The Casio VZ-1 was released in 1988 after the successful CZ line and became Casio's flagship synthesizer, replacing the CZ-1 at the top end as an ansewr to the DX-7 from Yamaha. The VZ-1 takes a hybrid approach to its sound generation. Where the CZ line used Phase Distortion Synthesis and the Yamaha DX line used Phase Modulation (incorrectly advertised as FM), the VZ-1 uses Phase Distortion for ring modulation and waveform generation but true Frequency Modulation Synthesis to generate harmonics. It is very complicated to program. The results are quite metallic sounds, very nice for bells and for PPG wave similar tones, just without that nice resonance filter from the PPG. It has basically 8 operators and you can layer 8 saw waves and get wide stereo spread sounds. It definitaly has its own character and sounds different to the DX line and less warm then the CZ line. But it is much more versatile than the CZ synths. In this video I did not use any FX just to demonstrte the raw tone of the Caiso. When using a bit reverb or delay, it really shines and the synth can sound also quite modern and useful in present productions. It is a very underrated synth which you can find for less than 200 bucks.

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