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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Posting Rules: Please keep your comments relevant! Do not post requests for help, do not use for sales, do not post unless you have something interesting to say about this instrument, or we may delete your post.

 

c g gross

Posted 350 days ago

Fungatoo: You're right! This is one of the devices of choice in the circuit-bending community (along with the Speak-And-Spell). I think one of the first people to mod an SK-1 was Don Slepian back in the '80s; he added an arpeggiator if I recall correctly. It can also be modified as a MIDI keyboard. I decided to leave mine alone, because I figured I'd probably break it...

BTW, the SK-1 also has an additive synthesis mode that allows you to start with a base tone and add harmonics...

Andrew Beddoes

Posted 375 days ago

The Casio SK-5 or Concertmate 800 is the real deal- 4 samples, envelope shaping, sequencing, drums, pads, and a memory!

Mike

Posted 402 days ago

The memory of the sampler not only clears when turned off, but clears after 7 minutes of non-use, after which time the unit auto-powers down - even when you are using external power!

Fungatoo

Posted 445 days ago

This keyboard is one of the most popular for modifying in the circuit bending community. While these were once very easy to find, they are becoming more and more "collectible" and pricey for this purpose.There are plenty of available resources online for doing it yourself however.

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