Casio MT-100

The Casio Casiotone MT-100 was sold in the mid-1980s as a low-to-mid-range portable home keyboard. It has 8-note polyphony, a 49-key keyboard, 20 instrument patches, and an analog percussion generator (two toms, bass drum, snare, open and closed high hats, and click) with 12 programmed rhythms of variable tempo. It also features fingered and Casio Chord accompaniment with three chord tones, four bass tones, and auto-accompaniment with four bass lines and four chord rhythms.

The MT-100 has been used in Homestar Runner cartoons [cite web|url=http://www.hrwiki.org/index.php/lady...ing#Fun_Facts|title=Homestar Runner Wiki: Lady...ng|date=2007-08-08|publisher=Homestar Runner Wiki] , as well as by They Might Be Giants, notably the "funny" patch in their song "Put Your Hand Inside the Puppet Head".

ound generation method

The MT-100 and its cousins (such as the MT-68 and the MT-65) employed the NEC D931x chip to digitally synthesize its sounds. All 20 patches were composed of two short waveforms, usually crossfaded (see Vowel-Consonant synthesis).

The analog drums are produced by sine oscillators tuned almost to the point of self-oscillation. The variable resistors controlling the ring time of the sine component of the drums are accessible and may be adjusted.

Patches

The MT-100 has 20 instrument patches (called "tones" in the manual and in the panel legend), selectable through 11 radio buttons (10 patch select and 1 shift) on the front panel. They are:

# Organ
# Pipe organ
# Flute
# Clarinet
# Trumpet
# Horn
# Oboe
# Accordion
# Violin
# Cello
# Piano
# Elec. piano
# Harpsichord
# Vibraphone
# Celesta
# Harp
# Mandolin
# Elec. guitar
# Funny
# Cosmic tone

Modification

Although the MT-100 is not nearly as popular as the SK-1 amongst the circuit bending community, its many easter eggs make it a popular platform for modifications. The keyboard includes the basic functionality for an arpeggiator as well as extra filter settings, but due to price and cost issues, these features are hidden.

Documentation

* [http://library.sound-club.org/files/documentation/keyboards/casio/MT100%20USER%20MANUAL.PDF User Manual]
* [http://www.firstpr.com.au/rwi/casio-keyboards/ Casio 931 chip (reverse) documentation]

ee also

* [http://weltenschule.de/TableHooters/Casio_CT-410V.html Documentation of the CT-410V, which features the same chipset]
* [http://library.sound-club.org/wiki/Casio_MT-100 SOUND CLUB article on the MT-100]

References

"This article was originally based on the public domain text at [http://library.sound-club.org/wiki/Casio_MT-100 SOUND CLUB Library] "