Why are Casio CZ synth prices so high?

[madtheory]

Yes it's the key to one of my favourite CZ basses. Round robin in Kontakt captures it perfectly

[Music Maven]

My CZ-101 showed up today. I forgot how fun and cool it is! It's actually a really great size and has a 4 octave keyboard (albeit with mini keys). For some reason I was thinking it was only 3 octaves.

Man, it sounds great. I originally thought it would be fun to add a little New Wave cheese to some of my tracks using the CZ. But it sounds fantastic and isn't limited to dinky little sounds. I almost prefer the FMish sounds on the CZ-101 to those on my TX7. The CZ sounds a bit more organic to my ears. It was totally worth $170.

[Adam C.]

I had a CZ-1 which I sold, (and immediately regretted doing so), about 10 years ago. I just bought a CZ-3000 off of e-Bay earlier today which should be here sometime next week, and I'm really excited about it. I've always had a soft-spot in my heart for the CZ line I guess, and I can't wait to start programming this one.

[skunk3]

I had a CZ-3000 for a while and it was pretty decent. I'd still much rather have something like a SY-77 though.

[Adam C.]

I had a CZ-3000 for a while and it was pretty decent. I'd still much rather have something like a SY-77 though.

Well nobody said that it had to be either or! (I mean...the more synths, the better...right?)

[Nistegmos]

I used to have a CZ-5000, a CZ-101, and a VZ-10M. I really did like them all. The VZ-10M was a rack unit but it had the best assignable routing and a more adventurous sound capability if done right and had more voices per program. The CZ-101 was cute but too small to get much done with, so I sold it to a guy who needed something compact. The CZ-5000 I really really liked, especially the step sequencer which was very easy to program into very unusually arpeggios and rhythms. Also the 8-point envelopes is something that forever spoiled me. Ever since then, whenever I see an ADSR I'm like, "just an ADSR??!??!" I'm kinda surprised they are still working. It's been such a long time since they were made. That ring modulation was great though. And I like how they doubled up the waveforms. I wish more synths had that.

[Pro5]

You can find bargains on the larger CZs while the 101 like many small synths (DX100) can go for 'crazy' prices due to nostalgia and/or cuteness.

My CZ-1 cost just over £50 a year or so ago (since sold). Cool sounding synth really, if you dig in. CZ-1 is becoming slightly more revered now (in places like gearslutz moreso than here), and that is driving up the prices a little, but they are still one of the cheapest series of synths you can buy. The aftertouch on the CZ-1 is also nicely implemented (not just on/off as some feel)

Having said this, you could often also find a DX7 (pref a mk2) for not much more/the same now and they are way better built and feel more pro (obviously). Not that they have the same sound, and the CZs are slightly more easy to coax sounds out of.

[Jaytee]

I think they're still bargains for what they can do.

They get a lot of flak for a limited architecture, and while they don't have a virtual mod matrix or anything like that, I think there's more depth to them than people realize. You just have to approach them on their own terms instead of treating them like a vanilla subtractive synth. The possibilities you get from six independent, eight-stage envelopes are pretty huge.

A few limitations never hurt anyone, especially when you've got special tricks up your sleeve.

[StepLogik]

I just sold my exc cond, working CZ-1 (non-ebay sale) for $150 which seems quite reasonable.


Yeah, I probably could have gotten a couple grand for it on eBay but why contribute to silly synth price inflation?