Casiotone MT-240 voices MIDI fonts available?

[Studio B]

Hi, I am new to the forum. I have a late 1980s Casiotone MT-240 which I used to record several song demos between 1989 and 1994. I have been trying without success to track down MIDI fonts for the stock instrument voices on this synth (and other MT models from the same period) or locate someone who has successful migrated them to a current/recent keyboard somehow. I hope to find them in a format that can utilized with a full-size keyboard, such as my Casio WK-3000. When contacting Casio, one of their customer service people told me "We do not currently produce a keyboard that contains the tones from the MT-240. Also, we do not offer tones similar to the MT-240 tones as downloads for any of our keyboards." He suggested the Casio forum, so here I am.  (The MT-240's Piano voice seems identical to the version on my WK-3000, but there are no other voice matches between the two keyboards.) The voices I am particularly interested in are Elec Piano & Synth Ens, but would welcome information on how to get others. Has anyone had success doing anything like this?

[Jokeyman123]

I can't tell you specifically whether there are soundfonts (I think thst's what you mean) specifically for the MT240, but I can point you to soundfont databases I use for replacements for the windows "synth" sounds. I use Coolsoft softsynth as my basic soundfont player, and have several soundfonts I use with it for playing and recording midi files on my Windows-based computers.  Here is one database of soundfonts-might find specificlaly what you are looking for here, and searching on soundfonts, I found many others like this as soundfonts have been a round a long time. I use Arachno, but that is not an MT240 soundfont,  just s good general purpose replacement for the crappy windows softsynth built into Windows.

 

[Chas]

From what I can find, the MT240 is part of Casio's "Tone Bank" series of keyboards. The sound engine is a bit obscure, as many display "Pulse Code Modulation" on the front panel, though PCM I believe is for the drums only. They often state 210 Tones, but in reality I think they have much less actual main tones, they just have the ability to layer two tones together. When you add all the possible combinations of layering two tones together, you get 210!

 

They came out around the same time as the HT series of synths, and those are also somewhat obscure in terms of how they generate sound. Up to the late 80s, Casio had two main synthesis engines - Consonant Vowel (many CT and MT models) and Phase Distortion (CZ and VZ synths). They made a handful of models with Sine Wave synthesis (CT1000P, CT 701, MT70) and also the infamous VL-1/ some PTs/ musical calculators used a synthesis known as 'Walsh Function'.

 

In 1984 Casio's flagship was the CT6000, which had features such as MIDI and pitch bend wheel, lush choruses, layering and unison modes. Again, it's not clear what synthesis was used to generate the sound, but I suspect it was an advanced evolution of Consonant Vowel. It appears to have reached a dead end with the CT6000 and Casio then concentrated on Phase Distortion and digital sampling. However, I suspect that the latter 80s home Casio keyboards still used forms of the CT6000's consonant vowel synthesis, including the HTs and latter 80s MTs and Tone Bank keyboards, until the turn of the 90s when Pulse Code Modulation was genuinely used for tones and not just for drums. Casio also brought in other types of synthesis such as the 90s CTK1000 "Ixa" sound source, again, not much is known about this though it's likely some form of PCM or Rompler, or possibly both.

 

I digress. I have a CT640 Tone Bank keyboard and have to say it has some surprisingly good sounds in it. I also have a large collection of older Casios, and to my knowledge, the only Casios that that are emulated in modern software/ VSTs are Phase Distortion, the infamous VL-1,  and the oddball HT/ HZ series "Spectrum Dynamics" that I suspect is an evolution of Consonant Vowel with a bonus analogue filter(s).

 

Thus, to truly get the sounds of an MT240, your best bet is to use the real thing. I think most (all?) Casio Tone Bank keyboards have MIDI, so they'll easily hook up and work within a modern DAW/ MIDI/ Sequencer environment. They're all inexpensive to buy, and still quite plentiful on the used market too.

 

 

[CYBERYOGI =CO=Windler]

The Casio MT-240 sound engine is a real subset of MT-540 (which has more rom), so search for MT-540 sounds. The PCM engine consists not only of samples but is a seriously complex softsynth using program loop synthesis (individually programmed algorithmic sounds with wicked modulations) and several FM variants. I dumped the roms of these and recently got 3 sets of scrap PCBs of Casio CT-420, which is likely MT-240 with different demo and no midi port. Somewhen I will dump that rom and examine how much they differ (may be only the sequencer data of the demo).

[Studio B]

Jokeyman123, thanks. Yes, I meant MIDI soundfonts. Worst case, I suppose I can record each note in high quality audio and create a soundfont for eacg tone with something like this: https://www.polyphone-soundfonts.com/en/ Of course, that doesn't address what goes on via the softsynth, but I am guessing I can use analog effects to get close if I can't figure out how to make it happen digitally. The Synth Ens voice in particular does some pretty interesting things when multiple keys are struck quickly enough in a song. I have an old quasi-demo recording using that voice that has a kind of overlapping, shimmering effect from the velocity and timing of the key strikes. It's almost like accumulated delay with distortion in an effects pedal.

 

Chas, thanks. I do have a working MT-240 in great shape. I may pick up another one, especially if the soundfont idea doesn't pan out.  The reasons I am even thinking about trying to migrate the tones are that, A.) my older, fatter and damaged fingers can no longer play the mini keys and, B.) our real keyboard player plays full size keys only. (Reason B.) led me to pick up a used WK-3000 a few years ago.)

 

CYBERYOGI, thanks for the idea to look for MT-540 sounds, which I will do. I researched the MT-540 and found this site: http://weltenschule.de/TableHooters/Casio_MT-540.html Information there is probably old hat to you guys that work at board level, but was enlightening to me.

 

To everyone, thank you for responding with some great information!

[Jokeyman123]

I don't know if this will do you any good, but I've attached an ancient program called "Audio compositor"-which does many things-loads and reads soundfonts, renders midi to wav. This version is 3.3-an unregistered copy that still works. I've had this for eons. Will take a little studying and is no longer supported, but could be useful for what you are trying to do. Actually now that I looked at Polyphone-looks like a better more advanced version of Audio Compositor. Probably better off with that. 

audcom33.zip

[Jokeyman123]

I cannot get polyphone 2.2 to install on Windows 7-describes a missing DLL-part of Visual Basic-but I have every version of Visual Basic there is on this machine. maybe it uses an older one I do not have installed? tried bothx64 and x86 versions-neither will work-it installs, just won't work. How did you do with this? Looks better than audio compositor. 

[CYBERYOGI =CO=Windler]

If your sausage fingers can not play an MT-540, search for a Casio CT-660, which is the same with 61 fullsize keys and more buttons. A 49 fullsize version is CT-440/CT-460, or if you want it as a keyless midi sound module, there is Casio CSM-1 (aka Hohner MSE-1) that can be combined with any midi master keyboard.

[IanB]

On 2/21/2020 at 2:11 PM, Jokeyman123 said:

I cannot get polyphone 2.2 to install on Windows 7-describes a missing DLL-part of Visual Basic-but I have every version of Visual Basic there is on this machine. maybe it uses an older one I do not have installed? tried bothx64 and x86 versions-neither will work-it installs, just won't work. How did you do with this? Looks better than audio compositor. 

 

What is the name of the dll? Is it VBrun[something or other]? If so, it's missing the particular runtime for the version of VB the program was originally written with. It's presumably a pre .NET version.

[Jokeyman123]

Yes, its vbrun something or other-I get tired of sorting through all of them since there must be 12 or so since Windows XP. Hmmm....older version. I'll have to keep trying. but this isn't such an old program, is it?  I have vbruntimes installed that are newer/newest Of course my other laptops have-5-6 versions of the visual basic-I hate Windows sometimes. You wouldn't happen to know which runtime this needs? Especially since the newest (I have 2016-2019 etc.) is (supposed to) have all the functionality of the previous versions, according to Microsoft. APPARENTLY NOT. And I also have the older, pre 2016 installed. several of them. 

[Jokeyman123]

No-I was wrong..it's called MSVCR120.DLL, a new one on me. I will try to find it and install it.

[Jokeyman123]

Got it. what this needed was Visual Basic C++ from 2013-I guess this was when this program was created. it works now. The one version I did not have. Windows never ceases to amaze me. Sort of the elephant put together by 40 different people-but none of them could talk to each other or compare their instructions and couldn't watch it put together until it was done. it came out looking like a platypus. Actually a platypus is what people would look like if Microsoft  designed a human being!!!!! GGGRRRR!!!!!!

[IanB]

Glad you got it sorted!

[Jokeyman123]

I have many fonts I've saved-not any Casio fonts  but quite a few-I use Coolsoft softsynth to render sounds. Polyphone is working well-thanks for the heads up on this.

[Studio B]

Jokeyman, sorry I've been away from this discussion for a few days. Hey, that's great news. Glad I could contribute something to this forum. I'm in the Windows 10 environment and ran into the same problem with the missing MSVCR120.DLL. Found the download here, thanks to the Polyphone forum: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30679 Windows Elephant and Platypus similies...truer words rarely spoken. I am not that far away from you...near Reading, PA. My brother used to live in Port Jervis, across from Matamoras.

 

Ian B, that motion is seconded.

 

Finally, CYBERYOGI, thanks for the great suggestions regarding the Casio CT-660, 440, 460 and the Casio CSM-1/MSE-1. Had no idea those units were in the same basic family. My original MT-240 was a 1988 Christmas gift from Mom after I'd shown an interest in Jan Hammer. About 15 years later, its on board DC supply socket failed due to battery leakage that wrecked the board, so eventually I replaced it with a used one in 2008. At those times I knew almost nothing about MIDI keyboards and was too timid to attempt board level repairs requiring ironing. Additional thanks for the "Sausage Fingers" description. Could be my new nickname...HA HA, I am still laughing over that one!

 

For me, solution #1 is finding a used CT-660/440/460 and a CSM-1/MSE-1 for our real keyboard player and me. Solution #2 is I will learn PolyphoneNightPeople-SSongC10-Take2(remix122603).mp3.

 

Everyone, many, many, many thanks for very helpful information!!! Attached here is the original 1990 "demo" that started this quest. Try not to laugh too hard. The band says they want to record this thing with full instrumentation.