Most tech type muso’s who dig casio had as an introduction to the world of Casio the Casio cz101 synth.

This was the first of Casio’s professional line of music gear in the late 80’s, quite a breakthrough instrument, the CZ is an extremely powerful and highly programmable synth, built in response to Yamaha’s FM synthesis but compared to the DX7 very easy to program.

The CZ230s was the mutant youngest sibling of the range left to languish in music stores the world over …

Casio called their synthesis method of the CZ series ‘phase distortion’ - all the info you need is at Cosmo’s CASIO world. Again Casio invents a whole new way of making sound and few people give a damn. Though more did this time around because of the low cost and awesome bass sounds. The CZ101 also had the extra benefit of battery power and a strap… strap it on baby!

However, as occurred a few times in Casio history, Casio outsourced the job… it was in fact the Hohner company that invented Phase Distortion and developed these synthesisers, in Europe they were sold under the Hohner name and some of the Hohner badged products of the Casio pro-range were issued in very video clip cool white.

I could be wrong though as on another site I found this statement:

Phase Distortion were in development in the main conjunction with Iso Tomita and Uhiru Takahashi (the one from Yellow Magic Orchestra) The two famous electronic musicians. They both generated a system utilising
a method now called PD synthesis, the fundamental principle utilised by all Casio Synth’s Casio continued to work with both artist’s programming of the sounds their instruments. This was all back in 1983.

So maybe Hohner just worked on the interface and overall design, and the digital stuff developed in Japan - makes sense with the Germans being hardware experts and the Japanese software experts.

The CZ230s is a CZ synth designed for the home market. I desire one badly because the CasioNova parameters are primarily Casio HOME instruments - and I feel a tad guilty using my CZ101. (luckily one just came up on ebay and I’m bidding outrageously for it - PLEASE let me have it!). The 230s, because it was a home keyboard, has an auto accompaniement section, which I desperately need.

I have a suspicion the auto section may be like the HT series, though some have mentioned it has the drum sounds of the Casio RZ … I will fill in the blanks if I win this one on ebay. Damn, just read Table Hooters extensive write up about it - its just the drums - no bass and chords. Oh well. By his description I am definitely not convinced it is an RZ1 drum machine in it as he states, but it is programmable, sweet my first programmable casio kit - a feature Yamaha regularly used on their keyboard of the era, another example of why Yamaha home keyboards weren’t as innovative and quirky as casio but had features that made them more viable as performance instruments.

Table Hooters also makes the wise statement about getting a CZ101 instead of the CZ230s, I concur but if you already have a 230s then you are still in possesion of damn fine keyboard.

The 230s, though largely a preset synth does have some memory slots so it is possible to download off a computer your own sounds that you made on another CZ or got on the net. This makes me feel less guilty about using the CZ - if I only use a few custom sounds.

Like the CZ101 the 230s has midi in and out, is battery powered and STRAPS ON!