Casio 1000P

Not as obvious as other Casiotones but it won't take long to learn how to program it.

Preset sounds are good, with the exception of basson and brass which sound nothing like what they're supposed to - they sound nice but aren't realistic.

This board produces very basic sine waves in the standard tonewheel harmonic range. In program mode, you have a set of 10 combinations of feet and harmonics which can be assigned to 10 different envelopes and 10 modulations. This makes patches easy to edit if you have some basic knowledge about tonewheel organs and synthesizer envelope-shaping.

When you realize what it is capable of you have to wonder why it's not even easier to use. I guess they were really trying to make it look like a really cool synth.

8 note polyphony, which is a shame. It would be wonderful if it was fully polyphonic. This is an analog board but was a half-way to the digital-era casio keyboards.

The keyboard action is standard casiotone. Very soft. These are springboard keys so watch out when you're doing palm or thumb glissandos.

It features a few built-in effects such as percussion, delayed attack, wah attack, treble and bass modulation, metalic sound (chime-y), sustain and long sustain, vibrato, delayed vibrato and heavy vibrato. Some of these are just weird, like the delayed attack, the wah or the metalic sound. Others actually do add something to the sounds, such as the sustains and the vibratos.
All this is much easier to use than it sounds. Combining effects with envelopes will have you programming some interesting sounds.

There's an arpeggiator with two modes: up-and-down and a programmable mode, which is a little bit difficult to program. All in all, you can have fun with it and even use seriously occasionally.

The keyboard is splittable and you can assign different sounds for the upper and lower manuals. Quite impressive for this kind of board.

No MIDI, of course. It was developed before MIDI was a commercial reality. I'm judging it in its own terms.

The best sounds on the board are organ sounds. Actually, as all the sounds share the same basic waves in different frequencies, they all sound like organs. The piano, vibes and celesta sounds are the same as the organ sounds but with decay. I like the sounds of it, but they are all very cheesy and mellow. Of course its a bit limited.

This keyboard has very good bass. Its one of the things I like the most on it and I use it a lot for that purpose. I play in a rock band and what I do is mainly play the bass on the keyboard. For that purpose, this board does it for me.
I also have an electronic music side-project and this board comes handy very often. Bass sounds, organ sounds, weird cheesy pads and noises too.
Put it through a Leslie-sim or a good overdrive and you're in for a few surprises.
I use the vibrato a lot and sometimes the long-sustain.

Keyboard action is just on and off.

I've gigged and gigged it and I'm probably gigging it again. I guess you could climb on it and surf on stage and it would keep playing as good as it was in 1982.
The keys, however, seem a bit more fragile and one of the knobs snapped off once. The built-in speaker is crappy and it's already ripped.

Never needed.

I bought it used some years ago and I paid way too much for it at the time. I kinda rushed to buy it 'cause it looked just like the odd thing it is. Don't pay more than 50 Eur/Dlr for it.

I've always had a piano in the house and fell in love with vintage keyboards when I was in my early teens.

I like when an instrument's limitaions force you to be creative. I've explored this keyboard quite extensively and I always know what I want from it when I plug it in. I particularly like the bass sounds, which are quite powerful. I wish it had full polyphony. Then it could be a respactable combo organ type of thing.

I'm giving it a 7 because for what it does it's a bit too big and heavy and it defenitely wont work for someone who needs a wide range of sounds.

It was called a 1000P because you could create 1000 programs (or patches) on it. What a crock - 999 all sounded the same and the other one wasn't great.

Can't remember what poly it was, 8 I think. A very light keyboard, 2 built-in speakers, deep and rich enough but cracked up with the real sub-bass sounds. It had a digital delay built in to it but this made up part of the 1000 programs so a bit of a rip really them 1000 programs. MIDI? Can't remember - don't think so. An appregiator was used with a very low percussive 'program' I wrote and made a very convincing beat box.

The sounds were organs. All of them. Normal organ sounding pipe organ things or tinny organs. They were organs. Nothing more. Nothing less. They wern't Hammonds either. Casio organs. Gladys at the local church on Sunday morning cheese.

It never went wrong as long as I had it. I wouldn't ever gig it - I'd never get over the shame.

Never contacted Casio.

Ok, here's the deal with this - I was CONNED right. Yes - conned - they told me it was a SYNTH. It was my first new purchase after having only owned a Crumar Roadster 'piano' which was dreadful. A brilliant salesman though - he made me part with my hard earned cash and made me think I had Rick Wakeman fame at my fingetips - BASTARD! I had a freaking ORGAN - a bloody cheesey ropey bloody ORGAN. Saw one on eBay not long ago - fetched ?50 - they were robbed. If you want one for little Suzy to practice with, go for it. If you want fame and fortune leave that sonbitch well alone brother.

the presets sound ok for an ealry casio keyboard, this is clearly type of synth, the organ sounds real good and has a deep sound to it, with a powerfull amp attached you could easily blow a speaker or two, the piano sound ok when edited, its sound straight from the 70s, kind of like a rhodes

the effects are limited, I would have liked some good old analogue knobs on but you cant have everything,

piano and organ, heavy vibrato is a great effect to put on

this has a heavy duty design to it, and should last years

to be honest i wouldnt buy it again, because I feel I wouldnt get the use it deserves

Present sound are nice. Editing them you'll get better ones. Organs are great. Manual never had....but it would be nice, because the sequencing is hard to figure out.

No MIDI included.

Organ sounds are quite realistic by editing them. When using amps or quitareffects etc. , it's a worker. "Piano"-sound is also nice and smooth! Onboard effects are useful atliest the vibrato, but example sustain feels bad. Use sustain pedal for better quality. Aftertouch; sorry don't find here.

Stays on and on tune. I have noticed that tuning, have changed trhough years but it's easy to tune again....wery wide scale for tuning!

Don't konw.

This is nice machine whit nice and smooth 8 sounds!

The presets sound a bit like a cheesy organ, but rip the memory batteries out and you can tweak the sounds a bit

10 basic waves, 10 envelopes, and 10 eq-style 'things', delay, vibrato and the awsome 'heavy vibrato' ;-) 1 arpeggiator(down, up, up-down) and a hard to program sequencer, that is quite difficoult to descover without a manual...

Cheesy...

Yep, it's quite reliable (I've used it live a couple of times)

Support? What's that?

Well. I bought it back in '83, and it sounded good then, but now I think it's limited but 'the things it does, it does well!'

software whatcha talkin' bout willis
presets very casio..but wow you can alter them and then pretty cool
editing... envelopes, waveforms, pitch lengths, at your fingertips in plain view
manuel never had one

key action synthie, but not bad
effects two vibratos, and a interesting sustain above the keys hummmm
expansion no sequencer no

organs, before tweaking so so , but alter them (wave form, envelopes etc.)and you find a pretty realistic L series Hammond underneath (well... I never) tweak the rest of the presets you'll be suprised at what comes out..on board effects naw but thats what amps are for..it's not static, but no volocity or aftertouch, comes with a volume pedel out that's expression

haven't broken it yet, and if I do I'll fix it
aahhh if all I wanted was that L 100 sound definitly, but i gotta have pianos it;s pretty well made tho

my, my, my less hassel to learn how to repair yourself

I'm growing fond of it, I have lotsa other gear SQ, roland, farfisa, seil, rhodes..but it's interesting and is helpful I started playing Hammond in the sixties and once owned a L between the M & B add reverb to this sucker aaaah nostalgia......