Vintage Casiotones w/ MIDI

[StepLogik]

Does anyone know if any of the early model Casio keyboards had MIDI? The earliest I can seem to find is the CT-6000. It seems like once Casio starting introducing MIDI on their consumer keyboards, they were out of the "cool" phase and into the more modern (that is, realistic sounding), less interesting models. I'm not as concerned with the HT/CZ series - I'm more interested in the vintage MT/CT series.

Of the candidate models, do any of them allow the auto-rhythms to sync to midi clock?

[meatballfulton]

MT-240...not sure if that preceded the CT6000.

[devetron]

Check out the MT-540.
http://weltenschule.de/TableHooters/Casio_MT-540.html
Not sure if the beats sync to midi or not, but I would imagine they do. If I remember, my friend's HT-700 did that.

Oh, Google just made me aware of the MT-640 and MT-750. Both have midi, but seem pretty rare.
The 640 had OCTAGONAL drum pads on it, not hexagonal which seemed to be the standard at the time. Looks pretty wild. Here's a bent one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ecv6zPGCHcI

[StepLogik]

damn i must be epic fail at google because i didn't find anything

that MT-640 looks like a beast

i can feel the prices on these models going up on ebay already.

[StepLogik]

The amount of reverse engineering this guy has done on his "tablehooters" site is astonishing:

http://weltenschule.de/TableHooters/

[mung]

I have a Casiotone 7000, and while I don't have a midi-set up with it, I do run it through my Boss GT-8 to produce some interesting drones as well as leads and organ effects. A video:

[youtube]2Gj9dLd7U5M[/youtube]

By the way, this is my first post here! :occasion5:

[RobotHeroes]

I saw this midi kit the other week. Looks like the kit costs more than the actually casio.

http://highlyliquid.com/kits/vl-1-midi/

[hfinn]

I had a MT-540 and it definitely had midi. I remember using it to control a rack synth of some kind. I also know that Sonic Boom (Spectrum, Spacemen 3) used a MT-540 as well because I recognize some of the sound effects on a few his tracks. They are pretty unmistakable. The piano sound wasn't half bad for what it was. Strings were pretty good through effects. If I remember correctly Carbon111 had one as well.

[StepLogik]

Casio MT-600 (link to Sealed's Deep Synthesis Page): http://homepage.mac.com/synth_seal/html/mt600.html



Very nice sounding.

[desdinova]

I had a CT-6000, wish I never sold it. The action was good, transposition slider did affect MIDI out, adjustable pitch bend and some of the sounds were alright.

[StepLogik]

Check out the MT-540.
If I remember, my friend's HT-700 did that.

Yup, it has midi clock sync.

I picked up a mint HT-700 for $50 yesterday. Interesting little keyboard, sounds great through decent monitors.