This seemingly worthless synth/calculator hybrid weighing in at under a pound has somehow found fame and fortune despite looking like a kid's toy. Its ultra cheesy sounds have been discovered and immortalized in the hit songs of such artists as Trio for "Da Da Da" and White Town. The Casio VL-1 or VL-Tone as it's also called has 29 little calculator-type button keys, five preset and one user memory patches, built-in rhythm machine (waltz, swing, rock, samba, etc.) and a 100-note sequencer. There is no chance at any external or MIDI control and there are no filters or effects. There is an LFO with vibrato and tremolo effects and an ADSR envelope.

The tinny monophonic blips and beeps that come out of the VL-1 provide a childishly funny accent to your music, if you're into that sort of thing. The VL-1 is analog, it's tiny, it has a built-in speaker and a useless built-in calculator. The synth itself is quite small, light-weight and portable when running on batteries. The keys are unreliable and cheap soft buttons with absolutely no natural feel, response, aftertouch or velocity. The VL-1 was succeeded by the VL-10 (same spec, smaller case) and VL-5 (4-note polyphonic version with a useless bar-code reader). Strangely, the simple cheesy sounds of the VL-Tone have been used by Apollo 440, Devo, the Talking Heads, the Cars, Dee-Lite, Sting, Stevie Wonder, Vince Clarke, Beastie Boys, The Human League, Trio, White Town, and Bill Nelson.

kingPinao

October 6, 2012 @ 12:05 am

This thing is a beast! I cannot believe it was given a 1 star rating....you can compose music on the go, play them back with 1 key any speed or autoplay your recording, it has a full ADSR capable of 1,073,000,000 combinations of synth sound, and you can transpose and read out the notes you record. I got mine for only $23 and I take it EVERYWHERE and even use it's charming sounds on some of my tracks! I LOVE IT!

Walter Ego

August 16, 2012 @ 6:28 pm

One of the best demonstration vids I've found is posted over at Synthtopia. Especially check out the second half of the video, which demonstrates that this thing is *more* like the Yamaha CS-01 than its Casio cousins. Just some basic effects makes this thing shimmer and move.

http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2011/10/29/casio-vl-1-keyboard/

Walter Ego

August 16, 2012 @ 6:28 pm

VSE shouldn't be so down on this "toy". There's some real vintage magic in that tiny box. There aren't many home KBs with a programmable synth voice, certainly not other Casios. Look past the downer review and listen to other fans.

I'm about to snag my own. You can still get them in mint condition for well under $100 on eBay. Small; secret weapon. You can hear these being used on more experimental electro pop records, like those of Travelogue. Icons of electro pop use them to this day.

oliver

August 2, 2012 @ 10:32 am

I have a MINT Casio VL-1, original packaging, instructions, even the Styrofoam box is MINT. The unit itself has no scratches at all, not even a swirl mark on the LCD. This thing sounds great. The battery was out of the unit for 30 years. I am the original owner. How much should I sell this thing for?

Hicheras

June 24, 2012 @ 1:16 pm

Used by Trio in the famous song "Da da da" ! No fake :D

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