#WESTONE GUITAR X120 PROFESSIONAL#

For finer work, the FZ-1 will blow up the display, zooming in to reveal finer and finer detail of certain sections. Move the marker along the wave to truncate, select loop points, or fade samples together.

Once you've made a sample you can swap to 'Display' and view its recorded waveform, then begin editing. True, other samplers can throw shapes on a computer screen, with the right software, but that's more dosh. It makes possible Casio's introduction of graphic waveform analysis, which really is a remarkable step forward at this price. The disadvantage is that it tends to cram information into a small space, you occasionally have to squint to read it, and it's not adjustable for angle so if you move from the usual just-in-front-of-the-keys position, it will fade, perhaps disappear. You always know what parameter you're working on as it's reversed out of the display (green on black) instead of black on green. More about that display: it's almost a miniature computer screen listing up to eight lines of instructions, or drawing graphs of a waveform around a central axis.

Voices are called up by a 12 key alpha/numeric pad (the last two for yes and no entries) to the right of the display, and a further eight keys on the left shift you around the various play, modify and menu modes. The four large blue cursor keys are the most prominent feature after the unusual, square, backlit display screen. Physically the FZ-1 appears deceptively cool - all black, modest switches, with a raised 3.5in disc drive at the far left of the panel. It should therefore deliver more realistic recordings and less harmonic distortion. In a (very loosely) associated manner, a sampler splits an audio signal into rememberable, numerical values, and a memory which has a resolution of 16bits is effectively finer graph paper than 12. The smaller the squares on the graph, the finer the steps you can take, and the nearer an approximation to the original you'll produce. What does this mean, mother?Д¬asio's brochure explains by drawing a smooth curve across graph paper, then attempting to mimic it, but only by going up or across the straight lines on the sheet, getting as close to the real curve as possible. Sampling resolution is 16bit compared with the 12bit technology of, say, the Roland S-10. An optional, additional 1 Megabyte RAM board ( ВЈ249) doubles everything. On-board RAM totals 1 Megabyte, enough for 14.56 seconds of recording at the top 36kHz sampling rate (58.25 sec at the lowest 9 Hz).

It's also an interesting day for sampling in general.ДЇirst the memory - it's vast.

#WESTONE GUITAR X120 PROFESSIONAL#

It's undoubtedly the most important keyboard launch Casio have made in some time, and is easily their most upmarket, professional item of gear. Small numbers of FZ-1s should now be appearing in the shops, and though the real street price is always a matter for the manager and his inky black fibre tip, stories of 'back orders until March 1988' will hardly encourage fierce discounts.

In the event the guestimators' figures were slightly optimistic as you can see from the recommend retail of ВЈ1899. It was lauded as a sampling giant killer with astounding facilities, masses of memory, but a rumoured retail price of only ВЈ1500. High on a stage, at the back of the Casio stand, was the FZ-1 - one of the only instruments at this year's Frankfurt trade show to truly boggle the boggleable.

Westone guitar x120