Casiotone: History and Key Facts

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 instruments competed directly with the PortaSound/PortaTone series from Yamaha.

The first Casiotone keyboards used a sound synthesis technique known as vowel-consonant synthesis to approximate the sounds of other instruments (albeit not very accurately). Most Casiotone keyboards were small, with miniature keys designed for children's fingers, and were not intended for use by professional musicians; they usually contained a rhythm generator, with several user-selectable rhythm patterns, and often the means to automatically play accompaniments.

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