My neighbor’s unexpected Friday evening clear-out led to a surprising acquisition: a dusty, old electric guitar declared defunct and destined for the trash. Knowing my musical inclinations, he offered it to me, a proposition I rarely refuse. My hope was to resurrect it, perhaps for my own music or to utilize at the secondary school where I work. What he handed over was not just any guitar, but a blast from the past – a Casio DG-20 Digital Guitar.
First Impressions: What is the Casio DG-20?
The Casio DG-20, dating back to approximately 1987, is a unique instrument. This digital guitar boasts 20 preset tones, 12 drum patterns, a drum-fill button, and even individual drum sounds for manual fills. It features MIDI-Out connectivity and a built-in speaker. While it resembles a guitar, the Casio DG-20 offers a playing experience far removed from a traditional six-string. Casio, in the late 80s, seemed to be exploring uncharted territory, aiming to provide guitarists with a synthesizer-like instrument. It has a distinctly experimental feel, pushing the boundaries of touch-pad technology and user interfaces of the era. In hindsight, it might have been an overreach, but in 1987, the Casio DG-20 must have appeared incredibly innovative and futuristic.
How the Casio Digital Guitar Works: A Deep Dive
The functionality of the Casio DG-20 hinges on a two-part system. Firstly, string plucking triggers a “note-on” signal via sensors embedded in the saddle. These sprung sensors require a firm pluck to register, making delicate or rapid playing styles challenging. This plucking action, however, only initiates the note. The actual pitch is determined by the second crucial component: the fretboard sensors.
The fretboard is constructed from rubber, an unusual tactile sensation for guitarists. Beneath this rubber surface lies a sensor board. If a string is strummed without pressing any frets, the DG-20 registers the open string note. Each fret, however, has six sensors (one per string), which detect the pressed note. For example, pressing the low E string at the first fret registers an F note. Therefore, the Casio DG-20 cleverly separates note initiation from pitch selection: the pluck starts the sound, and the fretboard determines the note.
Sounds and Tones: Exploring the DG-20’s Sonic Palette
The sounds produced by the Casio DG-20 are quintessential of a compact Casio synthesizer from the mid to late 1980s. They are basic, straightforward, and possess a certain charm, albeit far from realistic. Realism, however, was likely not the primary goal of this instrument. Among the 20 presets are some guitar-esque tones, alongside more diverse sounds like organ, glockenspiel, and clarinet. Personally, I find the pad and bell-like tones most appealing, offering a lush and warm character.
Old Casio Synth 1
The drum patterns are similarly characteristic of 1980s Casio sound – crunchy, boxy, and simplistic, yet brimming with a rustic, kitsch appeal. The built-in speaker struggles with the extremes of the frequency range, but the line-out allows for a fuller appreciation of the DG-20’s sonic output, in all its buzzy, crunchy glory.
Old Casio Synth 2
Playability: The Quirks and Challenges of the Casio DG-20
Playability, in the conventional sense, is where the Casio DG-20 significantly deviates from traditional guitars. For anyone accustomed to playing standard guitars, the DG-20 presents an alien playing experience. Velocity sensitivity is non-existent; notes are either fully on or off. Softly plucked notes often fail to register. Insufficient pressure on the fretboard results in an open string sound, while excessive pressure can trigger unwanted vibrato or even cause the string to contact the next fret, producing a sharp note. Achieving accuracy on this instrument requires a delicate touch, akin to “dancing on ice.”
The nylon strings, all of the same gauge, feel peculiar. Note bending, a staple technique for guitarists, is impossible on the sticky rubber fretboard. Vibrato can be induced by applying extra pressure, but this method is unreliable and prone to misfires. Perhaps the most perplexing aspect is that string tuning is essentially irrelevant to the pitch produced. As long as the strings are taut enough to trigger the “note-on” sensors, the actual tuning has no bearing on the generated sound.
Initially, this was profoundly disorienting. The physical vibration of the strings produced a different pitch than the note being heard. This disconnect creates a visceral dissonance, especially for experienced guitarists. Years of playing guitar ingrain a connection between the heard note and the tactile feedback from the instrument. To have these sensations misaligned is deeply unsettling. While tuning the strings to standard E, A, D, G, B, E improves familiarity, the uniform string gauge creates new problems. Lower strings become too loose, while higher strings become too tight, hindering accurate pluck sensing. A compromise was found by tuning all strings within the same octave, though this remains a bizarre and counter-intuitive adjustment for any seasoned guitar player.
Repairing a Piece of History: Fixing the DG-20’s Power Issue
My neighbor’s reason for discarding the Casio DG-20 was its non-functional state. The DG-20 can be powered by a 9-volt adapter or six D-cell batteries. An article I found online revealed a rudimentary “auto-off” circuit designed to prevent battery drain, triggered after six minutes of inactivity. A common fault in these circuits is transistor failure, which seemed to be the issue with my DG-20. Voltage testing confirmed power loss at these transistors.
Casio DG-20 Circuitboard 1
Replacing the transistors with spares didn’t resolve the problem. The fault likely resided in the capacitors responsible for maintaining charge to keep the transistors open during use. Lacking spare capacitors and observing no visible signs of capacitor failure (bulging or leakage), I opted for a more pragmatic solution. Since battery operation was not a priority, I bypassed the auto-off circuit entirely by short-circuiting the transistors. This brought the Casio DG-20 back to life, ready to be powered by a 9-volt adapter.
Casio DG-20 Circuitboard 2
The Casio DG-20 in 2023: Museum Piece or Musical Instrument?
Owning a Casio DG-20 in the present day feels less like acquiring a conventional instrument and more like obtaining a museum artifact. It’s a relic of a bygone era, a scientific and commercial curiosity that occupies a unique space. Like the Sinclair C5 or Nintendo Virtual Boy, it represents an ambitious, albeit flawed, attempt to innovate.
Casio’s development team must have recognized the DG-20’s limitations as a serious guitar for professional musicians. They likely understood they were pushing technological boundaries, creating more of a tech demonstration than a truly practical instrument. Perhaps the DG-20’s futuristic design was intended to compensate for its playability shortcomings. If so, they succeeded aesthetically. A photo of the DG-20 on social media garnered more attention than some of my own music releases, highlighting its visual appeal and retro charm.
This Casio Guitar is destined to become a conversation piece. Its quirky nature and wonderfully kitsch sounds make it too intriguing to discard, ensuring its future use in some capacity. However, it will likely spend more time being admired and discussed than actively played. Perhaps sparking conversation and inspiring imaginations about the future of music technology was part of Casio’s intention all along. Regardless, owning a DG-20 in 2023 carries a certain post-modern irony, whether viewed as a museum piece, a conversation starter, or a musical instrument.
Verdict: Beauty & The Beast
The Casio DG-20 is a paradoxical instrument, simultaneously beautiful and beastly. Its innovative design was arguably too ambitious for the sensor technology of its time, resulting in significant playability limitations. Mastering the DG-20 would demand considerable effort, likely with inherent restrictions.
Download Casio DG-20 Sampler Instruments
Sonically, it may not impress as a high-fidelity synthesizer. Yet, its sounds possess an undeniable fun factor. While objectively “rubbish” by modern standards, the tones and drum beats are saturated with nostalgic charm, guaranteeing their eventual incorporation into my music. To facilitate this, I’ve sampled all the DG-20’s tones, available for download here. The sampler instruments are configured for Logic’s EXS24/Sampler, but the clearly labeled audio files can be easily adapted to other samplers. In conclusion, the Casio DG-20 remains an ironic, post-modern relic, a retro-aesthetic oddity that embodies both beauty and beast in equal measure.
