Classic Casio RZ-1 in excellent condition with upgraded modern firmware version 2.0 (R-Massive), new OLED display, New battery, removed high voltage transformer that powered the original backlight, completely cleaned, all buttons refurbished. This upgrade DOES NOT change the original 8-bit sound of the unit. This unit is 100% functional and sounds great. All functions tested and working.

Classic drum machine with 8 INDIVIDUAL OUTPUTS, for the drum sounds or just use the phone out for all sounds together. This classic sampling drum machine was used by many artists in the 80s to record what are now classic albums. With the individual outputs, each sound (or set of sounds) can be routed through individual effects to give the machine a very unique and personal sound set. This drum machine is EASY to use and program and it makes a perfect machine for BPM driven music.

The R-Massive firmware 2.0 includes the following changes:

ON-THE-FLY PATTERN SWITCHING DURING PLAYBACK

In pattern play mode, any other pattern can be selected during playback and it will be queued for play directly after the current pattern. If an unused (never been recorded to) pattern is selected then the current pattern will simply continue playing, minimizing embarrassing mistakes while jamming.

Changing between different patterns in real-time is easily the most lamented missing feature from the original RZ-1 firmware, so the capability to now do should cause many RZ-1 owners to rejoice.

ADJUSTABLE SAMPLE ATTACK

Eliminates that short silence at the start of samples when sampling through the sampler input. Basically, this tightens up the attack of drum hits so they don’t lag behind the beat compared to the ROM sounds. This is fully adjustable, so drum hits can have ultra-tight attack (tighter than the stock toms!) while strings can retain their soft attack, and so on.

In other words, the Casio RZ-1 is effectively designed to pad the sample input with a 12 millisecond buffer. Typically, this causes drums to fall roughly 11~14 milliseconds behind the drum sounds in ROM which makes for sloppy timing. Now anywhere from 0 to 12 milliseconds can be selected. Ranges are given in sample points and can be any value between 1 and 255 — with 1 being the stock RZ-1 behavior (12ms of padding) and 255 being zero padding (0ms, fastest attack possible). On average, a value of 214 preserves the entire attack while also eliminating any preceding silence.

Sample attack trim can be adjusted by holding SAMPLING and either pressing or holding the up/down arrows.

ACCENT LOCK

Accent lock makes all drum hits have extra emphasis by default. On a stock RZ-1, emphasis can easily be added through MIDI triggering (velocity of 97-127), but live drumming requires holding down the Accent button (losing a hand in the process) or shoving something in the button to keep it stuck down (a guitar pick, etc.) The accent lock feature makes the RZ-1 use its full 10-bits of output during live (non-sequenced) play unless specifically de-emphasized with the ACCENT or MUTE buttons.

Accent lock mode can be toggled by holding ACCENT and pressing VALUE UP/DOWN while in pattern/song standby mode. Although the accent lock behavior is always in effect (real-time playback, recording, etc.), the hotkey to toggle the mode setting is locked out during playback or record modes. The accent lock setting is stored in NVRAM–just like pattern/song/sample memory–so it is persistent but non-permanent; stock behavior can easily be returned to without further EPROM swapping and without even powering on/off.

Note: Accent lock will also affect notes being recorded, and any notes which are emphasized in real-time will be so emphasized upon playback, just as if ACCENT had been held down.

MIDI SDS (more-or-less)

Now that a SysEx method has been worked out to save/load samples and rhythm data, actual SDS holds only marginal improvement which makes this idea more-or-less unnecessary and not worth the effort. To be clear, this works on stock RZ-1 machines as well, so no custom firmware needed! Say goodbye to MT sideloading.

INDEPENDENT MIDI TX/RX CHANNEL ASSIGNMENT

Self-explanatory, hopefully.

LOCAL ON/OFF

Use the RZ1 as a MIDI trigger for other equipment but do not trigger internal sounds. Okay… kind of lackluster, but way more useful than the “Note Enable/Disable” setting which has been replaced. Does anyone even use that?

SAMPLE REVERSE

Reverse the sound of the Sample 1, Sample 2, Sample 3, and Sample 4 slots — individual or linked. This uses the INSERT button in the same context as the SAMPLING button, except the selected sample is overwritten with a reversed version of itself. Just like SAMPLING, it cannot be done during a performance but can be done rapidly without powering off.

Idea: Sample a long cymbal into pads 1~4 and then reverse the whole thing for a nice build-up.

METRONOME ON/OFF

Metronome on/off is toggled with the MUTE button and up/down arrow hotkey method (just like accent lock). This would appear to have limited utility, but was a requested feature.

CUSTOM SAMPLE LENGTHS FOR SOUND ROM BUILDERS

Alternate OS variant which reallocates various slack in ROM to maximize storage of sound data. Chiefly, this significantly extends both the kick and the snare drum (more than doubling the kick length), but also marginally lengthens sample space for the toms and a couple other drum hits. This is only relevant for people that are willing and able to build their own custom sound ROMs, but very handy for those that do.

NVRAM

All new settings (MIDI Tx/Rx channels, local on/off, sample trim, accent lock on/off, and metronome on/off) are retained at power-off and saved/loaded along with rhythm data backups, giving the same functionality as the stock firmware.

OLED SUPPORT (new in v2.0)

16×1 OLED support has been added with v2.0 and requires no physical case modifications unlike the 16×2 LCD method. Any 16*1 OLED with a WS0010/RS0010 type chipset (or clone) should now work as a drop-in replacement while also maintaining compatibility with the stock 16×1 LCD, as well as the 16*2 LED LCDs method.

Along with the new firmware installation, a new OLED has been added and the high voltage transformer that supplied the Electro-fluorescent lighting behind the original LCD, has been removed. This transformer was responsible for introducing high voltage AC hum in the unit. With the new OLED and absence of this transformer, the noise floor is considerably quiet compared to the original design.

New battery has also been installed along with a battery clip, making future replacement solder-less. New firmware makes for easier transfer and storage of patterns and songs.

As per Vintage Synth Explorer:

"Casio's RZ-1 came out in 1986 and in its time, it was pretty good. It has 12 PCM sampled drum sounds - basic sounds, and nothing to get excited about either. They included 3 toms, kick, snare, rim, open/closed hh, ride, crash, cowbell and clap. They don't sound like real drums, but they do sound electronic and maybe a little different than more common Roland and Linn drum machines. They have been used in lots of Hip Hop and House tracks.

A real special feature (for its time) was on-board sampling designed to let you create up to four of your own percussion sounds. Now, the sampling specs are pretty bad with just a 20kHz sample rate and only 0.2 seconds of sample time per each of the four sample pads (or one 0.8 second sample). Its a very lo-fi sound, which may be a good thing. The only editing you can do with your samples is a simple low-pass tone adjust.

The built-in sequencer is fairly easy to work with. Just create some patterns (up to 100) and chain these patterns into songs (up to 20 songs). There are ten individual outputs and volume sliders for every sound. Well, some sounds have to share outputs and sliders as there are 16 sounds: Rim+Snare, Sample1+Sample2, Sample3+Sample4, Cowbell+Crash, Clap+Ride and Open+Closed HH. Kind of cool and a little different but certainly nothing to fall in love with here. It's been used by Prince Paul, Autechre, Steve Poindexter, DJ Mike Smooth, Raw Dope Posse, Christian Vogel and lots more."