Message 2/3
Date: 19-Aug-99 @ 11:18 PM -
RE: Fz-1 VS. Sci Prophet3000
I read you post about whether to get an FZ-1 or Prophet. I have no experience with the later, but I've owned the Casio Fz-1 for about 8 years now. First off, it does not have a sequencer. For me that's no big deal. It can only be upgraded to 2 megs RAM. There is a High density floppy drive but no SCSI port. It also has 8 outputs and one mixed output as well as headphone jack and a few other jacks I never use
When I originally bought the casio it was a tossup between the Emax 1 and the Casio. I was drawn to the FZ because of it's price(at the time was much cheaper) and I thought the sound quality was a bit better(16 vs 12 bit?). It samples at 3 levels (9,18,or 36 MHz)
The casio is a cool machine. I guess it's sound is kind of unique. It has this cold raw sound to it, hard to explain but when you hear a sample in a song you can usually tell it's from a fz-1. I don't know how different it sounds from the emax though. When I tested both out I didn't notice a huge difference. The casio sounds grittier on lower notes, but screams on higher notes. The Emax seemed to have a balanced sound to it. Maybe it was just the sounds I tested it with I don't know. It's the only sampler I've owned. The filters are nice, I never used them much but a nice addition either way. And I wasn't aware the Emax has a synth feature. I liked that feature on the FZ-1, You can create lots of synth lines and it takes literally no memory to save on disk. I used filters on these. Not perfect but fun to mess with.
I've decided to sell FZ-1 because I upgraded to a new sampler. I feel like I need to expand a little after all these years.
So I hope this helps at all.
-fox