Casio RZ-1

The Casio RZ-1 was a drum machine manufactured and released by Casio in the 1986. It was one of the first drum machines to have an on-board editable sampled drum beat. it had a number of sounds built into its ROM.

It was the first affordable drum machine that could use sampled sounds. Eithe four samples of 0.2 seconds each, or one sample of 0.8 seconds can be used. The sampling frequency is 20 kHz, which results in a bandwidth of around 10 kHz The sampled sounds cannot be edited in any way. The only parameter for the samples which is a simple lowpass filter. The RZ-1 has a built-in mixer section which is able to perform some fader riding including when only the stereo output jacks in use. The RZ-1 also has ten separate outputs and a backlit LCD. The internal memory holds 100 patterns and 20 songs and can be copied to cassette tape by using an unorthodox socket labeled MT (Music Tape). It should not be confused with a MIDI Thru socket.

External links

* [http://www.hollowsun.com/donations/rz1/index.html Nostalgia: Casio RZ-1]
* [http://hem.passagen.se/tkolb/art/synth/rz1_e.htm Passagen: Casio RZ-1 Rhythm Composer]
* [http://www.synthmuseum.com/casio/casrz101.html Synthmusem: Casio RZ-1]