Casiotone MT-30: Recommended For Ages Six To 106
When I was growing up, I thought that Casio made some pretty sweet toy keyboards and pretty sweet watches, and that hasn't changed much. Greg Curvey from the Luck of Eden Hall must agree -- he shows us his Casiotone MT-30, and even if it's just a toy, it's a toy that packs some odd sounds that might just lead to some inspiration.
He gives us a kind of psychedelic demo reminiscent of the Doors or some other organ heavy psych rock band from back in the dat, only with much smaller fingers.
[GREG CURVEY PLAYING A CASIOTONE MT-30]
GREG CURVEY: The Casiotone MT-30. This is around the same time as the VL-Tone that we've talked about 1980, 1981. I don't really remember when I bought it but that was around the time when I did. It's a toy but it has a 1/4" output jack which means you can play it through an amplifier, so bands like Human League, Scarlet Architect use them. I'm sure other bands did too. Those are the only two that I know who definitely use them.
It has this little smaller scale than a typical keyboard or piano so you really have to be more aware when you're playing because it's pretty tight and clamped but it's great. You can get some great sounds out of it.
[GREG CURVEY PLAYING A CASIOTONE MT-30]
Let's see. We have sustain. You can turn sustain off.
[GREG CURVEY PLAYING A CASIOTONE MT-30]
Vibrato is on right now. [GREG CURVEY PLAYS A NOTE] You can turn that up.
[GREG CURVEY PLAYING A CASIOTONE MT-30 WITH VIBRATO OFF]
There's a choice of sounds. You can program in four different sounds. It gives you four different sounds. Each one of the keys is a different sound so you have 22 different sounds that you can put in there. Hit set, get your sound [GREG CURVEY PLAYS A NOTE], put it back on play, and you got it.
[GREG CURVEY PLAYING A CASIOTONE MT-30 USING A DIFFERENT TIMBRE]
Do you hear that buzz? It's pretty -- it has a pretty loud hum through the amplifier. Once again, it is a toy. I'll say another good thing about this is that it has fallen down a flight of slate stairs, and it still works. I think one of these knobs came off but they go right back on so voila!
You never know. You know, it's nice to have a lot of keyboards in the basement so just in case you want to try something different or become inspired by some silly little sound then you have that choice. That's how I feel about it.
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