Casio PT-30 Electronic Musical Instrument Keyboard, 1982-1983, made in Japan

Link: weltenschule | soundprogramming | muzines |




This keyboard has many similarities with the Casio VL-Tone 1 and PT-1, but unfortunately it is missing the great built-in synthesizer and 3 octave switch of the VL-Tone. Interesting is the single finger chord concept of this instrument, which makes chords selectable by name instead of pressing multiple keys.

The instrument has only a monophonic main voice with 4 channel chords, but it features 18 nice rhythms made from analogue percussion with quite special sounding white noise cymbals. There is also an editable sequencer. A dark grey version of this instrument was released as Casio PT-31.

Main features:

- 31 mini keys
- 12 key buttons + 9 select buttons for direct selectable single finger chords
- built-in speaker with unpleasant, loud mid-range resonance
- monophonic main voice
- 4 note polyphonic chords
- 8 OBS preset sounds {piano, harpsichord, organ, violin, flute, horn, fantasy, mellow}.
- 18 preset rhythms {waltz, ballad, swing, enka, 16 beat, rock 1..3, disco 1..2, bossa- nova, samba, arp. 1..6} made of analogue percussion + bass & piano accompaniment (partly with arpeggio).
- tempo +/- buttons (19 steps, counts -9..9)
- 3 sliders for main, chord & rhythm volume
- sequencer (with edit features, 8 song memories, battery backed-up)
- 2 "one key play" buttons (to play or edit sequencer contents note by note)
- transpose buttons (-9..+3 semitone steps)
- LCD display shows pressed keys and chords (only important for the sequencer)
semi- analogue monophonic sound generator similar like VL-1; the digital envelopes (with audible zipper noise) are linear and thus sounds unrealistic because they fade silent too soon.
simple analogue percussion with transistor noise (low tom, high tom, snare, open & closed hihat,??}
chord sound with fixed timbre (3..4 channel squarewave organ + monophonic bass organ voice)
- multi-chip harware:
* CPU= "NEC D1868G 001, 8319EK" (80 pins SMD)
* SRAM= "HD B, 61914, 3F, 33" (44 pins SMD)
- expansion cartridge slot at the bottom (for cassette saving module)
- tuning trimmer
- sound output & power supply jack
- Dimensions: 415 mm x 143 mm x 40 mm
- Weight: 1.0 kg including batteries
- This keyboard has built-in 0.8-watt mono speaker(s).
- Batteries: AA x 5