These
are just a few random details of the keyboards and other
electronic musical toys I've accumulated over the years, which
should hopefully prove useful to others who enjoy the sounds
produced by these old electronic instruments.
I'm mainly interested in the 1980s and early 1990s keyboards;
these old keyboards all had their own unique sounds. Instruments
made from around the mid 1990s onwards tended to employ very
similar synthesis techniques to one another, making them all sound
almost identical, particularly when sample-based synthesis became
common.
Casio and Yamaha have
consistently led the market for these small, home keyboards, and
this remains the case today.
I would also like to point out that I can't really play keyboards! I can play simple tunes in conjunction with the keyboard's auto-accompaniment, but that's my limit. I would love to be able to play properly, but I think I'm too old for that now, sadly.
If you have any comments, corrections or suggestions, please don't
hesitate to drop me a line.
Casio
ROM Packs, Yamaha Playcards and Other Keyboard Media
I am
particularly interested in the Casio ROM
Pack and Yamaha Playcard
systems. These were roughly contemporary, presumably competing,
systems for storing pre-recorded music information, for playback
on home keyboards. Both systems also have 'training' modes which
teach you how to play the music stored on the media, and both work
in very similar ways, generally using small LEDs above each key to
show you which key to play next.
The earliest Casio ROM Packs I have seen are dated 1983, while the
earliest Yamaha Playcards are dated 1982. This suggests that
Yamaha were first to market with their system, but I am not sure
about this - please let me know if
you know who was first and can prove it!
VTech (or
Video Technology) are now chiefly known for making educational
electronic toys, but did once make a range of home keyboards - the
"Rhythmic" series. In the United Kingdom, these were sold in
Dixons shops, and were rebadged as Saisho - an own-brand of the
Dixons chain.
Thanks to
Johanes Emmanuelli for enlightening me as to the true heritage of
these keyboards!
Bontempi Keyboards
During the
1970s, before the electronic home keyboard revolution of the early
1980s, Bontempi were synonymous with cheap, plastic reed organs,
driven by electric fans. When the likes of Casio and Yamaha began
selling competitively-priced electronic keyboards, Bontempi also
had to diversify and started offering their own range of
electronic keyboards, though they did continue to make reed organs
in parallel well into the 1980s. The company still makes a range
of very cheap musical toys, including some toy keyboards, but some
of their 1980s and 1990s keyboards were actually quite good,
albeit cheaply made. While doing research for this page, I was
surprised to discover that Bontempi also own the Farfisa brand
(historically a relatively highly-regarded professional instrument
brand) under which they now sell their "serious" non-toy
instruments.
Bontempi
BT
705
Other
Keyboards
Medeli
MC-36
Amstrad
Fidelity CKX-100
Cheap
Toy Keyboards
Cyber
Piano 2 (aka Cyber Keyboard)
Boots
Light Up Keyboard
Unbranded
Toy
Keyboard purchased from WHSmith
User Manuals
User Manuals
for most Yamaha keyboards are available from the Yamaha Manual
Library.
Manuals for the Casio SK series of Sampling keyboards can be found
at the Casio SK Series
Keyboards site.
Here are some Casio manuals that I have not been able to find
elsewhere:
(Note that Casio manuals are usually bi-lingual,
containing English and Spanish sections. Only the English parts of
the manuals are included in the above PDF files, which explains
the "missing" page numbers.)