I bought three Casio VS's. I like to say that they are all around the best instruments I ever bought so far. Iv created my own sounds. Sounds that are truly convincing. Please check out the tracks at http://www.mp3.com/stations/casiovz1
Rating: 5 out of 5
posted Tuesday-Jan-01-2002 at 03:18
Peter Bressinck
a professional user
from Belgium
writes:
The Vz-1 was my first professional synth.I loved the keyboard action, 3 mod wheels slider for controlling the sounds.I use it for pads, synth strings and occassionally for an e-piano. When you put on a little external reverb and/or delay it just sounds wonderfull, really 80's. A few of my colleagues have a D-50 and M1 and must admit that the VZ-1 sounds a lot better.If you're looking for some 80ies sounds or maybe a great midi controller buy.If I would find a second one I would.
Rating: 3 out of 5
posted Monday-Jan-08-2001 at 06:01
giovanni alexi
a hobbyist user
from usa
writes:
Ahh the VZ1,61 synth weighted velocity/aftertouch keys,blue lit graphic lcd,and a $300 price tag just 3 years ago,I wish Id gotten it and the FZ1 that was also for sale at $379!!These were the only units that offered this type of keyboard action and display in the casio keyboard history!!Try to find a casio affordably priced with weighted synth keys,graphic lcd,and aftertouch now!!
Rating: 5 out of 5
posted Saturday-Aug-26-2000 at 19:21
Paul Nicholls
a hobbyist user
from UK
writes:
I bought one of these because I needed a controller keyboard, and as a replacement for my CZ-230S sounds...
Nice looking machine, with a lovely aqua-blue display! Also the best keyboard feel of any synth I've ever owned. Pity about those sounds!
Although capable of some powerful distorted leads/bells and some nice ethereal glassy (also available on the Evolution EVS-1) sounds, it just didn't have the variety of useful sounds I could get with the CZ. Casio, In their infinite wisdom, decided not to include the resonant waveforms that were available on the CZ's! Another bummer was the fact that it couldn't dynamically allocate it's voices. Something which was a bit backward at the time...
If you're looking for a controller keyboard with an unusual sound, then give it a go.
Rating: 3 out of 5
posted Thursday-Jul-06-2000 at 18:24
il_budha
a hobbyist user
from The Netherlands
writes:
I think the $275 I paid was too steep for it (it looked so nice 'n' eighties, couldn't help myself). Nevertheless, I think its got loads of potential for cutting-edge fx, with its complex digital voices (ring-mod and stuff).
Rating: 3 out of 5
posted Friday-Apr-14-2000 at 06:38
Sébastien Delage
a hobbyist user
from Switzerland
writes:
The VZ1 was my first keyboard... and a quite good one. I would like to say that it is interesting to create sounds with that original and rebelious keyboard. Not always easy to manage, even surprizing sometimes, but interesting anyway. Yes, VZ 1 is not a "classical" keyboard: you will to take time to explore it. It took me 7 years to stop to be surprized by its synthetizing possibilities.
Rating: 3 out of 5
posted Sunday-Apr-09-2000 at 12:05
James Bong
a part-time user
from USofA
writes:
I bought the VZ1 new and beat my head against the wall trying to figgure it out. The fact that the manual was in German (which I couldn't read) didn't help either. Finally I got an english manual and proceded to delete all of the factory patches and create my own wild sounds. Once you get the hang of the OS, you can create some of the most unreal sounds. I love the gritty chainsaw basses and lush orchastral sounds I've made with this thing. I wouldn't trade it for anything. Well... Almost anything.
Rating: 4 out of 5
posted Wednesday-Mar-22-2000 at 20:10
Christian Tan
a hobbyist user
from Netherlands
writes:
The VZ-1 can, to my surprise, sound quite fat and warm, considering it's a digital synth. It's synthesis is more advanced than that of a DX-7. I buigt mine cheap, and it was worth it, fat basses, nice pads, nice weird digtal sounds.
Rating: 4 out of 5
posted Tuesday-Jan-19-1999 at 20:49
Patrick Fridh
a professional user
from Sweden
writes:
The Casio VZ synthesizer IS a programmer's dream. I've done a zillion of new sounds for it, and now they are available to you - thru the internet. Please check out my site and read about my VZ patches.
Rating: 5 out of 5
posted Friday-Jan-01-1999 at 15:01
Jon
a part-timer user
from UK
writes:
I've had my VZ-1 for about 4-5 months now, and after spending about 2 months trying to figure out how the hell the sound engine worked, I almost gave up in desperation. In the end, I just started using it as an 8-op additive synth, or poking around with presets I liked the sound of, and I now sort of have a vague idea about what's going on. However, the pads you can get out of this are amazingly lush - anything from smooth sine pads to deep sawtooth stuff - it's possible to stack two voices together, which gives you an impressive 16 operators per note, so you can set up some massive voices. You can do some nice deep bass stuff as well, and electric pianos n organs etc. The operating system is stupidly complex, but it does contain some features which I haven't seen on any other synth - for example note velocity can modulate almost any parameter of a sound, even the rate of each section of an EG individually, so with a bit of forethought, you can get some truly unique sounds coming out of it. Basically, as a digital synth it rocks, but don't expect to be able to walk up to it and create a sound from scratch in under a day (unless you fluke it)... I will certainly be holding on to mine for the forseeable future.
Rating: 4 out of 5
posted Wednesday-Oct-28-1998 at 05:24
Andrew Piatek
a hobbyist user
from USA
writes:
I think VZ-1 was an impressive instrument. I sold it about 5 years ago, and I still regret it. It had the kind of richness in its sound that I cannot approximate with any sample playback synthesizer. VZ-1 had only 8 basic waveforms (including noise generator). However, it was possible with those 8 waveforms to emulate various instruments very nicely. Basses, organs, electric pianos, and strings coming out of the VZ-1 are the sounds I am still missing in most new synthesizers.
Rating: 5 out of 5
posted Thursday-Aug-13-1998 at 11:29
Eric Colin
a part time user
from THE NETHERLANDS
writes:
Yes, I bought a new one at the time it was released. In retrospect it was the worst synthesizer I had ever bought. It looked sleek, had a nice blue graphical display and the electric piano's were ok. This synth is a programmer's dream or nightmare. With its many modules you could choose an interaction between those modules. You could form two modules and let those modules modululate the second pair of modules which modulated another pair etc. etc. Doing this you could get a nice distortion sound. To me the VZ-1 could also sound like a quasi DX7, especially some bass patches. I found the keyboard very light and especially useful when playing long sessions. RAM/ROM cards were impossible to get here in The Netherlands. So I had to fiddle around with it. Well, better walk to the moon, you'd be back sooner than getting a decent edited sound out of the VZ-1. Buy it if you need a masterkeyboard with light action, but do not pay to much.
Rating: 2 out of 5
posted Wednesday-Aug-05-1998 at 23:36
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