Using VirtualCZ with CZ hardware

[Nyquistic]

First off, congratulations and thanks to Ollie on releasing a wonderful phase-distortion synth!

As a die-hard CZ fan, I still (of course!) have my original CZ-1000 and while I'm delighted with VirtualCZ and programming it directly, as a matter of interest I've started investigating the feature to send patches via sysex. I'd be interested in the experiences of others doing the same.

So far I'm using the standalone application and have managed to send patches to the CZ-1000, but it's still early days. I have noticed however that there is a difference in pitch when the same patch is played on the CZ-1000. I have yet to manage to capture a patch from the CZ but one experiment will be to load that into VirtualCZ for comparison.

[hibrasil]

hello,

the Mod wheel behaviour is slightly different on VirtualCZ which could cause a difference in pitch. Otherwise is your CZ1000 set to A440?

oli

[Nyquistic]

Sorted, too long in the attic without batteries! The "Key transpose" on the CZ-1000 was set to G instead of the default C, and once I set the "Master tune" using an actual tuner, all was well (there's a octave offset which I haven't yet tracked down, but that's not really a problem). There were a few other crazy settings as well, such as bend range at 95 (it's only possible to go to 12 via the controls!) so I guess there might be an internal battery (CMOS backup) that needs changing as well.

I have to say I'm impressed though .... I keyed in some old patches I had programmed years ago and recorded on paper (the "Sound Data Book" pages), then transferred them using Matthew Suffidy's CZLib and loaded them into VirtualCZ for comparison, and I can't tell the difference apart from the lack of mains hum! Well done!

[bftucker]

Glad to hear it is working well for you. Makes a very fine editor and nice looking software, isn't it?

[Nyquistic]

Having gone back (temporarily) to paper and manual input, yes, I can definitely say this is nice software. I am now trying the reverse, inputting old patches using VirtualCZ and dumping them to the CZ-1000. I'd be sure signals from software and hardware will not null-test, but that would be a ridiculous expectation, however to anyone who's been holding out for a really good CZ emulation/phase distortion synth, look no further!

As a hardware editor (which is not the primary function) there are limitations, the main one being you can't transfer a patch directly from the CZ for editing, but I'd be optimistic this might become possible in a future update. Another quirk is that only the VST2 plugin (which I didn't install as I use the VST3 with Cubase) can load a sysex bank file, whereas the standalone and VST3 both offer to split the bank file into individual patch sysex files which they can load -- I really don't understand why this has to be the case, but I'm not going to lose sleep over it.

[secretkillerofnames]

The "Key transpose" on the CZ-1000 was set to G instead of the default C,

Intriguing... my CZ-101 does the same thing. Why "G" I wonder?

[Nyquistic]

The "Key transpose" on the CZ-1000 was set to G instead of the default C,

Intriguing... my CZ-101 does the same thing. Why "G" I wonder?

I'm not sure how this happened, at first I assumed it was because the hardware had been stored powered off for a long time, but I've checked and there is no internal battery backup or NVRAM -- other than the regular batteries used for battery operation. On page 36 of the CZ-1000 manual it says "the initial data of the preset and internal memories are all set to C".

[Nyquistic]

Some more info (that I'd forgotten, but that's in the CZ-1000 manual): the CZ101/1000 were not just capable of being battery powered, they were designed to always have the 6 batteries loaded, because that's what supplies the backup for things like the internal sounds, bend range, master tune and a few other things. There's also a recessed reset button on the bottom marker "P", so best to load a set of batteries, switch it on and press "P" (with a pencil) to reset to factory defaults. This will also restore the internal sound bank.

You can get the manuals here, which are even useful if you don't have the hardware, in order to better understand phase distortion synthesis.

[VariKusBrainZ]

Would be awesome if it could also support the VZ synths.
Ive got a VZ-8M Ive never bothered to attempt to program.

Thought about having ago at building an editor with Ctrlr but I dont even understand the VZ manual explaining the sysex implementation!!!!!