Jono77 Posted July 8, 2023 Share Posted July 8, 2023 I am about to get my hands on a lovely old Casio 701 from 1981, I was wondering about retro fitting it with MIDI and or Cv in and out. How difficult would it be and what would I need, been looking a the raspberry pi boards would this be a possible solution? Many thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pianokeyjoe Posted July 8, 2023 Share Posted July 8, 2023 Highly Liquid UMR2 boards for midi. Check Ebay and google. As for CV or alternate midi boards, Check into ANALOG SYNTH or PIPE ORGAN midi retrofit kits. The Synth kits obviously will allow you to control the Casio internal sounds but the pipe organ kits can allow similar function. I know nothing about how to program Rasp Pi boards since I do not have one for free or cheap to try. But others in this forum should be able to help there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Solution Chas Posted July 8, 2023 Solution Share Posted July 8, 2023 (edited) As Joe mentioned above, the UMR Highly Liquid MIDI controller has been fitted to many non MIDI equipped keyboards. It's now open source, so not that easy to find unless you build it yourself. There are also a ton of commercial offerings that do the same thing, but they can be expensive. If you do a Google "MIDI retrofit" search you will find many options: As all Casios are mostly under digital control, adding CV/ Gate won't be an option as there aren't that many features in Casios that use control voltage. The earlier Casios/ Casiotones, such as the 701, had analogue accompaniment sections. But the main voice generation and keyboard control is mostly/ entirely digital. The CT701, along with its handful of related models, actually uses a primitive form of digital Sine Wave synthesis. Most other early Casio keyboards use Vowel Consonant synthesis. I'd see how you get on with your CT701 before thinking about retrofitting MIDI to it. They look gorgeously retro, and have a unique organ type sound, but they are actually quite limited because of the Sine Wave synthesis used. Probably why Casio dropped it and continued with the Vowel Consonant models. However, put them through effects and they really come alive - chorus, phaser and reverb can work wonders with them. Edited July 8, 2023 by Chas 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jono77 Posted July 8, 2023 Author Share Posted July 8, 2023 Hi thanks Guys for that I will look into the highly liquid option, but I will also try with just adding effects to the sounds👍 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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