Recording Sessions : Bird Lady

New song for the upcoming "The Crack-Up" album.

Lead vocals by Miss Roxanne.
Instruments : Moog Little Phatty, Prophet 08, Korg Volca Bass, Beats and Keys, DSI Tempest, Casiotone 101, Microkorg.

Casiotone MT11 Review

A refresher course on the almighty Casiotone MT11.

The Casiotone MT-11 is a preset keyboard from you know who. It sports 32 totally non-sensitive mini-keys, something like 2 octaves and a half, starting on F because C would make far too much sense.

As you can see, the MT-11 features four sections.

The first is labelled “Power” and contains a single switch that must trigger something inside the keyboard because when you switch it on, a red diode lights up and strange eighties sounds begin to pour out the tiny speaker on the right.

The second section, “Tone”, allows you to access to no less than eight presets, which happen to be really good. Admittedly, the harp and pipe organ aren’t very realistic, the organ evokes a lilliputian version of a Moog lead, and there’s little chance the piano would fool anyone but a deaf squirrel with a bad drug habit. But given you pay attention to the third “Effect” section, and switch both vibrato and sustain on, the accordion, violin and clarinet will provide a nice, warm, analog-ish tone.

The last section is called “Volume”, and really speaks for itself.

The MT-11 works on a DC7,5V adaptor, or five 1,5V batteries. There’s some sort of line output in the back.

I bought it 1€ (or was it 2€, I can’t remember) at a garage sale.

Live in the Studio : "The Crack-Up"

Merry Xmas everyone.

Some friday afternoon fun.

Live in the studio with Miss Roxanne.

Song "The Crack-Up" from the upcoming 2014 album of the same name.

Casiotone MT11, ukulele and Volca Beats (passing through a little Bose amp).

Aperture Science Groove Generator II

Short improvisation on Korg Volcas, MS20 Mini and Casiotone.

CasioStone

Experimenting these days with various instrumental ditties for a video project.
Here, passing the Casiotone through the Small Stone phaser.
Old school.

"Hollow Lands" Sessions

New song, possibly for the "Hollow Lands" album, the final mix of which I'm doing this weekend.

Some Casiotone 101 action in there!



John Fisher and the 1000 Ghost Monkeys from Karim More on Vimeo.

"Johnny’s got a ghost
Johnny’s got a monkey
Working for the man
Working for Johnny
He’s working in the factory where Johnny won’t work
And he’s hurting in the places where Johnny won’t hurt
And he’s mourning for the things that Johnny’s forgotten
Day after day
One thousand ghosts
Hide in my soul

Johnny’s got a ghost
Johnny’s got a monkey
He’s breathing copper, lead and antimony
Bismuth, selenide, lead and antimony
He’s working for the man
He’s working for Johnny
In Tacoma hope to begin to be
Bismuth, selenide, lead and antimony
He’s singing all the songs that Johnny can’t sing
And he’s speaking all the lies that Johnny can’t speak
And he’s breathing in the air that Johnny won’t breathe
And he’s fighting in the wars that Johnny won’t fight
And he’s dying in the places where Johnny won’t die
And he’s crying for the loss that Johnny can’t face
One thousand ghosts
Hide in my soul"

Casiotone 101

Polyphonic analog preset synthesizer.
Casiotone with wood panels. Does it get any cooler than this?

Lo-Fi Rehearsal

The all-powerful Casiotone MT-11.

Casiotone from the Dead

To educate future generations about what it was like to live in the eighties, I dug even deeper in my dusty, dusty tapes and found a couple of funny Casiotone CT-360 improvisations (not my pic, by the way, I don't have the Casiotone I used at my place)...

Hard to date without carbon 14, but I'd say sometime around 1987, yours truly being 10 year old.

To the Casiomobile!

Casiotone away!!

Riversongs EP... final track

And here's the complete zip

1 - City Island Walk
2 - Pigs and Rabbits, Suricates and Dolphins
3 - Green Tea Chocolate
4 - Nani wo kangae desu ka?
5 - Second Chance (Full Circle)
6 - The Snow Bride Song

It's a summer tinged work, 6 instrumental tracks with various moods, from lush ballads to little pop pieces, all wrapped in 1975 vintage attire.

Casio au Naturel

When folks out there use cheap Casio, Yamaha or Bontempi toy keyboards, they usually drive them into bad distorsion to hide the supposed low quality of the sounds, or worse, circuit-bend them...

Me I proudly record them in their natural, lo-fi glory.

Drums are Roland SH-32 through Small Clone analogue chorus through Moog filter.

All the other parts are Casiotone MT-11, with a little bit of reverb.

Casio au Naturel

Casiotone MT-11

(as always, click on the pics for hi-res pics)

You know what ? Enough with the hi-tech stuff… let’s go back to something basic, primitive, oh so primitive…

The Casiotone MT-11 is a preset keyboard from you know who. It sports 32 totally non-sensitive mini-keys, something like 2 octaves and a half, starting rather oddly on F

As you can see, the MT-11 features four sections.

The first is labelled “Power” and contains a single switch that must trigger something inside the keyboard because when you switch it on, a red diode lights up and strange eighties sounds begin to pour out the tiny speaker on the right.

The second section, “Tone”, allows you to access to no less than eight presets, which happen to be really good. Admittedly, the harp and pipe organ aren’t very realistic, the organ evokes a lilliputian version of a Moog lead, and there’s little chance the piano would fool anyone but a deaf squirrel with a bad drug habit. But given you pay attention to the third “Effect” section, and switch both vibrato and sustain on, the accordion, violin and clarinet will provide a nice, warm, analog-ish tone.

The last section is called “Volume”, and really speaks for itself.
The MT-11 works on a DC7,5V adaptor, or five 1,5V batteries. There’s some sort of line output in the back.
I bought it 1€ (or was it 2€, I can’t remember) last spring in a garage sale, and used it on a couple of songs along with the usual armada.



For educational purpose, here’s a demo I did today on this flamboyant and japanese machine.
Moog bass (your musically astute ear won’t fail to identify it) and heavily compressed Böhm drums, all the rest is Casiotone MT-11 in all its lo-fi glory.

Casio Tune