Casio guitars

Redlester

Hey up lads. 

For some reason this just popped into my head (I am not on medication or sloshed, by the way). It must have something to do with Christmases past and memories of going round shops, window shopping, etc.

Anyway, I have distinct memories of that brief era when Dixons sold electric guitars, and this'd be late the 80s. I remember seeing a cheaper Yamaha model (some sort of superstrat-type model).

Their main offering seemed to be guitars made by Casio. There was some sort of plastic guitar synth thing, with 'strings' that were floppy lengths of plastic cord. Gawd knows how that worked.

Then there was something rather more guitar like but with what I remember seemed to be a sort of control panel on the lower bout. (Someone please tell me it was a built-in calculator!)  

I also remember that a couple of years later I was watching that programme called 'Rock Steady' that used to be on Channel 4. One time it featured JJ Cale, who was playing a...Casio guitar (and probably working out his gig takings in between songs with the calculator?)

Anyway, some random memories there. Would love to hear from anyone who has memories of seeing/ plying/ owning these, plus any of you who remember Dixon's and Casio's odd respective dalliances with guitars. 

SteveRobinson

@HarrySeven probably has several in his stash

TheMadMick

I remember a black plastic guitar that used a MIDI interface. It was "strung" with plastic strings and didn't do a lot for me. Eventually sold it. Don't know if it was a Casio though.

Henrytwang

It was a pretty terrible thing. There are a few demonstrations to be found on YouTube.

maltingsaudio

The 380 was the best all wood. with the built in midi controller great necks but sketchy electrics. Once my one had emittted the magic smoke for the last time became a great project guitar 

jdgm

I had one of these in black - Casio MG510 MIDI controller/guitar

https://spinditty.com/instruments-gear/The-Casio-Midi-Guitar-Model-MG-510

Nice guitar but if it went wrong it was very difficult to get spares and get it fixed.  It had a lot of glitching and didn't track too well, but at the time it was pretty amazing to plug into a synth module and play! 

The PG310 was the same but had an actual synth in it, that was the J J Cale one I think.  They were made by Fuji Gen Gakki.

https://www.guitar-list.com/casio/guitar-synths/casio-pg-310

The MG500 and DG series were the spaceship-shaped ones AFAIK.

pigface

jdgm said:

The PG310 was the same but had an actual synth in it, that was the J J Cale one I think.  They were made by Fuji Gen Gakki.

https://www.guitar-list.com/casio/guitar-synths/casio-pg-310

I have the PG-310. I used to gig with it in the 90s and even used a couple of the built-in synth sounds live. It's still my main guitar, so you could say I like it :-). The synth electronics have decayed, though, and it's no longer usable for MIDI. The caps tend to go bad, I understand.

JJ Cale's was the PG-380, essentially the same guitar but with a Floyd-like trem.

Edit: if you are interested, you can see it in this thread, and JJ's too. 

https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/comment/2558816/#Comment_2558127

Funkfingers

The all-plastic Casio instruments were the DG-10 and DG-20 - as mentioned in an episode of Flight Of The Conchords. They had a handful of onboard preset sounds. One model may have had a "rhythm machine" percussion and/or accompaniment section.

If present, MIDI spec will be highly restricted. Mode 1, chromatic pitch sensing only. No bending tricks.

JJ72

I seem to remember Charlie Burchill from Simple Minds playing one in the late 80s.....a -MG510 I think?

Redlester

After Casio had a crack at guitars, I'm very surprised that their old US competitor in the calculator market didn't have a crack too. After all, they were called Texas Instruments.  

JohnS37

They were bizarre.  Remember when we would spend lunch hour in the local guitar shop trying out guitars, noodling away?  Well, I was on a course in Manchester, just a few yards away from Forsyth’s, which is an old-school music shop with pianos and woodwind on the ground floor, drums in the basement and guitars on the top floor.
So, up we go.  Helpful salesman asks “have you tried these new digital guitars.” (Did I detect a quiet snigger there?) “ Have a go with this”.
It was a weird plastic thing with nylon strings and a roughly conventional looking neck, body shaped a bit like a Vox Phantom gone wrong.  Since we were all programmers we couldn’t resist anything digital.
Anyway, start noodling away, and hardly any sound comes out, probably every fourth note played.
”What’s wrong with this thing, or is it me?”.  Took quite a while to realise that you had to pluck every single note, and that it couldn’t bend at all.  Only then did I realise that at least half the notes I play are hammers or flick-offs, and they didn’t register with this thing.
NOT impressed!

Bellycaster

I recall Dixons selling Guitars. I think they were sold in "Starter Packs" with a small amp. I remember playing one circa 1987, but I'm sure it was some sort of Strat, maybe even a Squier.

I'm surprised the Salesman let me plug it in as I was only 15, albeit 6' 3" of 15

It probably sounded really bad, I wouldn't want to go back in time and hear myself on that day

ToneControl

I had a 510
I think it was £300 odd from Soho Soundhouse / Turnkey in 1989/90 I drove down from Manchester to get it, in my first car, and nearly got done for driving the wrong way around Soho square. I learned a lot about aggressive driving in London on that day.

I was well made, but the neck warped on mine, I was stupidly storing it somewhere unheated in a scary flat for security reasons, so I assume that was the reason

I was quite keen on the idea of a midi guitar, but eventually realised it was easy to learn to play a keyboard

HarrySeven

The DG series were uniformly naff, IMHO. 

Never really got on with the PG/MG series either - I may still have a couple somewhere. They always felt a bit, errrr...indifferent/bland neck/playability-wise (to me, anyway). Also, the well-documented cap failures meant that MIDI got glitchy and/or dead after a while. Not *that* tricky to repair, though.

While on the subject, anyone remember the Casio EG-5? 

ICBM

HarrySeven said:

Never really got on with the PG/MG series either - I may still have a couple somewhere. They always felt a bit, errrr...indifferent/bland neck/playability-wise (to me, anyway).

Me too - I found it surprising how many professionals used them as conventional guitars, presumably after trying them for the MIDI function but finding they liked the guitar. I never understood why... I always found them - even the high-end models - entirely characterless. The quality of the hardware was also questionable.

WezV

ICBM said:

HarrySeven said:

Never really got on with the PG/MG series either - I may still have a couple somewhere. They always felt a bit, errrr...indifferent/bland neck/playability-wise (to me, anyway).

Me too - I found it surprising how many professionals used them as conventional guitars, presumably after trying them for the MIDI function but finding they liked the guitar. I never understood why... I always found them - even the high-end models - entirely characterless. The quality of the hardware was also questionable.

I suspect it has a lot to do with how they look, rather than how they play or sound   

ToneControl

WezV said:

ICBM said:

HarrySeven said:

Never really got on with the PG/MG series either - I may still have a couple somewhere. They always felt a bit, errrr...indifferent/bland neck/playability-wise (to me, anyway).

Me too - I found it surprising how many professionals used them as conventional guitars, presumably after trying them for the MIDI function but finding they liked the guitar. I never understood why... I always found them - even the high-end models - entirely characterless. The quality of the hardware was also questionable.

I suspect it has a lot to do with how they look, rather than how they play or sound   

the pickups were very bland, I replaced them

axisus

I remember them. Looked like a toy. Horrible.

HarrySeven

On reflection, if I could find a reasonably-priced MG or PG (ideally with dead MIDI, ready for re-capping), I think I’d probably buy another - I actually quite enjoy working on them. 

However, the blandness would probably get up me after a while...

Funkfingers

One of my brother's college friends had an MG-510. My abiding memory is that its vibrato had a return to pitch accuracy of zero. 

The pickups had no dynamics or high end sparkle. They could almost have been Select-by-EMG.

HarrySeven

Funkfingers said:

One of my brother's college friends had an MG-510. My abiding memory is that its vibrato had a return to pitch accuracy of zero. 

The pickups had no dynamics or high end sparkle. They could almost have been Select-by-EMG.

Sounds about right...