Those Crazy Keyboards from the 80's

We did discuss Casio keyboards in depth in this thread
http://stereo2go.com/forums/threads/casio-kx-101.5855/

If you look down the thread to my second post, back in 1983 I bought the Casio MT65 which was the same as the MT68 but white.
Back then it cost me £150, but as soon as I heard it I knew that was the model I wanted.
It sounded as good as the £1000+ home organs the shop I bought it from also sold,

Here is a great little demo of one


Almost all Realistic gear had AKAs often from a a big brand like Casio or Sharp.

Some of the best 1980s keyboards were from JVC, although like their Boomboxes had top of the range prices.
Here is a demo of one complete with Christmas theme (despite being published on my Birthday!)


A couple more threads about music keyboards

http://stereo2go.com/forums/threads/its-big-bad-and-busted-the-fisher-sc-300k.2254/

http://www.stereo2go.com/forums/threads/do-you-have-any-synths.141


I just discovered what Revox tape recorders were made for


Finally how about this for an amazing track made in real time using three cheap Casios.

Admittedly the creator was using an effects unit but that was an iPad app.
The likes of Tangerine Dream would have needed £1000s worth of kit to make music like this in the 1970s.

 

Ahh, the humble keyboard! Many hours whittled away trying to work out the tune on a keyboard, though my skills are severely limited to one-finger playing on one hand! I've always wanted to make a song, one day, who knows?!

My first keyboard was a Casio with a ROM cartridge in the corner that had some built-in songs that taught you how to play them using some LED's on the keys. I learnt a few before it went wrong and refused to work about 6 months after I got it, so back to the shop and they swapped it for a Yamaha PSS-80, which is a good keyboard, but not like my Casio! Years later, I managed to find a boxed Casio at a boot sale for about £5 which works perfectly!

If you want a great keyboard player, I watch a few on YouTube: Dr Mix, KEBU, Red Means Recording and Andrew Huang, I especially like Mr Huang's Four Producers, One Sample, where he gets a random sample sent to him, he shares it with 3 producers to try and make a song from it.

 

It is unusual to see so many makes from the same store. Over here the cheap ones tended to be in places like Argos and the expensive ones in specialist Music Shops.

It seems the Lowrey's were actually rebranded JVCs.
https://jvckeyboards.tripod.com/lowrey.html

Hohner had a similar range of Casio rebrands.

It seems like many Japanese manufacturers had a go a Keyboards when they went dropped down from the price of a car to that of a Bicycle. Even Seiko had a go.

 

Sort of true. Grandma and Grandpa, who thought Elvis started the decline of music, would buy one with their gold plated pension.
They would be horrified at "Hipsters" like these getting hold of their precious instruments

More seriously this one was from 1979, and according to the presenter, the only "Portable" that Lowrey (I guess as opposed to JVC) made.
Comparing it to the JVC I posted above it is easy to see and hear why the Japanese keyboards took over.

p.s. By the end of the demo I was reasonably impressed by the auto-accompniment in this Lowry. However, just from the construction I expect it was expensive, and as she explains Lowrey's definition of portable was "it can be moved by one person".

 

That's the Casio PT-80 I had! Love this keyboard!

 

From what I can make out that advert is from 1970 back when calculators were only bought by big businesses and no one had heard of Casio. Remington were well known for typewriters. In fact Wikipedia says that they invented them. Had Casio stuck with just the calculator business they would have had a problem when calculators dropped down to about £5 each. I'm surprised the "Casio Computer Company" never really ventured into home computers to the same degree as Sharp, Commodore, and Sinclair. Given the competition it was probably a good thing that they didn't. Between them Casio and Yamaha seemed to have the majority of the home keyboard market.

In 1983 I paid £150 (over £500 in todays money) for my Casio MT65. That was actually from a large Organ shop and before the Casios started appearing in electrical retailers. A friend was so impressed he bought the CT405 with full size keys for about £250.

As you say they seem to have disappeared again except for specialist music shops, Argos and the occasional one model special offer in Lidl. Like a lot of new products I think the novelty wore off. I once picked up a high end Casio (full size touch sensitive keys) with a battery compartment full of leaking batteries for a couple of £s at the tip.

I found the Tablehooters site years before, I joined here and had some correspondence with the guy who runs it. Probably the best resource for details on old obscure home keyboards.

 

I stand corrected, mine was a Casio PT-82 that has the 'rating' system, whereby the keyboard rates how well you've done when using the teacher mode by a visual led score. I need to see if the one I bought at a boot sale is the PT-80 or the PT-82 now!

 

Just found a couple of photos I forgot I had, shows both of the keyboards I have at the moment, and a close-up of the ROM cartridge on the Casio, seems I found a replacement PT-82 all along! The other is a Yamaha PSS-80 Portasound, which was the replacement one I got when my original PT-82 went wrong

 

From what I remember, when it's teaching you how to play the songs on the ROM pack, once you've finished you press the 'RATING' button and it lights up the LED's up to a certain point, like a score out of 10 kind of thing, dependant on how well the keyboard thinks you did, how well you followed the prompts and whether you pressed the right key or not. So I guess the worse you do, the lower the score and vice versa. My scores were always pretty low, as I suck at playing the keyboard!