Casio VL-1 was a revolutionary musical instrument that was introduced in 1981. It came packaged as a small yet beautiful and truly first family oriented keybard/synthesizer that was affordable. I still remember playing the demo tone and falling in love with it. My father got it around 1984 and I was totally awstruck by the music that came out of it in different tones and the best part was the beatbank that was built into it.

Although I was never able to learn playing it with partly due to my lack of musical knowledge or rather a music tutor, I still spend hours trying to generate some small wacky notes on it.

Casio VL-1 came with a white leather sleeve to keep it in. VL-1 had Piano, Flute, fantasy, Violin,  Guitar and ADSR voices. There was also a rhythm bank comprising of March, Waltz, 4-Beat, Swing, Rock-1, Rock-2,  Bossanova, Samba, Rhumba, Beguine. There was also a tiny LCD display where you could see the notes you were playing. The truly revolutionary component was ADSR using which you could create a custom voice.

I believe i still have one of these beauties lying around somewhere in the storage back home. You can still find VL-1 on eBay. Till then here is small video showing off Casio VL-1’s features.