How Good is the Casio CZ-101 for a Midi Controller?

o0o · Post by **o0o** » Sun Mar 29, 2009 2:08 am

an aquaintence would like to sell me his, also what is a good price to pay for a model in excellent condition?

mikemc · Post by **mikemc** » Sun Mar 29, 2009 3:02 am

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=casio+cz-101+price+paid

but off the top of my head i'd say hundred bucks tops.

[edit] in terms of how good a controller, the keys even on their "1000" series models aren't so great. There are lots of buttons that will send program change messages, which aren't as much use as CC or Notes. But you would be surprised at how good some of the sounds are, particularly with effects in Live.

dave999z · Post by **dave999z** » Sun Mar 29, 2009 4:33 am

o0o wrote:an aquaintence would like to sell me his, also what is a good price to pay for a model in excellent condition?

cz101 keys are not velocity sensitive... all send at 128 velocity no matter how hard or soft you hit the key.

(saves you the trouble of doing that manually.)

before the economy crashed, a mint CZ101 was over $300. not sure what they go for now. check ebay to find out.

Pyramid Audio · Post by **Pyramid Audio** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 3:38 pm

not a good midi controller, as said before, not velocity sensitive. nice sounds but not fat as some have said on the internets. pretty thin actually. there seems to be some unreasonable hype about these on the internet which made the price go up. the main sound in salt n pepa's "push it" was done with cz101. most i would pay is $100. $300 for a cz101 is crazy.

Angstrom · Post by **Angstrom** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 4:00 pm

wow, what a bizarre request!

the cz-101 was one of my very first synths and it was absolute shite as a midi controller even when it was brand spanking new. And that was in 1985. It has not got any better with age.

The sounds are OK on it, certainly distinctive, but you better be a demon at programming in the old 'thru the postbox' style, because the only way us old-skoolers actually made that thing sound good was because we had no choice but to really sit for hours and hours and coax good sounds from it.

If you get a freebie VST emulation of one of these you will probably get better sounds in a shorter time.

dave999z · Post by **dave999z** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 4:20 pm

Angstrom wrote:wow, what a bizarre request!

the cz-101 was one of my very first synths and it was absolute shite as a midi controller even when it was brand spanking new. And that was in 1985. It has not got any better with age.

The sounds are OK on it, certainly distinctive, but you better be a demon at programming in the old 'thru the postbox' style, because the only way us old-skoolers actually made that thing sound good was because we had no choice but to really sit for hours and hours and coax good sounds from it.

If you get a freebie VST emulation of one of these you will probably get better sounds in a shorter time.

true. they take FOREVER to program, cycling through those little LCD screens.

i think it's a pretty cool synth - but with all the tools out there today, who really needs another piece of very limited, depreciating gear sitting around. it'll bore you quickly.

aqua_tek · Post by **aqua_tek** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 4:22 pm

I bought a MINT CZ-101 back in December for $140.

Played around with it. Got bored. Sold it a little over a month ago for $160

Profit!

o0o · Post by **o0o** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 4:28 pm

this sounds nice

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOBvhWvJRoQ

and he seems to be moving through it rather quickly as far as programming goes
although the sounds aren't phenomenal that he's making but still moving fast.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5y7mx1v ... re=related

Stan_T · Post by **Stan_T** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 5:04 pm

I bought one new when they came out for about $300. It's ok for what it is and when it was introduced, but you'd be much better off putting that money into something new and sturdier. All other things being equal, it's 25-year-old gear that can fail on you.

Angstrom · Post by **Angstrom** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 5:16 pm

o0o wrote:this sounds nice

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOBvhWvJRoQ

and he seems to be moving through it rather quickly as far as programming goes
although the sounds aren't phenomenal that he's making but still moving fast.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5y7mx1v ... re=related

the guy appears to be randomly stabbing buttons - and yes if you do that then the sound will change randomly every time you randomly press a button.

If you really want to buy one, then feel free to do so, it just seems a bit odd to me. People have a weird idea of old equipment.

Like buying a 1980s TV, because the TV programs were interesting back then.

CR78 · Post by **CR78** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 5:57 pm

Very Bum & Mace-ish.

o0o · Post by **o0o** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 6:02 pm

I understand that he is not programming incredible sounds that much i've said, but I'm saying that he looks more comfortable than earlier suggested, it does look like a fun synth. You don't think there would be less fun had in a cz-101 softsynth?

mikemc · Post by **mikemc** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 6:38 pm

o0o wrote:I understand that he is not programming incredible sounds that much i've said, but I'm saying that he looks more comfortable than earlier suggested, it does look like a fun synth. You don't think there would be less fun had in a cz-101 softsynth?

For a controller, it is not so good. If you get it cheap, it is like a not so good controller with the plus of having some 'vintage' sounds which are also maybe not so good

I see this for $85, for example, minus the vintage not so good sounds but with 49 possibly decent keys.
http://www.guitarcenter.com/CME-M-Key-4 ... 1389957.gc

aqua_tek · Post by **aqua_tek** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 6:43 pm

well it was fun to program at first, i'll admit it. Not super difficult. Actually pretty intuitive after you've tinkered around with it for a bit. You can definitely come up with some interesting sounds with it. But after a while it got kind of meh. Never actually used it in a track. I'd have kept it just as a novelty "museum piece" but I needed other things, and figured someone else may get better use out of it.

Having a CZ-101 emulation soft synth would be very underwhelming imo. Sure it comes up with interesting sounds, but not enough to warrant a dedicated soft synth emulation. Might as well get Native Instruments' FM8 in that case. (phase distortion is not exactly the same as FM but similar sounds can be achieved)

Either get the real thing cheap, for cheesy vintage sounds and collectability (is that a word?), or just save up for something better.

After having used it, I don't think I'd pay more than $150 for it. And even that's a stretch. I've seen it's bigger sibling, the CZ-1000, being sold for even less. Guess the 101 is more of a novelty because it's tiny. Kind of like the Microkorg

djsynchro · Post by **djsynchro** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 1:40 am

I had 2 sold them both must have used it on a record at some stage but pretty unremarkable synth.
They can be circuit bent which means there might be hope to get a special sound out of it.

How Good is the Casio CZ-101 for a Midi Controller?

How Good is the Casio CZ-101 for a Midi Controller?

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