Casio • VZ-1 / VZ-10M
The VZ-1 is a full-sized, 5-octave, velocity & pressure sensitive keyboard utilizing the IPD tone generation (a type of Phase Distortion synthesis) and offers 16 note polyphony. It's a digital synth capable of some great strings and "polite 80's sounds". You could use up to four sounds for splits, layers, velocity, cross-fades, etc. It has a large, blue, back-lit LCD display for editing patches. Editing is in-depth and quite a different approach than other synths before it. Its sounds are akin to the Casio CZ-series and sort of Yamaha DX-like. It's not particularly cool, but it looked impressive in its day with the blue back-lit graphical display.
The Casio VZ-10M is a rack mount version of the VZ-1.
I don't think anyone mentioned the Graphic Display mode, which allows you to view the envelope shape for example. You can even zoom in and out! (How many 80's era synths do you know of that have a graphic display for the envelope - which is 8 stage BTW)
Again, there's a dedicated button for this function, which along with the other 16 dedicated editing buttons (see previous post) actually make tweaking this synth a lot easier than other postings would have you believe.
Yes, the sound is "digital bright", but it combines well with other synths.
Ya gotta use the "Combination Mode" to get this baby singing, (See previous post). Sure, it reduces the polyphony to 8, but you get one awesome stereo synth!
RE. programming (VZ-10M) - if you look at the right side of the panel, you'll see 2 rows of buttons. These are DEDICATED buttons to turn each of the 8 modules (osc.) on/off...and to select a module 1-8 to edit.
This means that when you programme this beast - for example working with the envelope parameters - you can conveniently mute/unmute any module you don't want to hear, and quickly switch from module to module to edit their respective envelopes WITHOUT leaving the Envelope Menu page.
In addition to XLR out, there's 2 independent outputs. Using the "Combination" mode, you can asign one patch to output 1 and another to output 2. You can detune, transpose, even delay either patch to create a KILLER stereo synth. (Esp. if the 2 patches are similar!).
It's certainly not another dull ROMpler that's for sure! IMHO this baby's a must for every synthesis enthusiast.
Also has multitibral capabilities, useful for layering sounds...sounds very similar to a Yamaha FM synth, can't do everything a DX7 can, but it has lots of capabilities that Yamaha's synth only dreamed of!...for example 8-stage envelopes, 8 oscillators per voice, 8 waveforms for the oscillators including sine, saw, noise and more...
I also have a Yamaha TX7 and they compliment each other realy well...the TX7 has a nice 12bit DAC and sounds more warm and gritty, whereas the VZ10M has a more clean and hi-fi16bit DAC...