Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: MOTM

I looked at the Suzuki just prior to the holidays. I knew it was being
marketed as a toy, buts still, it seemed like it could be a great
alternative controller if fed to the MIDI/CV converter. I had bought a $45
Casio Midi Saxophone years ago which was a toy but I still managed to put it
to great use (without even being a sax player).

But the Suzuki ended up being much, much cheesier than I even expected. The
salesman completely talked me out of it, which was a major switch for Sam
Ash. It seemed really biased towards its automated tunes and less as a
strumming controller. I hope they do continue to develop this device,
though, because I think there's potential there.

The Casio sax was a good find, though. I fed its internal sounds into a Korg
DVP-1 harmonizer, and its MIDI out controlled a Yamaha TX-81Z. the two
sounds were mixed together and I got some really wild output. The breath
controller really "breathed" life (forgive me) into the sounds.

Around the same time, I also picked up two Yamaha 4-pad electronic drum sets
for very cheap, too, also marketed as toys. Really not bad for the money (I
think I paid about $40 a piece at Service Merchandise, which is also where I
bought the Casio horn). The only complaint I had about the drum pads was the
screwball way you changed MIDI channels: you had to hold down a key sequence
and whack the pads until the right channel got set. There was no display and
it didn't remember settings. But for a toy, it was great! Especially hooked
up to my old HR-16.