Casio FZ-1/10M

First off, the unit I'm using is an FZ-20M. The software version is version "C". There were no presets when I bought it. Editing patches is unbelievably fun. This is actually my first sampler. I'm normally a synth/guitar kinda person, but creating industrial drum kits with your average drum machine ends up being rather limited in the end. Though I've done limited amounts of sampling on a PC, I always thought that sampling on a piece of hardware was going to be the worst experience of my life (especially with no manual to guide me at first). Instead, this has turned out to be an incredibly easy experience. I just got a manual in the mail from Casio today (though, it's actually for the FZ-1, the basic operation is still the same). Very basic and easy to understand manual, written in the same way as the menu system.

One thing that I do want to mention is that there is a slight misconception that I have stumbled upon. A lot of people out there think that the only difference between the FZ-10M and the FZ-20M are the SCSI port and the amount of on board memory. Something that I would like to emphasize that might change the minds of somebody who is interested in the 20M over the 10M is that the Wave Synthesis engine does not come on the 20M. It isn't that bad a thing if you want it strictly for the sampling capability, but if you were looking forward to toying with the synthesis engine, I'd head for the FZ-10M instead. Other than that, it features an 8 voice polyphony and no keyboard. There are no real built in effects per say on the FZ-20M, however it is relatively easy to simulate them with the pitch shifting and stuff. The only expansion capabilities that I know of is the hacked version of a 4mb upgrade. It responds to the usual line of MIDI commands. There is no on-board sequencer.

The instruments can be as realistic as you want seeing as how its a sampler and all. It could be interesting to try with trance or dub for those really gritty 9khz samples, but I find it works best for industrial. The 36khz max sample rate won't allow me to create a crystal clear sample, but that's what I like about it. I'm able to build a good noise drum kit quickly and easily with this thing, and sampling off beat noises to loop into synth-styled sounds is rather entertaining (try sampling a tight-assed fart, retuning it, and playing it in the higher ranges with a tinge of distortion). And on that note, the digital filters on this thing really do add an odd color to the sounds you sample, not necessarily a bad thing, especially when used in contrast to some sort of high-sample rate drum machine and/or monosynth. Using the velocity on a sequencer was originally a last resort, but turned out rather well for me. The FZ-20M allows you to play a note at one velocity and let out a specific sample, while changing the velocity brings out a different sample. I'm sure this is probably a standard feature on new samplers, but I'm easily impressed by these archaic machines.

This thing was manufactured in the '80's and its still kicking ass in the 21st century... yeah, I'd say its pretty reliable.

Here's a classic line for you: "What's a sampler?" The poor operator almost hung up on me because I was laughing so hard. I can't say I blame her, though, seeing as how Casio got out of the pro gear industry so long ago? The website makes no effort to support vintage gear, and an automated response email system really pisses me off. Send 'em an email, and a message containg their phone number comes right back, and the wording shows off that they obviously didn't read what you wrote. Nevertheless, I was surprised that they had a manual for the FZ-1 still available, although paying $10 for a photocopy didn't make too happy. All in all, pulling teeth is far easier, and the results are a lot more pleasurable (still pissed off about having to find out about the lack of Wave Synthesis the hard way.)

Well, it's definetly worth the $75 I paid for it. If it were lost or stolen... well, that would suck. It would suck very much. I think I would actually cry... then I would hunt down an FZ-10M on eBay for $50. I've been sequencing/programming for about a year and a half now, and guitaring for about a decade. My other gear includes... You know what, I'm going to be rebellious and not answer that question. Every time I read everybody's answer to that one, it seems like they're bragging. Moving along then... I love the colors the FZ-20M adds to its samples. I compared it with an AKAI S-01 (so sue me, I love vintage instruments), and the Casio whoops its ass... actually they're about the same. The only differences are that the Casio has a giant flashy LCD display and that the AKAI has... the famous brand name that multiplies the price by approx. 250%... that sucks. The only thing that I wish it had was more notoriety. This thing is a hell of a lot more interesting than anything that AKAI has ever put out (I have a feeling that I'm going to regret saying that), and its easier to use than a Mirage. Other than the fact that I had to find out about the lack of Wave Synthesis the hard way and the crappy customer support, I love it.

Not easy to use at all, but not much for this price with these features was in 1988. Although not very intuitive, once you understand the menu system, you can get around fairly easily. Used in performance without a lot of patch switching or twiddling, it's okay. I would definitely not recommend reading the manual. It did not help me one bit. Extremely heavy, so I cannot recommend any but the most physically fit lug this around to gigs, like I did for five years.

The keyboard has a good solid feel, and after years of use, it's actually a little smoother than it was when it was brand new. Eight individual voice outputs and one mono output. I added a stereo output (voices 1,3,5,7 hard left and voices 2,4,6,8 hard right) to mine.
The built-in waveform and additive synthesis is crude but effective. I really like being able to map a different sample to each key.

The FZ has a sound of its own. Definitely a tool for creating unusual sounds and modifications of real-world sounds. Although some samples are realistic enough, the sound quality is less than CD-quality. Lots of extra digital noise and distortion - so it sounds "perfect."
Built-in synth options are a really cool feature and add more sonic options.

Bought it in 1988.
Lightning struck our house while it was plugged in - fried other electronic equipment in the house, but the FZ suffered no damage.
I shipped it across the state. A faulty piece of UPS sorting equipment (a large solenoid) misfired and punctured it through the case, from the front side through the back panel at one end - and it still worked!
After I collected the UPS insurance money, I patched the broken plastic and bent sheet metal with "J.B. Weld" and repainted it. It still plays fine.
I would safely assume that my FZ-1 could survive a nuclear blast.
The floppy disk unit is questionable - after more than ten years, it is bound to fail soon enough.

Early on, I was interested in getting detailed sysex and development information, because I wanted to develop my own software for it.
Casio was very gracious in supplying me with all of the detail I asked for, even putting me in touch with the developer of the original OS. They sent me gobs of documentation, much more than I expected.
Nowadays, Casio doesn't support this product, since the FZ series is probably older than some of its employees.
There is a wealth of information on the web, however.

My FZ-1 doesn't owe me anything. I've dropped it, electrocuted it, and even punctured a hole in it, and it still serves me well. If it was lost or stolen, I probably wouldn't buy another one since it isn't really a practical instrument nowadays. It's way too heavy, and it lacks many modern capabilities. It has more sentimental value than anything else. I have made many recordings with it, and I've never found anything else that sounds quite like it.

fz-10m. pretty straightforward i reckon.

8 note poly. seperate mono (shame) o/ps for each.
midi good.
2MB memory ok considering u can only get 1.44MB on a disk.

the filters have a sound all of their own. think richard james' early 90's caustic window tunes...

um, yeah. the disk drive is getting a bit ropey now. apart from that it's cool.

u can get them for #150.00 now so yeah, if the disk drive works. no-one in their right mind would steal it tho...
i also have a yamaha a3000 which has kinda eclipsed the fz (wouldn't if i had the fz-20m with SCSI)- but is an equally awkward bugger in its own way.
wish more people would try writing whole tunes with just 2MB sample memory tho. music would be way more interesting. and you have to work hard. which is good.

Easy to use for a device of these early digital days.
Typical Parameter hopping and a lots of Menus,wich are comfortable
to use via the big Graphic LCD.Only a conectable Monitor with Mouse
(like Rolands S50),would have made it a joy to edit.

The manual is to short,explains all functions very well,but at least
this manual was written for users who had already experience in
Sampling.For beginners it might be maybe a horror.

Ensoniq demonstrated,how cool and good a manual can be !

Nevertheless a good tool,with logical Menues and comfortable editing.

Features are explained already a lot here.

But a special and underrated feature is the "synthsection" of this
beast.Preset Waveforms(analog style),Additive Synthesis(Fourier style),
Cut Sample(Snapshot style) and the funny Handdrawing function.
The resolution of the Handdrawing is really rough and limited.
But it makes fun to design Waveforms from scratch.

Well,it is a sampler.So it will let you hear,what you once fed in.
A sampler is a sampler.

The quality of the FZ is the fact,that it "colours" samples in a
special way.This thing has an own character.A little raw and cold.
Not elegant,but with an individual output.Perfect when used in a
band.The FZ can be always located in a Mix.Well done.

The FZ has enough options,to bring a sound alive.Perfect are the
eight steps EGs.What a joy to use them.
The Filter surprised me.I thought-before having the FZ,that digital
Filters will sound lousy and cheesy.But this one sound really good.
It is not of the class of the analog Filters,but it gives a special
character to the sound.A little icy and with resonance like Snowboarding
on a melting iceberg.
For a digital Filter of the "stoneage" of digital instruments,this
Filter is pretty smart and unique.

Editing is fun.You can screw on the samples until they sound like
nothing else before,Cut samples out and use them in the synthsection.
Mix synthsounds with samplesounds and so on.Your imagination is the
only border.

The FZ can be used for nearly every style.It was used in contemporary
music(John Cages Imaginary Landscape) or in simple Humpa Humpa Music.

The only thing I miss,is an EG for Pitch.

Build like tank.
Only the backlight,will dim to Zero after years of work and the
Floppy drive should be handled with care(non PC-Standard).

A good old Sampler of the early digital age.Has a unique sound and
a flexible Soundarchitecture.

If lost or stolen,would try to get another one.Caused by its sound
and also a little nostalgia.

As a sampler, I find it quite simple and convenient, comparing to Roland samplers.

The rack version is impressive in physical appearance.

This is an industrial machine, not to be used by techno panzies.

Solid

No fun to start off on, this - menus of menus of menus of menus to navigate through before you get to _any_ parameters. By default, when switched on it makes no sound, which is well disconcerting to the beginner. And you can't monitor a sound while you sample it which is annoying. After about 2 years of using it, you will accept these things as normal.

Polyphony is 8, which is barely enough, and there are no built-in effects (although you can stack voices on top of one another for, eg, chorus effects). Has a resonable keyboard - velocity and channel aftertouch senstive - I use it as my master keyboard, so it's ok, but I don't pride myself on my piano skills.

You will either love the sound or hate it. Simple as that - the FZ-1 doesn't playback exactly what you sample. It goes gritty and cold, and the digital filters are absolutely unreal - they sound like ice, and at high resonance values actually start to distort. This gives the FZ-1 a unique sound - very lo-fi, especially at it's lowest sample rate. The thing is also capable of some (limited) synthesis, it includes a few preset waves (eg saw, square etc) and a sin synthesis section which is good for bell sounds. Probably a contenter for the first ever virtual analogue synth, come to think of it. If you are looking for a 'transparent' sampler look elsewhere, but for wacked-out digital lunacy, this box rocks.

Built like a tank - although I wouldn't drop it on the disk drive, as this can make it all dented and stop working (if you are going to drop it, get a courier to drop it for you, as their insurance will cover repairs :).

What customer support?

This was my first 'proper' sampler (after the lamentable Akai S01), so it has a lot a sentimental value for me, and I do like the fact that if you're bored of sampling stuff, you can use it as a synth, or you can add synth parts to samples, or stack the same voice 4 times over the keyboard for monster lead lines. Or sample some beats, cut them up and wig out with the filter cutoff (assignable to the Mod Wheel, and recordable via MIDI, btw), or get some cold-as-ice string pads, and the way it seems to crop up in pretty much every track I record. It's a **** to use, but I think I'll be holding onto it for a while.

It's a sampler, 16 bit, 1Mo of memory. Good sound but poor editing interface. Good filter, got a synthesis engine you can mix with the samples :) The manual is quite strange, direct japanese translation ;-)

Polyphony : 8 No built in effect. Expansion : upgrade to 2Mo Full midi implementation / sample dump in sysex. Aftertouch enable. Very heavy gear (near 20 kilos !)

It's a sampler, make yer own sound !

Reliable, used several times on gigs, no problemo ;)

Bad support since Casio stopped the pro series of synths :(

Good sampler, good kbd.

The "Fuzzy One" arrived in a blaze of hype. It also was met with nay-saying from competitor Sequential that the FZ1 wasn't truly 16-bit (Casio had beaten Sequential's cost-cutting 16-bitter to market). Strange that Sequential is no more and Casio retreated from the "pro" market after this and the VZ1 synth.
Casio made a killing with a little, $100, 8?bit, toy?sampler called the SK1 in 1986. No wonder; it was easy, loads of laughs, and actually made decent samples!
When it was announced that Casio had the first moderately priced, extremely user?friendly, 16?bit pro tool up its sleave, the world was a tither.
But the FZ1 turned out to lack some fizzle. Make no mistake, its sampled sounds are clean, but it IS NOT easy to use (the manual, redundantly illustrated and cryptically written, makes a great gag gift).
Despite having a VZ1ish big display screen and the ability to zoom in on (and redraw) your waveforms, finding (hearing) the perfect loop was no easier than on the hexidecimal Ensoniq Mirage.
Fuzzy One was also designed as an open?architecture box, but the development system (soft and hardware) was only available in Japan, which crimped third?party development. Sad, as I knew one programmer who had planned to design games for the thing (shades of Nintendo).
It was also initially and erroneously announced that the FZ1 could house a PD Synth, ala the CZ 1. It never happened.

Keyboard (FZ1): 5 octave, velocity, aftertouch Module: (FZ10M): 2-space Poly: 8 voice Structure: Multitimbral, Split, Layer Oscilattors: 2 Connections: MIDI In/Out/Thru, Stereo Outs Memory: 1 meg (2 megs max). FZ10M came with 2 megs. Drive: 3 1/2"

If you?re a sampling fool, you might not need the manual and this might be a low?cost (though used) dream machine after all.
If you know nothing about sampling, this makes a great playback box.

Definietely road worthy.

Casio had a very friendly and knowledgeable support staff, but that didn't make finding a loop any easier. I also consider the user manual to be the first line of customer support (if well written, I don't have to call anyone). Much of the manual was taken up with screen shots which were quite unnecessary as I had the screen right in front of me.

I was disappointed when I opened the FZ1 and loaded and played the disks. The factory samples were few and the sound was hardly better than what I'd heard on 8 and 12 bit samplers.
Also, the FZ used the then-new HD disks which were then going for about $50 a box (now AOL gives them away)! Buying more samples, then, was prohibitive (though Casio did come out with respectable and useful library). Quite a kabosh on this being an affordable set of keys.
If I'd been able to get decent sample myself, I'd probably still be using the FZ today (as many fans still do). But I couldn't. The EPS I got next was as easy to use as the FZ was difficult.
I'm sorry Casio got out of the "pro" market (whatever that is) as I was a big fan of PD (the CZ1 was a breeze to program) and then the VZ synths.