It’s been more than fifteen months since I finished posting a self produced sound everyday for three hundred and sixty five consecutive days. This all happened in the One Sound Every Day category. As a result I produced my solo debut under my Ostraka moniker titled, Precambrian Resonance.
In the spirit of One Sound Every Day, I am starting a new project called One Synthesizer Sound Every Day. My plan is to use hardware synthesizers from my collection (and eventually soft-synths) to produce a sound, musical phrase, or microtrack to share here on ACB every day for a year. As well as my own sounds, I’ll be accepting select sounds from other artists and ACB readers to share on the site in the daily article.
My long term goal is produce a synthesizer album where I focus on inventing new sounds and allowing these textures to inspire the compositions. I’ve already got a good start on this by writing nine or so tracks in the few days since I conceived of the project (some of these tracks can be heard in the mix I shared here). I’m looking forward to sharing more of these sonic textures here as I discover them.
Let me start with a sub bass patch I made for my newly acquired Casio CZ-1000. I used to own a Casio CZ-101, which is virtually the same synth except that the CZ-1000 has a full sized keyboard compared to the mini-keys on the CZ-101. Years ago I misplaced my affectionately renamed Sleazy-101, probably in a move. Pining for the sound of this under-rated little instrument, I picked up a mint condition CZ-1000 on eBay recently for a steal. Here’s a bass line using my new patch.
Casio CZ-1000 Sub Bass
Excellent! The triumphant return of Sound a Day!
WHOAH! I did this and it caused a HUGE pop on my MacBook Pro that wouldn’t go away – I thought I blew my speakers. Turns out it’s some apple glitch, perhaps w/HTML5. If this happens to you, close the web page, plug in a pair of headphones, then unplug them and your sound will be back (altho it still won’t work on the web page). *whew*
Same thing here (OSX 10.5) : pop noise, no sound. Damn.
Interesting bit of history about this synth… it is perhaps the most popular synth in use for the last 20ish years among Roma “Gypsy” musicians from the Balkans, who do some amazing things with the pitch-bend wheel…
Oops! Did I blow peoples MacBook speakers? I had no intention of doing that. Please don’t sue me for damages. The frequencies are too low to be heard properly on computer speakers, which is also true of many other sounds on ACB. I recommend a bangin’ sound system. Now I’m going to blow the speakers on my MBP before my Apple Care runs out!
@Jeremy That is an interesting story. I finally had a chance to listen to the video in the studio. Amazing! Thanks for the link!
Ah, the wonderful CZ-1000! 12 (?) whole bits of phase-distortion goodness!! Not to mention those nice 8-stage envelopes. Definitely a versatile device (4-part multimbral over MIDI?) and an under-appreciated classic.
It’s possible to emulate some CZ patches using Reason/Thor’s phase distortion oscillators, using multiple ADSR envelopes when necessary.
I was not aware that it could do four part multitimbral over MIDI. This is something I will have to explore. Cheers!
Hey what are the settings for this synth sound? How do I program it?
Hi King. Good question… I would have to reprogram it to tell you since the memory on the CZ-1000 is only as long as the battery life. If I remember correctly, I started out with one of the vibes patches, so that should get you started. Sorry I can’t be more specific.
Thanks, If anyone has the settings for this synth it would be greatly appreciated. There was one on Youtube but has since been taken down….. was an incredible patch for the CZ1 analog bass, Roland/Juno sounding. Please let me know if anyone has it.