Vintage Synth Explorer

Casio • SK-1

Well, people call it the poor man's sampler. It is the cheapest sampler in the world. Followed by the SK-5, the second cheapest in the world. It's a polyphonic synthesizer (just four voices) with very cheap sounds and it can store one sample in its memory. The sampling is 8-bit PCM, 9.38kHz, giving about 1.4 seconds. It's so gritty... Samples can only be recorded through the awful mini-mic built-in to the upper-right corner or a 3.5mm line-input plug on the backside of the synth. Alas, its memory clears when turned off.

Obviously it's designed as a cheap toy for consumers. This is the sort of sampler-toy you end up belching into with your friends and play burp-songs for a laugh! There are 11 built-in accompaniment-style drum patterns (disco, rock, samba, etc.) which are all embarrassingly fun and totally unusable. The keyboard uses mini plastic keys. It lacks MIDI, lacks effects, edit-ability, memory, and filtering. However there are 13 envelope shapes that can affect your sample or synth sounds somewhat. There is also portamento, vibrato, and chord accompaniment with the chord selector system.

If you gotta make some lo-fi cheese samples then you might want to try the SK-1, after all it is very cheap! Of course, as cheap as they come and with the built-in sampling, the SK-1 is a great candidate for circuit-bending! It is used by Fatboy Slim, Beck, Autechre, Portishead, Bloodhound Gang, Nine Inch Nails, Incubus and Blur.

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Fatal Orbit

Posted 71 days ago

I had one as a kid. I saw it in the Sears catalog and saved up for it. It seems cheesy now, but it was the best non-toy musical thing I had until then. I gave it away some years later when I went to university, to a cousin I think. I should see if it's still kicking around somewhere, I could use it now.

Decoder

Posted 74 days ago

Istill have mine. Its mint but alas the box went west years ago.
Great for chewing up samples and then re-recording back into the DAW. Unless I get a good offer for it, it isnt going anywhere!

Son of MooG

Posted 138 days ago

My entry into the world of sampling. I sold it years after i got my Mirage, but sometimes i wish it back...

Hagen

Posted 175 days ago

My best friend gave me his once we were in college and I found one in a pawn shop for $4.50. So much fun. I remember one time hitting sample and flicking the mic, then looping it. Played it on low F and recorded it out to a cassette recorded. Then I re-sampled it back in. Repeated this a couple of times and had a really awesome helicopter noise.

Alex Denning

Posted 270 days ago

the poor mans sampler? the SK-1 deserves every bit of praise it gets, this was the childhood fantasy of millions of people worldwide during the 80's and even today people are still enjoying the retro charm of this keyboard, you only have to type it in on youtube to realise that. kids would watch there favourite synth pop groups on TV and just want to make there own kind of noise, and this keyboard gave them a chance to do that. And yes it has its faults but who cares, its given millions of people world wide countless hours of fun and effectively laughed in the face of other more expensive synths of the time that the average joe like me could never afford! and thats why i love this keyboard and its predecessors, thank you casio :)

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