Music Thing: Casio VL-Tone

Each week Tom Whitwell of Music Thing highlights the best of the new music gear that's coming out, as well as noteworthy vintage equipment:

I can still remember how excited I was the first time I played with a Casio VL-Tone. In the very early '80s, simple LCD calculators seemed unimaginably high-tech. But the VL-Tone was a calculator with a built in synthesizer. It had five preset sounds, a 100 note sequencer and a little drum machine. You could even program the synth yourself, by typing numbers into the calculator (I never got beyond 99999999, which produced this long blipping noise that seemed ear-bogglingly strange.)

The VL-Tone was created by Toshio Kashio, an amateur musician and one of the Kashio brothers who founded Casio in 1946 � it was his idea to build the electronic calculator that they launched in 1957. He helped to design the single-chip synth which could combine and filter square waves into simple sounds. Toshio�s brothers weren�t convinced that there was a market for such a tiny and obviously non-professional keyboard, so they added the calculator functions, imagining busy businessmen relaxing after a hard day�s accounting by playing along with the �Rock� rhythm.
Of course, the brothers were wrong, and 1 million VL-Tones were sold between 1979 and 1984. Numerous musicians have recorded and sampled the sounds, apparently including Stevie Wonder, who certainly had superior technology to hand. There are still plenty of VL-Tones around, and most of them still work. Dr Joe Paradiso of MIT has incorporated a VL-Tone into his vast modular synth.

Last week, one Music Thing spotted this VL-Tone Possessed by Satan for sale on eBay � it went for $51. You can usually pick up a regular non-possessed version for under $20, but a mint condition model with the original leatherette case went for �56 ( $101) in Britain last week. Just don�t let anyone tell you they�re �rare��

[rj @ Dec 19th 2005 12:16AM]

I bought one last year at a thrift store, complete with leatherette case and original box, for about $3.

[Taco Jackson @ Dec 19th 2005 12:16AM]

Yeah, I remember having one of these when I was a kid. It was a lot of fun. It was cooler as the batteries started to die, it would actually pitch shift a little bit giving the sounds a kind of creepy quality. It was amazingly entertaining for the time, wouldn't mind having one even now.

[Chris K @ Dec 19th 2005 12:16AM]

Damn, I gotta find mine. Maybe selling it will finally get that stupid demo song out of my head. It's been 20 years now...

[Homer J @ Dec 19th 2005 12:16AM]

This was the birth of Herbie Hancock....

[Joe Henson @ Dec 19th 2005 12:16AM]

Me and my brothers had one of these.... Michael Aspel gave it to us... lol no joke!

[John @ Dec 19th 2005 12:16AM]

hey, i still got one of these too!!

[Olav @ Dec 19th 2005 12:16AM]

I also still have mine.

[DonPablo @ Dec 19th 2005 12:16AM]

A German trio called Trio (duh) had a Pan-european hit with their song 'Da Da Da', which was based on rhythms and melody played on the Casio VL-Tone. Here's a link to a midi-version of the song: http://meltingpot.fortunecity.com/kentish/116/midi/da_da_da.mid

I still use my VL Tone sometimes, but these days I prefer the sounds of Reason 3.0

[Yuppers @ Dec 19th 2005 12:16AM]

#3 HAHAHAAAAA!!! that demo song entered my head the second i saw the pic!!!!

[Fred Biots @ Dec 19th 2005 12:16AM]

The first time I saw a VL-Tone was in a video by Trio performing their classic song DA DA DA (hear the clip at: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/clipserve/B000001EWS001001/0/102-3601536-8363365 )

[Pat @ Dec 19th 2005 12:16AM]

lol!! i hear the song too! unforgettable!

[jarrydn @ Dec 19th 2005 12:16AM]

Bought mine for $10(AUD) some time at the beggining of last year (unfortunately I didn't score the leatherette case, manual or box...the keyboard itself though was in excellent condition) and to this day, I still play it EVERY day. Best $10 ever spent.

If I get the opporutnity to buy another one at a reasonable price, then I will certainly part with my cash.

I'm also on the lookout for a Casio SK-1. Those things are so RAD!

[VL-Tone @ Dec 19th 2005 12:16AM]

Hey an article about me! hehehe... for those who didn't know where my nickname on Engadget comes from, now you know :)

I received a Casio VL-Tone in December of 1983 on my 9th anniversary. I was my second synth, the first being a much bigger toy synth that only played one sound. I had no computer at the time (my first computer was to be a Timex Sinclair 1000 two years after), so I spent hours playing with the machine and programming sounds. I dreamt of owning the VL-10 which was a much smaller calculator sized aluminum version of the VL-Tone. I remember staring at one in a store window somewhere around 1985.

The LCD was not only used for the calculator, it was also used to display notes and tempo. Some years after at the end of the 80's I got bored with it and decided to open it to see it's insides. Unfortunately, I removed the LCD screen and broke the connector. I used it for some years with no screen and then got bored again and dismantled it to the point of losing many parts of it. Then I got a Casio SK-1 which I ended up "circuit-bending" before I even got to know the term later in the first days of the Web. By creating some random short-circuits inside the synth you get really complicated sounds, beats and music compositions. Google for Casio and circuit-bending to learn more about it. (There are some precautions to be taken before doing this! :) )

3 years ago I bought one back and still have fun with it, it a great draft tool to compose and play music when you are bored by powerful tools :)

I found that there are some similarity between the VL-Tone and the iPod... Maybe it's just inside my crazy mind but here are the similarities: Both feature rounded white plastic enclosure (though the iPod does have a chrome back). Both feature LCD screens, they are both "portable", they both play and store music (The VL-Tone can hold up to 99 notes!). The VL-Tone and iPods had a secondary consumer-oriented use for the LCD and CPU inside (Calculator vs. Address Book etc). Just like the iPod mini, the VL-10 was released as a smaller version in an aluminum enclosure. Ok maybe most of these are crazy coincidences, but I bet that Johnatan Ives knows what a VL-Tone is. Now... if I can get a way to print a durable VL-tone sticker to put on my iPod Shuffle...

Now to end this long comment from a crazy Casio VL-Tone fanboy, how could this otherwise great article not mention "Da Da Da"? Everyone knows the Casio VL-Tone "Rock-1" high pitched beat because of this song...

[Kim @ Dec 19th 2005 12:16AM]

I got a VL-Tone when I was about 4. So, I did use it as a toy, but it really helped me be creative and play around with those rhythms, and to use the calculator too! I still have it somewhere, with the leatherette case. I used to speed up that song that played when you hit the orange key. You also got a little songbook which had songs like 'Auld Lang Syne' and 'O Sole Mio' in it. As the keyboard was also a calculator, the keys had numbers underneath them and the notes in the songbook featured these numbers too. So you could play like a pro! :)

In 1987 a kid in my class brought his in for something and I brought mine in but didn't tell him. Hilarity ensued when he wondered how on earth he ended up with two on his desk!

[Christian @ May 30th 2007 4:07PM]

Hi! I have a Casio VL-Tone (VL-1)too!!!
I'm looking for a copy of the song books & the manual. Does anyone have this items availables? I've hunted online a lot and it seems the VL-1 is the rarerest one to find. Any help or reference would be really appreciated. Thanks. Saludos desde Barcelona, España.