Casio MT-100

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Casiotone MT-100 by Casio Keyboard

Manufacturer	Casio
Year introduced	1984
Keys	49
Polyphony	8
Sound generator chip	NEC D931x
Power	7.5VDC via adapter (center negative) or 5 D-cells
Features	Casio Chord, Equalizer

The Casio Casiotone MT-100 was sold in the mid-1980s as a low-to-mid-range portable home keyboard. It has 8-note polyphony, a 49-key keyboard, 20 instrument patches, and an analog percussion generator (two toms, bass drum, snare, open and closed high hats, and click) with 12 programmed rhythms of variable tempo. It also features fingered and Casio Chord accompaniment with three chord tones, four bass tones, and auto-accompaniment with four bass lines and four chord rhythms.

The MT-100 or similar has been used in Homestar Runner cartoons, and the MT-100 has been used by They Might Be Giants, notably the "funny" patch in their song "Put Your Hand Inside the Puppet Head".

1 Sound generation method
2 Patches
3 Samples
4 Documentation

[edit] Sound generation method

The MT-100 and its cousins (such as the MT-68 and the MT-65) employed the NEC D931x chip to digitally synthesize its sounds. All 20 patches were composed of two short waveforms, usually crossfaded (see Consonant-Vowel Synthesis).

The analog drums are produced by sine oscillators tuned almost to the point of self-oscillation. The variable resistors controlling the ring time of the sine component of the drums are accessible and may be adjusted.

[edit] Patches

The MT-100 has 20 instrument patches (called "tones" in the manual and in the panel legend), selectable through 11 radio buttons (10 patch select and 1 shift) on the front panel. They are: