The Casio Casiotone MT-40 is an electronic keyboard, formerly produced by Casio and originally developed for the consumer market. It was released in 1981. [1]
The Casio Casiotone MT-40 is an electronic keyboard, formerly produced by Casio and originally developed for the consumer market. It was released in 1981. [1]
The keyboard has 37 main keys and 15 smaller bass keys. Its 9-voice polyphony means that eight notes may be played on the main keys, plus one note on the bass for a total of nine simultaneous voices. The bass section has one timbre, and the main section has 22, assignable to one of four presets. Like most small Casio keyboards the MT-40 has a drum section with 6 different beats, a tempo knob, and a "fill" button. The fill button plays sixteenth note pulses of either the "snare" or "kick" as long as it is held down.
All tones and presets are recordings held on "voice chips" [2] triggered by user input. This consumer-grade feature distinguishes the MT-40 from the technical definition of synthesizer, a machine in which sounds are generated by manipulating the output of audio frequency generators rather than recordings of those manipulations. The successor of the MT-40 was an otherwise identical machine that came in a gray case, sold as the MT-41 beginning in 1983. [2]
The MT-40 has a built-in bassline (internally referred to as the "rock" preset) that, along with the keyboard's suggested 1/16 note fill for that preset, formed the basis of a seminal reggae track, 1985's "Under Me Sleng Teng". The track's riddim went on to spawn nearly 500 cover versions. [3] This song's success is widely credited with single-handedly transitioning reggae from analog to computerized production. This transition to a music production that depended on digital instruments and sequencers is also seen as catalyzing the computerization of hip-hop music, which was, like reggae, an analog musical tradition until the mid-1980s. [4] Given the lasting consequences of the Sleng Teng riddim, the MT-40's "rock" preset has been the subject of considerable speculation.
The famous preset was composed for Casio in 1980 by a then newly-hired music engineer, Hiroko Okuda. [5] She was assigned to create several of the keyboard's presets, among them a "rock" rhythm. Okuda had been hired fresh out of music school, where she had produced one of Japan's first graduate theses on reggae. In 2022 she described herself as having been immersed in reggae for several years before her 1980 hire by Casio (the previous year, during Bob Marley's only visit to Japan, Okuda had attended more than three performances from the tour). [5] Okuda only learned of her part in "Under Me Sleng Teng"'s global success in August 1986, when she read an article titled “The Sleng Teng Flood” in Japan's Music Magazine. The article described the wave of dozens and dozens of reggae songs being produced in Jamaica, all based on a Casiotone keyboard preset. [5]
After the worldwide success of Sleng Teng many speculated as to the ultimate source of the "rock" preset. At first Eddie Cochran's 1958 song "Somethin' Else" or the Sex Pistols' 1976 track "Anarchy in the UK" were thought to be prime candidates, with "Somethin' Else" being widely accepted for decades by connoisseurs. [6] In 2015 Okuda was quoted as saying the source was a track on an unnamed 1970's British rock album. [7] This was later speculated to be David Bowie's "Hang On to Yourself", the 8th track on his 1972 album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. [6] However, referring to the question in 2022, Okuda said, “I did use to listen to a lot of British rock, so I’m sure there must have been songs that influenced me. But really, the bassline was something I came up with myself. It wasn’t based on any other tune.” [5]
According to Okuda, there was some talk at the Casio corporation of attempting to defend their intellectual property from its free use in "Under Me Sleng Teng" with lawsuits. [8] [9] However, other voices at Casio (among them the head of the Musical Instrument division, co-founder of the company, and second-eldest Kashio brother, Toshio Kashio) prevailed. Toshio Kashio in particular felt strongly that the company's mission ought to be “bringing the pleasure of playing a musical instrument to everyone.” [8] [9] Despite the minute size and financial importance of the Musical Instrument division compared to the company's calculator division, then its main breadwinner, Toshio Kashio's defence of free use set a decisive corporate precedent. To the present day Casio's response to clearance requests for the "rock" preset has been an acknowledgement that the song “uses a sound file taken from a Casio MT-40”, and no fee. [9]
The preset is accessed by pressing the "synchro" button and then the "D" bass button (second from left) while the MT-40 rhythm slider is in the "rock" position. [2]
The MT-40 has also secured a niche in indie music, frequently used by the Magnetic Fields, and featured on most of Emperor X's album Tectonic Membrane/Thin Strip on an Edgeless Platform. Its thin fuzz can be heard on lesser known Australian indie band Turnstyle's top 20 single "Spray Water on the Stereo". California-based indie rock group Picture Atlantic used a mixture of the MT-40's organ sound and bass notes for their tracks "Circe", "Anytime/Coats of Armor", and "....That's Just Me" on their album Kleos. [10] San Francisco indie rock duo Casy and Brian exclusively used the Casio MT-40 for three of their four releases, altering its sound with effects such as overdrive pedals to accompany drums. [11] Former Boston/San Francisco street musician The Space Lady plays the MT-40 through a Small Stone phase shifter to create an ethereal tone to accompany her delay-enhanced vocals. In the UK the Farmer's Boys used it on a number of singles and album tracks. Post-punk band Standing Ovation use the MT-40 for synth pad and stabs on their cassette release "What Meaning" in 1983, re-released on vinyl in 2019 [12] In 2015, Japanese musician Tentenko (formerly of BiS) released an album recorded using the keyboard as the only accompanying instrument. Damon Albarn of Gorillaz used an MT-40 to construct the demo and live versions of the second single from the band's 2017 album Humanz, the track "We Got the Power".
Raggamuffin music is a subgenre of dancehall and reggae music. The instrumentals primarily consist of electronic music with heavy use of sampling.
In Jamaican dancehall music, a riddim is the instrumental accompaniment to a song and is synonymous with the rhythm section. Jamaican music genres that use the term consist of the riddim plus the voicing sung by the deejay. A given riddim, if popular, may be used in dozens—or even hundreds—of songs, not only in recordings but also in live performances.
Dub is an electronic musical style that grew out of reggae in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It is commonly considered a subgenre of reggae, though it has developed to extend beyond that style. Generally, dub consists of remixes of existing recordings created by significantly manipulating the original, usually through the removal of vocal parts, emphasis of the rhythm section, the application of studio effects such as echo and reverb, and the occasional dubbing of vocal or instrumental snippets from the original version or other works.
Dancehall is a genre of Jamaican popular music that originated in the late 1970s. Initially, dancehall was a more sparse version of reggae than the roots style, which had dominated much of the 1970s. In the mid-1980s, digital instrumentation became more prevalent, changing the sound considerably, with digital dancehall becoming increasingly characterized by faster rhythms. Key elements of dancehall music include its extensive use of Jamaican Patois rather than Jamaican standard English and a focus on the track instrumentals.
Casio Computer Co., Ltd. is a Japanese multinational electronics manufacturing corporation headquartered in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. Its products include calculators, mobile phones, digital cameras, electronic musical instruments, and analogue and digital watches. It was founded in 1946, and in 1957 introduced the first entirely compact electronic calculator. It was an early digital camera innovator, and during the 1980s and 1990s, the company developed numerous affordable home electronic keyboards for musicians along with introducing the first mass-produced digital watches.
Casiotone was a series of home electronic keyboards made by Casio in the early 1980s. Casio promoted the Casiotone 201 (CT-201) as "the first electronic keyboard with full-size keys that anyone could afford". The name "Casiotone" disappeared from Casio's keyboard catalog when more accurate synthesis technologies became prevalent, but the brand was reused for new models launched in 2019.
The Omnichord is an electronic musical instrument introduced in 1981 by the Suzuki Musical Instrument Corporation. It allows users to play distinctive harp-like arpeggios produced through an electronic strum plate, simulating the experience of playing a stringed instrument. Originally conceived as an electronic Autoharp, the Omnichord found popularity due to its portability, its unique, harplike timbre and its value as a kitsch object.
Sleng Teng is the name given to one of the first fully computerized riddims, influential in Jamaican music and beyond. The riddim, which was the result of work by Noel Davey, Ian "Wayne" Smith, and Lloyd "King Jammy" James, was first released with Wayne's vocals under the title "Under Mi Sleng Teng" in early 1985.
Wayne Smith was a Jamaican reggae and dancehall musician best known for his 1985 hit "Under Me Sleng Teng", which is regarded as the track which initiated the digital era of reggae.
The VL-1 was the first instrument of Casio's VL-Tone product line, and is sometimes referred to as the VL-Tone. It combined a calculator, a monophonic synthesizer, and sequencer. Released in June 1979, it was the first commercial digital synthesizer, selling for $69.95.
The Casio SK-1 is a small sampling keyboard made by Casio in 1985. It has 32 small sized piano keys, four-note polyphony, with a sampling bit depth of 8 bit PCM and a sample rate of 9.38 kHz for 1.4 seconds, a built-in microphone and line level and microphone inputs for sampling, and an internal speaker and line out. It also features a small number of four-note polyphonic preset analog and digital instrument voices, and a simple additive voice.
Casiotone for the Painfully Alone (CFTPA) was the musical solo-project of musician Owen Ashworth of Redwood City, California.
"Hang On to Yourself" is a song written by the English singer-songwriter David Bowie in 1971 and released as a single with his band Arnold Corns. A re-recorded version, recorded in November 1971 at Trident Studios in London, was released on the album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. The main riff is representative of glam rock's influence as a bridge between 1950s rock and roll, specifically rockabilly, and the punk to come; it draws on rockabilly influences such as Eddie Cochran, in a way that would influence punk records such as "Teenage Lobotomy" by Ramones.
Clive Bright, better known as Tenor Saw, was a Jamaican dancehall singjay in the 1980s, considered one of the most influential singers of the early digital reggae era. His best-known song was the 1985 hit "Ring the Alarm" on the "Stalag" riddim.
Johnny Osbourne is one of the most popular Jamaican reggae and dancehall singers of all time, who rose to success in the late 1970s and mid-1980s. His album Truths and Rights was a roots reggae success, and featured "Jah Promise" and the album's title track, "Truths and Rights".
Colin Patrick Harper, better known by his stage name Collie Buddz, is a Bermudian reggae artist best known for his single "Come Around".
Casio's SDSynthesizers were a late-1980s line of analog synthesizers featuring a resonant filter. SD synthesis was traditional DCO-analog synthesis, with the main difference being that some of the SD waveforms' harmonic spectrums changed temporally, or dynamically in relation to the amplitude envelope.
Riddim Driven is a series of various artists compilation albums released by VP Records. Each volume of the series features tracks from multiple artists recorded over one or two reggae or dancehall riddims produced by various producers. The series began in January 2001 with the release of the Chiney Gal & Blazing riddim album. Greensleeves Records has a similar series of compilation albums, known as Greensleeves Rhythm Album.
Okuda Hiroko is the Japanese inventor and musicologist who, at the start of her career in 1980 composed the rhythm and bass preset backing tracks included in Casio's electronic keyboards. These included the "rock" rhythm, which became the ubiquitous Sleng Teng Riddim, heralded the Ragga movement, and has since underpinned hundreds of hit reggae songs. Okuda and Casio have allowed her backing-rhythm work to proliferate under a free attribution-only license, which have contributed to their popularity and widespread use. She holds more than a dozen patents in the fields of electronic musical instruments and presently works at the intersection of electronic music and visual art.
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