I also used to use your site alot, back when I was circuit bending. I am now building my own synth modules, as well as studying for an electronics degree so I dont do that much any more - not enough hours in the day.
A quick google of cz vst gives me quite a few hits. Phase distortion plugins and some cz style plugins do exist. I havent been able to try them as they are all windows but I am mac but there are quite a few forum posts commenting on their quality. They are free anyway so if you are tempted go try them yourself.
http://www.algomusic.net/freeware.html phadiz
http://www.collusioninc.net/index.php/soundware/synthedit-projects/89-cz6000 cz6000
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jez.price/synths.htm Sinthecyza! 2.6
http://justin-robert.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Mothman%20Z3000 mothman z3000
http://cz-10xv.kilu.de/cz-10xv cz10xv
They are probably all made with synthedit, which if you want to build emulations is a great software package to get into as it allows you to compile real DLL vst files once you have completed. You could also build some interesting and probably very accurate emulations using reaktor, max/msp, all those kind of programs but that means somebody would have to own that software package to use it.
There is also this VL-1 emulator I have found. This is quite interesting as it looks like it was coded himself, it wasnt a synthedit project.
http://www.polyvalens.com/blog/?page_id=7 Casio VL-Tone Emulator
Any plugins that emulate a synth you need to be aware if it is using synthesis or if it is a ROMpler (uses samples). Now although I havent full knowledge of each casio my understanding is the majority of them are pulsewave only, with the difference in sound coming from changing the pulse width and possibly some fixed filters and envelope shaping.
Youre definately up for tinkering, and you know more than most about the synths you want emulated so I think you would be the perfect person to build these emulations! This should be relatively easy to emulate with synthedit, you would have to analyze the waveshape coming out of the casio with a scope and build the equivalent on screen. The one thing I am not sure about is the "squarewaveishness" of the casio compared to synthedit. In the real world a squarewave doesnt exist. There will be a curve in the transitions from 0 to 1 and to 0 and there may be harmonics that make it less square. This is partly what gives the casios their qualities as different components will create slightly different squares. Within synthedit it is entirely possible to have a perfect square wave, which obviously would not create an accurate emulation.
The CZ firmware modifications I think most people would be interested in would be a change of sysex control to midi cc, and the extra features (such as more ring/noise mods, more waveshapes) people have found using sysex being implemented into the front panel on the synth. This is not easy, but also far from impossible.
The thing that springs to mind for me is the Maad rom modification for the cheetah ms6 http://www.maad.net/ms6/. The cheetah ms6 was a rip off of the oberheim matrix synths (same chips) but all of them had a poor midi spec and the cheetah had some features missing.
The Maad rom changes all sysex commands to midi cc commands, more DCO shapes, better low end etc. and is all firmware based. I am working on modifying ROMs for a few of my synths, much in the same vein but I am not offering any time frame - I always have too many projects and not enough time - but the cz1000 is on my to do list, although about numer 25 atm. Presumably this would also work with the cz101 and would be much the same with the other czs in the series. Any ROM dumps you can do would be useful as most of these eproms are about 10 years past their guaranteed life cycle!
--- In CZsynth@yahoogroups.com, "fulfil_objective" <robot@...> wrote:
Show quoted textHide quoted text
>
> Hi Christian,
>
> Thanks for the introduction. I have been on your website many times before, and have the table hooters section bookmarked. I am also interested in some of the old home keyboards, but perhaps not so devoted as you. I go on your website from time to time to read your opinion of some old keyboard.
>
> I have also checked out the videos on your YouTube channel where you build up a track using looping and several different home keyboards. They are very entertaining, thanks for sharing.
>
> As to the question, I am no expert on the subject, but I haven't heard of a serious attempt to get all the ROMs and then truly emulate the CZ sound engine. I believe I have seen attempts to mimic the synthesis style using some other software. But I can't even remember where I may have seen that.
>
> I have heard people wish they had the ability to edit the firmware, to enable some killer feature, but I don't think that has happened yet.
>
> --- In CZsynth@yahoogroups.com, "CYBERYOGI =CO= Windler" <cowindler01@> wrote:
> >
> > Hello, I am collector of music keyboards and electronic sound toys and partly modify them into synthesizers. Here is my keyboard site:
> >
> > http://weltenschule.de/TableHooters/index.html
> >
> >
> > I have bought an eprommer ("Willem PRO4 isp",had unfortunately defective transistors and other flaws I had to fix) and started to dump EPROMs and ROMs of my keyboard collection. And I am happy to find here the SK-1,SK-5 and SK-8 ROMs here, so I don't need to desolder these by myself.
> >
> > I am mainly into analogue/squarewave Casios, so my only CZ keyboard is a CZ-230S. I have uploaded its ROM contents if anybody needs to fight bitrot to repair one. You also may extract the 8 bit sample percussion or the PD synthesis parameters of the original 100 preset sounds from it.
> >
> > - Has anybody tried yet to make an emulator (similar like MAME) for Casio keyboards?
> >
> > E.g. Casiotone 401 and MT-40 are controlled by an Intel MCS-48 microcontroller which ROM I successfully dumped. So at least the accompaniment section would be possible to emulate yet. Robin Whittle (firstpr.com) found out much about the Consonant-Vowel synthesis main voice sound ICs in early Casios, which would be useful to emulate them. Also the various Casio calculator emulators on the internet could be useful to understand what kinds of special CPUs Casio has
> > used.
> >
> > MAY THE SOFTWARE BE WITH YOU!
> >
> > *============================================================================*
> > I CYBERYOGI Christian Oliver(=CO=) Windler I
> > I (teachmaster of LOGOLOGIE - the first cyberage-religion!) I
> > I ! I
> > *=============================ABANDON=THE=BRUTALITY==========================*
> > {http://weltenschule.de/e_index.html}
> >
>