@a...> wrote:
> > The sequencer was the SZ-1 (the RZ was the innovative and
> > often-overlooked sampling drum machine).
>
>Decades ago (late 1980's) I was at the home of an aquaintance who had
>the Casio drum sampler.  We played with it.  That's the last I ever
>saw one.

Likewise, back in the mid-'80's there was a buddy of my band's who owned a 
music store.  When the RZ-1 was first released, he let us have one on loan 
for about a week to see what we thought of it.  Since I'd done quite a bit 
of drum machine programming up to then, I spent most of that time running 
it through the paces.

I don't remember a whole lot about it, but this is what little I can 
recall: the programming interface seemed a bit iffy for that period.  I was 
used to the Roland "TR" series programming interface (sixteen physical 
buttons each representing steps in the bar), and the RZ-1's interface 
seemed like a kludgy method of representing that same method on an LCD 
screen.  Then again, I wasn't too impressed when Roland themselves did the 
same on the later Dr. Rhythms & the R-8, so that could just be me.

Soundwise, I remember the ROM drums reminded me quite a bit of the 707 
soundset -- which is not necessarily a bad thing.  (I still think the 
TR-707 is underrated for some applications.  After all, the majority of the 
drums for Big Black were done on a 707, and that's some of the kewlest 
hardcore ever produced.)  The RZ-1's coolest feature, unfortunately, was 
also the biggest disappointment: the sample banks.  There were four slots 
into which you could sample your own sounds.  That was a pretty kickass 
concept for those days.

The implementation of the sampling feature was a little less than 
impressive.  First, IIRC, the max sample rate was only like 22k, so it 
didn't work too well with most of the percussion or SFX sounds you were 
likely to add yourself.  A good deal of your high end was 
crippled.  Second, all four slots drew from the same pool of RAM (again, 
not a bad thing in itself; dynamic RAM allocation was actually pretty cool 
for that time).  The "gotcha" here was that Casio scrimped on the amount of 
available RAM in the box.  There was barely enough with which to do 
anything -- even for drum sounds, which are on average pretty short.

Obviously, one of the things that sampling drum machines are good for is 
being able to replace some of the less desirable sounds from the ROM 
chip.  And typically the worst offenders in this belong to the cymbal and 
percussion families.  On the RZ-1, however, It was entirely possible to eat 
up all your available memory with a single crash or ride, and have no 
memory left to use in your other three slots.  My pet peeve with drum 
machines were always the hats, so I worked on sampling a 
replacement.  After filling two slots with merely a closed and open hi-hat, 
I'd already depleted the available sample memory -- that's how little there 
was.

Finally, I don't remember there being any facility for saving those sampled 
sounds (although I could be wrong here).  This means that whatever work 
you'd done on your replacement sounds would be lost the moment that your 
battery died.  Don't even consider what would happen if you wanted to 
replace those already-sampled sounds with *other* drum sounds.

Overall, the machine was an excellent concept.  However, the implementation 
really crippled what the RZ-1 could have been, IMNSHO.

         -c-

_____
"i want to reach my hand into the dark and *feel* what reaches back"
                                                 -recoil


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]