Casiotone MT-65 – ‘King Of The Minikeys’

This video, via Unun Septium, demonstrates the Casiotone MT-65, a classic 80’s Casio mini-synth. 

The MT-65 used sound-generation chips that were shared by other Casiotones, but it was one of the few that had the physical controls to take full advantage of the chips’ capabilities.

20 thoughts on “Casiotone MT-65 – ‘King Of The Minikeys’

  1. Well, well, well…I dug around in the closet in one of my spare bedrooms, and what did I find? Yep, one of those old Casio’s! Going to clean off the dust and check it out, soon.

    1. hi I am selling one of these would you know where is best to advertise it,aswell as a Waddington compute-a-tune and a casio pt-1 thanks a lot mike.

  2. I agree. I have 2 of its later but functionally identical model the MT-68 and would not chose to part with them in a hurry. They benefit greatly from a little modding though. It’s possible to add a sustain pedal and brighten the sound by disconnecting it’s fixed passive low pass filters over the output. It has the same voice chip as the capstone mt-400v so there’s information on tablehooters which is useful for this too.

    1. If anyone has any neat solutions for synching these old Casiotones, I’d be really grateful. I’ve spent hours poking around inside this with a voltmeter searching for a regular pulse…

  3. I have one in my back shed 😀 I leave it there to have a little jam whenever i have work to do on the garden haha, great little keyboard

  4. Amen, I love my casio tone. The MT-65 is one of the best.
    I found it easier to come up with tunes the speaker helps but the voices are so musical and they age well!

  5. Hey can anyone help me identify the polarity of this device? I have a universal power supply and there are no marks on the keyboard that specify its polarity. I really like this keyboard and don’t want to blow it up!

    1. It uses a reverse polarity 7,5 to 9V power supply (with positive on the outer sleeve, negative on the “hole”) same as guitar pedals use… So a boss, dunlop or evena 1-spot power adaptee will be ok… Ive been using mine with a 1-spot for years with no problem

      1. I wouldn’t worry about blowing it up. I experimented with polarity on my mt66 to get it right (and then fitted a new socket with a sensible polarity to use a standard transformer). Mine runs fine on 6 volts.

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