Vestakozo DIG-420

Preliminary remark: appearently most people (including me) are spelling the name of this company wrong like vestaKAZA; but it must be correct vestaKOZO. See the printing on the serialnumber plate of this MIDI/CV-Interface: http://www.cykong.com/Synths/Vesta%20Kozo%20MDI-1/Images/MDI-1-Rear.JPG.

The Vestakozo DIG-420 is an astonishing audio delay from around 1988. It provides CV and Gate control where the CV controls by 1V/doubling the delay time. This makes the DIG-420 perfect for analog controlled karplus strong synthesis. But it also does a great rough sounding sampler with CV/Gate control. As one can do overdubs over already sampled material in realtime while in a kind of loop mode, it is also perfect for live sound collages.

At the moment I can provide only some pics (not sharp and small...). More information will come soon (hopefully ;-)). If some one has an original user manual or a service manual I would really like to get a copy of it; also more information who imported the vestakozo stuff to germany is welcome. Meanwhile I received the Vestakozo_DIG420_owners_manual.pdf. Also I found out, that MTR-Audio once was the importer of VestaKozo gear in England.

If you are looking for one (they are really rare): you should search also for "Electra EP-501". This is a relabled Vestakozo DIG-420.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
If you want to hear some Music made with the DIG-420, then visit the website of Richard Scott. He bought my first DIG-420; after some weeks he wrote me the following mail:

thanks again for the Vesta Kaza Florian, I certainly didn't know what I was buying and I wasn't even sure why I was buying another delay unit anyway (I own 2 eventides and a lexicon PCM70!) I think when it arrived I thought it was some crazy echo box, but experimenting with the sampling and looping aspect makes me see it differently... including as a digital VCO! I have it triggered from an frostwave fat controller sequenecer and just feed it one or two notes from an oscillator (or anything actually, it really doesn't care) and just about everything it does sounds great, and really quite unlike anything else I have. I have something I have been looking for for a long time... and a way of making synth basslines that do not sound cliched, something between digital, karplus and analog. its an unbelievable sound.... these units should be changing hands for 600 euroes!!!

So, indeed, I understand your attachment to this unit, and you sold it to the right guy, i really love it and somehow its at the centre of my thinking right now

[...]the dynachord was worth a try but I think I will sell it on quite soon, its okay, but lacks something special, so if you happened to have had anyone else asking about it in Berlin it could be easy...

thanks again

Richard

It took two years, and then I bombed Richard with mails, that I want to buy back his DIG-420. But he resisted. Meanwhile he owns two of those. Ok, so I went the hard way and put up a search on ebay, which gave me another two years later a DIG-420 from Japan. And then two weeks later, Devo from beatboxer.de called me: he has a friend, who inherited an old music shop out in the "lower bavarian woods". The guy will sell some stuff from the attics of this shop. That is how I got my second DIG-420... ;-)

There is a nice demo video which shows a few of the neat tricks of the DIG-420:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ho7BUzGLY8

more to come soon.