KVR Audio

Xenos · Post by **Xenos** » Wed Nov 05, 2014 12:47 am

Stumbled upon this recently:
http://www.pluginboutique.com/product/4 ... -VirtualCZ

Thought I'd mention it if anyone's looking for a good Casio CZ synth emulation. Personally, I really like it. VirtualCZ reads sysex patches and you can use the patches created in VirtualCZ in your hardware CZ. While you have the option of standard ADSR envelopes, it also has the 8-stage envelopes which are more true to the real deal. The sound is pretty faithful to the originals as well. The CPU usage is pretty decent on my 10 year old Pentium 4 machine.

Who would I recommend it to? Aside from the obvious recommendation to diehard hardware CZ users, I'd say it fits well with pretty much any genre, though you won't get crazy dubstep basses or huge solo leads out of it. Its sound best fits background accompaniment such as keys, plucks, liquid pads, etc, though the basses could fit into just about any style.

The real heart of VirtualCZ is the 8-stage, loopable envelopes, though the workflow is a bit wonky lol. Still a bit confused on getting the loops to do what I want it to do, but I see potential for some really cool special effects and evolving pads once those kinks are figured out.

Orbit-50 · Post by **Orbit-50** » Wed Nov 05, 2014 2:13 am

Thanks Xenos for taking the time to give some words about Virtual CZ. I'm on the fence, but you kind of nudged me a little more.

.-.

ghettosynth · Post by **ghettosynth** » Wed Nov 05, 2014 2:28 am

Does anyone know of some links to factory sysex files for original CZ synths that will load into this thing?

Edit: Here are a bunch of files in banks.

http://www.reocities.com/SunsetStrip/Fr ... cz101.html

The demo will not load banks, but, it detects them and asks you if you want to split them out to individual patch files. You can then create a folder on the fly, tell it to use that folder, and you will have sixteen patches with generic patch_n names that you can load into the demo.

In case anyone cares.

Examigan · Post by **Examigan** » Wed Nov 05, 2014 11:00 am

Xenos wrote:Stumbled upon this recently:
http://www.pluginboutique.com/product/4 ... -VirtualCZ

Thought I'd mention it if anyone's looking for a good Casio CZ synth emulation.

Yes I am looking forward to checking that one out pretty soon. I had a CZ-101 at one point (when I had my Atari ST), and it was my first synth actually.

Examigan · Post by **Examigan** » Wed Nov 05, 2014 11:01 am

ghettosynth wrote:Does anyone know of some links to factory sysex files for original CZ synths that will load into this thing?

Edit: Here are a bunch of files in banks.

http://www.reocities.com/SunsetStrip/Fr ... cz101.html

The demo will not load banks, but, it detects them and asks you if you want to split them out to individual patch files. You can then create a folder on the fly, tell it to use that folder, and you will have sixteen patches with generic patch_n names that you can load into the demo.

In case anyone cares.

Cool! Thanks for sharing

BlackWinny · Post by **BlackWinny** » Wed Nov 05, 2014 2:08 pm

You can download many CZ sysex files here:
http://www.synthzone.com/midi/casio/

Xenos · Post by **Xenos** » Wed Nov 05, 2014 7:59 pm

BlackWinny wrote:You can download many CZ sysex files here:
http://www.synthzone.com/midi/casio/

Thanks for the heads-up

. Will check those out as well.

Aloysius · Post by **Aloysius** » Wed Nov 05, 2014 8:10 pm

Some great Presets from one of the older VirtualCZ threads:

hibrasil wrote:...
if it helps... here are the casio presets converted to .vstpreset/.aupreset/.fxp/.fxb/.tfx

on mac you just run the installer (doesn't yet include .tfx)...

http://olilarkin.co.uk/downloads/Virtua ... taller.pkg

on windows you currently have to place the presets in the .vstpreset folders etc manually...

http://olilarkin.co.uk/downloads/Virtua ... resets.zip

going to make an installer for the windows version too

asksol · Post by **asksol** » Wed Nov 05, 2014 10:07 pm

The older threads? I thought it was released last month or something

BlackWinny · Post by **BlackWinny** » Thu Nov 06, 2014 12:32 am

In the thread called "Casio CZ" starting from this post:
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 1#p5870381

There was also another thread but much shorter and which has been deleted.
It was called
"VirtualCZ (Casio CZ)Available Now! (Including presets by Oli Larkin, Don Solaris, AbstractCats).
It was a topic in the 'Market Place (Buy / Sell / Special Offers)' forum and its URL was http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 3&t=421203
Thread killed. Rest In Peace.

hibrasil · Post by **hibrasil** » Thu Nov 06, 2014 9:06 pm

i'm hoping we might be able to get permission to include those original presets with the plug-in. Been in touch with some of the guys who worked at/with casio on the CZs in the 80s which is nice!

Xenos · Post by **Xenos** » Fri Nov 07, 2014 7:32 pm

hibrasil wrote:i'm hoping we might be able to get permission to include those original presets with the plug-in. Been in touch with some of the guys who worked at/with casio on the CZs in the 80s which is nice!

That would be awesome. It's a major pain in the a** having to manually load _every_ _single_ _friggin'_ _sysex_ patch

. Having the original hardware factory patches already included would be another selling point for the potential buyers, and an incentive for the developer to make things easier for us. Win-win situation

.

IMHO, many of the original hardware factory patches are bloody awful by today's standards, but man they bring back some fond memories. I remember going to the music stores as a young kid, losing myself playing with the synthesizers, but never buying anything. Always had a knack for pissing off the store employees with all that noise. Was the highlight of my Saturdays and the lowpoint of the store owner's day haha. The Casio CZ 101, the Yamaha DX-100, the Alpha Juno (and that "TwilighZn" patch), and the "Nightmare" patch on the Roland D-50 all left a big impact on me back then. It was the digital synthesizers, not the analog ones, that were my first exposure to sound synthesis.

V0RT3X · Post by **V0RT3X** » Fri Nov 07, 2014 8:55 pm

Wow great work on this, it sounds like a hardware Casio to me.

I just had a play with the demo. Lots of useable sounds in this! It also sounds very "warm" like it has some kind of saturation going on behind the scenes.

I own Bazille, but obviously that's nowhere as near as user friendly as this is. I'll recommend this to anyone looking for that classic Casio CZ sound though.

btw Is there a uninstaller for the demo? Or do you just remove it from your library/audio/plugins folder?

hibrasil · Post by **hibrasil** » Fri Nov 07, 2014 9:30 pm

there is no uninstaller. You can just install the full version over the top of the demo after you've purchased it

. Or delete the plugins from your plugins folder.

i'm a big fan of Bazille - it's a completely different synth to VirtualCZ though with a different ethos/vibe.

oli

oilectro · Post by **oilectro** » Wed Dec 03, 2014 8:22 pm

I bought VirtualCZ last friday but i have a problem to authorize it. It is not possible to paste the serial from the clipboard in the grey box at the beginning. I tried it in the DAW (Cubase 7.5), i tried it in standalone, on a Win8.1 System and on a Win7 System. It is not possible. Does anyone have a hint for me? I feel like a total noob!

Virtual CZ synth by PluginBoutique