CASIO MT-205

[Timodon]

schweeet! do you have a hard time finding cassettes? i was looking for some last summer and walmart didn't even have any!

Actually the endless cassettes were being chucked out from the studio where, at the time, two of us worked. AFAIK they're pretty rare now - lucky we've got four! we plan to put different drones/ noises on each cassette to give us more flexibility.

I would'nt have thought it would be too hard to find some 90/ 120 min cassettes on ebay or somewhere though and just use them instead - bit boring taking the time to stripe the whole cassette with drone tones but still pretty easy! One of the cool things about it is manual mechanical pitch control via the tape speed... and the 4track we're using even has a double/ half speed switch which  alters the pitch by a whole octave...

[jamiewoody]

hmmm...if you want one continuous drone tone, have you considered talking the cassette apart and looping the tape inside?

a bit tedious, but it might deem worth it.

[Timodon]

Not a bad idea...

[Gordonjcp]

I used to do this with 1/4" tape, back when I was a spotty schoolie and couldn't afford a sampler ;-)

It's much easier on 1/4" 7.5"/s tape because the tape is less fiddly and the individual beats are much longer - at 120bpm one bar of 4/4 is 15", so one beat is 3.25" - and you can cut very very accurate loops.

[jamiewoody]

true, 1/4" tape is easier.


also, remember, when you cut and splice the tape, cut the tape at an even angle, 45º. that will make for smooth sound transition at the end of the loop.

if you aren't hell bent on tape (i understand if you are), maybe one of those small digital recorders used for dictation might could be bent? they sell them in the electronics department of walmart for around $40 i think.

[Timodon]

Just messing around trying to see if I can post these pics apols if they're too big or not there or whatever:-





They are of the bends that I've put in on my MT-205 hope they are of use if someone out there finds another one of these little beauties.

(EDIT) ok so it looks like it's worked eventually... here are the bends:-

Top right switch is a two-way toggle, one way turns off the release envelope and the other way does the same but with a reverb effect thrown in for good measure. Both also have the added effect of pitching up whatever note you played by one semitone, worth remembering if you're playing with a band!

Top left switch is another two way toggle, this one turns on the repeating note patterns, two different speeds are available. Some interesting and unpredictable effects are possible with these.

Both of those switches also glitch the drum patterns in a pleasing way, used in conjunction with the sliders there are hundreds of pattern combinations available all of which can be switched mid phrase for even more variation.

The red wires lead to a switch, a 470ohm pot and a 1k skeleton trimmer at bottom left. The switch engages the distortion/ oscillating feedback effect, the pot adds distortion and tunes the feedback tone and the trimmer is for tuning the start point of the feedback.

There are two switches above that pot, the blue one is a straight on/off lead distortion. This distortion is nice and brightens all of the sounds up but it's a massive jump in level so I'm not sure how I'm going to use it live...

The Red switch is a little more subtle it seems to remove the lo-pass filter. Still opens up more tonal variation. Doesn't work on all the patches though.

The log pot and trimmer that you see by the output jack may not be staying... I was getting some odd effects playing the keyboard into a practice amp at one point that I thought were to do with the level being too hot out of the speaker output but I now think it's more likely that what I was hearing was something to do with low batteries.

[jamiewoody]

i'll study these and see try them out. i have to get more components though. i am out of switches and a bunch of things!

[Timodon]

Hey Jamie I think you covered the top switch stuff with your patchbay tbh.

Can't recommend the oscillating feedback mod enough though!

soz about the poor quality of pics btw hope you can see what's going on...

[jamiewoody]

which one was oscillating feedback? is that the red wires and the potentiometer? also, which value pot did you use?

[Timodon]

Yep, red wires, if you've got a switch to combine it with use a 470ohm pot and a trimmer, otherwise a 1k will do the job but will give you less useful range.

[Timodon]

Golly!

It's the gift that keeps giving! 

just hooning around this evening with my MT-205 I've discovered some new sounds accessible using the bends that I've already installed... if you turn the keyboard off, flick one or more of the top red switches, turn the keyboard on and then reset the switches you'll find that you now have a sound not quite like any of the presets...

there are eight possible combinations of these switches (I wouldn't be surprised if there were more available from bends that I haven't installed yet) and of these eight switch settings seven of them gave me useable sounds that play from the keyboard. The other one gives you a big fat drone from the first key pressed that sustains forever and crashes the keyboard so that it won't play anything else or turn off till you take the battery out... this was still kind of useable as it is still affected by the feedback and lead distortion mods!

The sounds don't sound like "Hidden presets" so much as individual constituent parts of the existing presets with different effects/ amp envelopes. For instance one of them is clearly the upper harmonic part of the jazz organ preset, and one (my fave) is clearly the vibraphone sound without the chorus - it's just a fat sounding bass synth sound, score!

this little baby's coming to practice with me tomorrow!

[Timodon]

 

So you know I said I'd found seven more useable sounds?

They were only the ones that applied to the default preset "Piano"

If you combine switches, turn the keyboard on, select one of the other presets and then turn the switches off you get even more. A few are doubled up and some sound lame but I reckon there's at least 30 more sounds in there if not more.

[jamiewoody]

it seems most of the usable sounds are in the piano voice, well as far as bent sounds go. same goes for the sk1, though there are some good bent tones in the human voice mode of that.

tell me, does thes mt-205 pre-date the sk1?

[Timodon]

No idea about dates sadly... would be interesting to find out. Are the MT-205 sounds similar to the SK-1?

A bit more exploration has revealed that some of the doubled up sounds cover different ranges of the keyboard.

I disagree about all the useable ones being on the piano voice though - (i suppose it's kind of subjective)  I found several raw sounding synths (i.e not much oscillator layering or reverb/ chorus etc), a slightly squelchy synth sound with an ADSR that's different to any of the preset voices and a couple of sounds with quietly sustaining overtones that change every 4 or so key presses, very pleasant indeed. The problem for me is remembering the switch/ preset voice combination that unlocks each one! I might have to sit down and map them out one day...

[jamiewoody]

for some reason, on my sk1, some voices will crash the keyboard, leading to a reset, while others do so less.

the sk is a great kb though, even unbent! ! the "synth" sound in mono with no effects is a really good lead tone!

if there is a weakness in casio products (other than that "scrub switch", poor engineering!) would be the default settings, which is typical of digital anything. the vibratto is a default, it would seem a dry sound would be. but, i can work around that.

the envelopes i was able to  unlock in the mt-205 are standard features in the sk1. i guess this made me wonder if it predates the sk1, but who knows.

as far as remembering which switch goes to what...ditto! i did a patchbay on mine for most sounds, and about 4 switches for some effects.