page_title: Casio VL-1
section_title: Notable uses and appearances
hierarchical_section_title: Casio VL-1 / Notable uses and appearances
caption_attribution_description: English: Casio VL-1 pocket synthesizer, released in 1980. Deutsch: Casio VL-1 Mini-Synthesizer, eingeführt 1980.
context_page_description: 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.
  It has 29 calculator-button keys, a three-position octave switch, one programmable and five preset sounds, ten built-in rhythm patterns, an eight-character LCD, a 100-note sequencer, and a multi-function calculator mode. The VL-1 is notable for its kitsch value among electronic musicians, due to its cheap construction and its unrealistic, uniquely low-fidelity sounds.
  The VL-1 was followed by the VL-10, basically the same machine in a smaller unit, and the VL-5, a polyphonic version, capable of playing four notes simultaneously, but lacking the VL-1's synthesizer section due to the removal of the calculator mode.
context_section_description: The VL-1 acquired enduring notability in 1982, when the German band Trio used it in one of their songs, the "faux-Kraftwerk tune", "Da Da Da". They used the Rock-1 rhythm preset and the Piano voice.
  A similar rhythm preset, Rock-2, features in the first half of "The Man Whose Head Expanded" by The Fall, only to be cut short by Mark E. Smith's command to "turn that bloody blimey space invader off". The Rock-1 preset was also used in the groups track "Fortress" on their album Hex Enduction Hour.
  Industrial artist Monte Cazazza uses the VL-1's drum patterns on both sides of the "Stairway to Hell"/"Sex Is No Emergency" single (1982).
  The music video for Thomas Dolby's hit "She Blinded Me With Science" shows a group of schoolchildren holding VL-1s during a dream sequence.
  The Human League used the VL-1 for "Get Carter", a song on their album Dare.
  "Le Casio", the final track on the album Vehicles and Animals by Athlete uses the VL-1's 'Fantasy' voice.
  The VL-1 is used by death industrial act Brighter Death Now.
  The Rock-1 and Rock-2 rhythms are heard on the track "Stop/Start" by The Assembly.
  A VL-1 is used in "A Lap Dance Is So Much Better When The Stripper Is Crying" by Bloodhound Gang.
  In 1995, "parsimonious" French singer/songwriter Dominique A used a minimum of instruments, including the VL-1 (called the "VL Tone" in the French press).
  The progressive electronica band Yip-Yip often uses the VL-1's distinctive beats.
  Fergie's "Clumsy" also uses the 'Rock-2' beat from the VL-1.
  On older Sakata (Australian rice cracker company) advertisements, the Rock-1 rhythm is used as a backing beat.
  In one Homestar Runner cartoon, Strong Bad creates a "crazy cartoon" called "Sweet Cuppin' Cakes", in which he appears as a character, but with a VL-1 as a head. When he gets angry, he plays the VL-1's Demo Song.
  The Rock-2 rhythm is used in the track "Who Was That" by Deee-Lite.
  2-D, from the band Gorillaz, says that his first keyboard was a Custom VL-1.
  Canadian musician and sound designer David Kristian's The Mariana Trench album was made entirely using a VL-1 through various guitar effect pedals and loopers.
  In Ecuador, the demo song of the VL-1 is played in a news program that broadcast on Radio Cristal Guayaquil called "Desayúnese con las noticias"; the song is played daily at 7:30AM.
  British bubblegum-pop duo Mogul used the VL-Tone extensively throughout their early recordings, including a female vocal-led version of "Roll With It".
  A VL-1 rhythm appears towards the end of the Trans-X song "Living on Video".
  In 2009, Cobol Pongide toy music artist used Vl-1 on the album Musica per Anziani Cosmonauti in ADSR synthesizer mode.
  Luke Haines' 2011 album 9½ Psychedelic Meditations on British Wrestling of the 1970s and early '80s includes the track "Big Daddy Got A Casio VL-Tone", which features the Casio's distinctive beats.
  Tony Banks used VL-Tone's Rock 1 rhythm as the basis for his song "Charm" from the album The Fugitive (1983). The song was also released as a single.
  Croatian pop group Magazin used the VL-1 on their album "Kokolo", released in 1983.
  XTC's Andy Partridge used the VL-1's sequencer in conjunction with the Violin sound to produce the fast Middle-Eastern runs on his demo to "Terrorism" (1985) which can be found on Coat of Many Cupboards and (originally) The Meeting Place EP.
  "Casio Song", the opening track on the Dzeltenie Pastnieki album Depresīvā pilsēta (1986), is the Casio VL-1 demo song with lyrics written and sung over it by Roberts Gobziņš. The instrument is heard on many more of their studio recordings, and has most recently appeared live in 2012, being played by Viesturs Slava on the song "Mēness deja".
  "Fantasy Shift" from Stephen Molyneux's The Stars Are the Light Show (2012, Watery Starve Press) features the VL-1 "Fantasy" voice.
  "Government Hooker" by Lady Gaga, featured on the album Born This Way, features the Piano voice.
  Richard Barone has used the Casio VL-1 on many albums he has produced since the 1980s, especially augmenting real strings with the violin setting, and augmenting Mellotron sounds with the V
caption: Vienna Technical Museum / VL-1 Inv. Nr 81934
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