Casio CZ/ VZ/ FZ - Pro Series

i just got a neat little casio ht3000 from a pawnshop for 45 bucks on 
tuesday and  a crazy idea came to mind... what if i turn my old casio 
mt-740 (one of their earlier tonebank keyboards with midi ins and 
outs) into a keytar. now removing the speakers and mounting strap 
pegs should be no problem. but im wondering if i could build in some 
sort of mod/pitchweel type things that would still have midi out 
signals to control the same effects on my ht3000. im not sure ill be 
able to do this and i might just have to focus on making it 
cosmetically awesome but if anyone has any ideas id love to hear some 
input. thanks and ill be sure and post pictures of the process.

(crossposted in some other yahoogroups)

You're very unlikely to be able to implement any sort of MIDI pitch or mod controller retrospectively - the built-in software would have to be somehow reprogrammed to allow for new input devices. As far as using the keyboard as a strap-on MIDI controller, sure. I used to occasionally play my old CZ-101 as a strap-on back in the mid-1980s - I was half an electro-pop duo, and usually played bass guitar live, with a 4-track cassette machine handling piano, synths, percussion and chromatic harmonica (all played by myself) and drum machine while my partner-in-crime just sang. There was a song in our set which just sounded better with synth-bass, so for that song I played the CZ-101.

Simon Beck
London, UK

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Ryan Balderas 
  To: CZsynth@yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Thursday, September 02, 2004 3:21 PM
  Subject: [CZsynth] casio mt-740 keytar


  i just got a neat little casio ht3000 from a pawnshop for 45 bucks on 
  tuesday and  a crazy idea came to mind... what if i turn my old casio 
  mt-740 (one of their earlier tonebank keyboards with midi ins and 
  outs) into a keytar. now removing the speakers and mounting strap 
  pegs should be no problem. but im wondering if i could build in some 
  sort of mod/pitchweel type things that would still have midi out 
  signals to control the same effects on my ht3000. im not sure ill be 
  able to do this and i might just have to focus on making it 
  cosmetically awesome but if anyone has any ideas id love to hear some 
  input. thanks and ill be sure and post pictures of the process.

  (crossposted in some other yahoogroups)



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

>i just got a neat little casio ht3000 from a pawnshop for 45 bucks on
>tuesday and  a crazy idea came to mind... what if i turn my old casio
>mt-740 (one of their earlier tonebank keyboards with midi ins and
>outs) into a keytar. now removing the speakers and mounting strap
>pegs should be no problem. but im wondering if i could build in some
>sort of mod/pitchweel type things that would still have midi out
>signals to control the same effects on my ht3000. im not sure ill be
>able to do this and i might just have to focus on making it
>cosmetically awesome but if anyone has any ideas id love to hear some
>input. thanks and ill be sure and post pictures of the process.

I really doubt you'd be able to add a pitch wheel without lots of effort.  
You might be able to add a tuning potentiometer but that wouldn't transmit 
midi.  Does the MT-740 even respond to pitch bend data?  If you really 
wanted to be cool you could mount a midi knob box on it and merge it with 
the 740's output.  But the HT-3000 would probably only respond to pitch 
bend, mod wheel, and sustain pedal controllers so it would be a waste of 
effort unless you've got something else to control with it.

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