You might recall from my meltdown post that one of the options I was considering for replacing my dead MIDI keyboard was to try and rekindle my long lost love affair with Casio keyboards.
There are new models of course, but they are rather expensive, and I’m not sure they have the vintage « cheese-factor » that I’m such a sucker for.
So I did what I should have done long ago and logged onto eBay (.fr) in search for VCC (Vintage Casio Cheese). Lo and behold, there were a whole bunch of keyboards available. Two of them seemed particularly tempting, one of which even had rudimentary MIDI capabilities.
So I got really psyched and totally obsessed with following the two auctions, frantically clicking on the refresh button of my browser. Then, literally during the last minute of the first auction (for the keyboard with MIDI), the price shot way up, and while I had been ahead the whole time, I lost the auction by $0,50 in the last seconds. Good thing too because I had really overbid (the keyboard went for a whopping $40!).
I was pretty disheartened and quite puzzled. Being (still) an eBay virgin, I wanted to understand what had happened and did some research only to discover there is a whole service industry dedicated to eBay sniping. My romantic illusions were shattered in an instant, although I had to admire this further shining example of American ingenuity when it comes to inventing schemes to maximise profit.
All my hopes now hinged on the second auction. This keyboard had no MIDI, but from what I could remember, had the same delicious cheesiness of the Casios I used to own (listen to pretty much anything on Vintage Vince to hear what I mean).
As hours and minutes passed, the price stayed stuck at $16. As the last excruciating seconds ticked by, there I was, poised to bid as fast as is humanly possible, and then…
Nothing happened. I… won the auction!!! For $16.
I was delirious with joy, jumping up and down under the incredulous and worried gaze of my children.
So I am now the proud (virtual) owner of a Casiotone MT-100.
I say virtual because it is being shipped (for more than the price of the keyboard by the way) from the US to France by the USPS, so it’s probably in the depths of a cargo hold on a ship somewhere on the Atlantic right now, but hopefully, I’ll receive it before christmas.
While this purchase doesn’t do anything to solve my inability to input MIDI notes into my Mac, I sure can’t wait to get my hands on it and enjoy the legendary and delightful Casio 1-finger-chord accompaniments. Maybe I’ll try to learn to play the guitar while changing chords on the Casio with my toes…