Casio CZ/ VZ/ FZ - Pro Series

On 15 Feb, 2014, at 9:15 AM, Lee wrote:

>
> Phase distortion is a matter of altering the phase angle of a  
> waveform.

Not exactly. They change the speed of reading the wavetable which has  
the result in changing the shape of waveform.

> Basically casio came up with doing something other than  
> fm,presumably because yamaha had the patent.

Not exactly. Basically, on the level of oscillator, it's the same as  
Yamaha, which in fact uses also phase modulation. They just called it  
FM, but it's also phase modulation - PM. Casio just used different  
term and didn't use principle of algorithm in CZ series (just ring  
modulation between two "lines"). This came later with VZ (and similar)  
which has iPD synthesis where 4 lines can interact.

> Whilst a similar technique the sound is warmer than the dx instruments

I don't think, DX/TX can sound enough warm, it depends just on the  
programming.

> and with 8 envelope stages casio invented a clever and versatile  
> synth engine!

Absolutely, that was great idea.

Concerning PD synthesis, Casio published some additional books except  
Owner's manuals - Sound Synthesis Summary for different models, and  
there's also a book "An Insider's Guide to CZ Synthesizers", to find  
elsewhere on internet...

Daniel Forro