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
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