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Average rating:
4.5 out of 5
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Yeah. the digital controled analog filter rocks. Some people believe that the filter of FZ-samplers is one of the first digital filters. But it's not true ! Casio called it DCF because it is controled by the main digital chip but the filter himself is a real analog filter as analog IC like Prophet5, Oberheim OBXA and the others in the 80's or Prophet 8 today.
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This is a great little sampler. I have the rackmount version called the FZ10M. The only difference between the rack and the keyboard version is the rack has 2 megs of RAM instead of 1 meg. There are some very cool things that this sampler has that most from this time period do not have. Firstly it boots from ROM so you don't need to have some weird proprietary floppy disk to boot. The drive is High Density so you don't need to find some funky DD disk to use with it. Secondly it has preset waves so you can use it as a synth without having to sample. It's super easy to use and has a really crunchy and raw sound. A little reverb and eq warms it up nicely. I paid $125.00(USD) for two working ones and that price included shipping! Unfrotunatley any support for it is weak. Even 3rd party support is sparse. If you can buy any professional synth or sampler for under $100... why wouldn't you just add it too your rack? I remember when no one wanted an analog synth like a Moog or an Arp. You couldn't give those things away. I remember you could get a used Moog for $50. At some point these older digital synths will be the same way. No one wants them now but in another 10 years people wil pay obnoxious prices for them. Nonetheless, If you can get one in working order it is worth every penny. You can do A LOT with 1 meg of RAM. They sound nice and are easy to program. These things are tanks...No plastic here. Good luck! - Rob
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I purchased my FZ1 & memory upgrade in 1987. It cost me £700(I knew a pro audio dealer!)and the memory card cost just £69 direct from Casio!(yes really!). I still use this keyboard(mainly as a controller)& is in full working order! The only thing which has gone wrong is the output relay - I replaced this around 12yrs ago & also replaced all the jack sockets. A kind of 'long forgotten' thing about this keyboard is that it was design to compete with Akai's S1000 and so hit the market just before the S1K was released. It is possible to transfer the full '8 loop' samples to/from the S1000 & FZ1 using Steinberg's Avalon Sample editor(for the Atari ST). This means you can take the best samples out of the FZ1 & breathe some life into them! Once in the Akai format they obviously have greater compatibility with today's samplers. FZ1: Good sound quality for the day, well made & reliable with full MIDI spec.....if only it had more polyphony & 88 notes....still you can't have everything! For anyone who doesn't believe in throwing stuff away which works just fine.....this keyboard still has it's uses!
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I owned this unit for near 17 years (phu near half of my life!), but sold it now, was not longer usable for me, but still worked without troubles. Only the Display was darked out, and it took near 2 hours to replace the el. Sound quality was not poor the time I first got it, and the graphics display was a killer feature for that days. The FZ1 also looked very good. Today its more a piece for collectors, and dosent feature any must have sound, its also very slow for working, and has a poor UI. The keys are not so bad, but its not simple to replace weaked out damping parts. So you can get a real uniqe unit for cheap money, but dont await to much.
Markus
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Never buy one of these. Especially on E-Bay. They have a short life span, if the harddrive hasn't gone yet it will and most likely sooner than later. I purchased one off E-Bay and even though it came with a return policy the seller wouldn't honor it and after the second day of owning it I had problems getting it to record and save samples and the hard drive wouldn't save my samples. Just an FYI...if you file a claim through Pay-Pal or E-Bay to get reimbursed for an item that was not as described or mechanically screwed up you need to provide an estimate on repair from a qualified technician on letterhead. Unfortunately with old heavy tanks like this keyboard you will have to shell out at least $150 with shipping to even find someone in the world who can service it, or you won't be refunded. Even if the E-Bay ad clearly states that there is a return policy you'll still need to shell out even more money to get the estimate and Pay-Pal and E-Bay cannot even guarantee reimbursement, nor can they provide reimbursement for the estimates and shipping you need to get!
My advice to anyone looking to purchase this board or an old Emu board or any huge, old, heavy, piece of sampling gear that does very little but "colors" the sound is to put that money into some old effect and filter pedals and run your samples through that to get the grungy lo-fi effect (sorry for the run-on sentence) They take up much less space in your studio and many of them can be purchased dirt cheap on E-Bay and Craigslist.
Do yourself a favor. Save the money and space and sample via software; Battery, Intact, Sampletank, whatever. Then run your samples through some old outboard gear if you want that sound.
Don't make the mistake I've made!!!!
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