Roland MKS-20

Name: Casio MKS-20
Brand: Casio

Every source that names this module calls it a Roland - and every source that names a Casio calls it something else.

Overview

The MKS-20 turns up in studio gear lists from the late 1980s as a rack-mounted digital piano. It turns up under the Roland banner, not Casio's. Sound on Sound (1996, p.260) lists it as an "MKS20 (RD 100 in a rack)" - a rack version of the RD-100 digital piano - and secondhand ads in the same issue price one at £450. That one line says what the module is, what it was derived from, and roughly what it cost used.

The naming is the problem. Period dealer listings put the MKS-20 alongside a whole rack family - the MKS-50, MKS-80 Super Jupiter, and MKS-100 - all under the Roland heading, in advertisements that read "Roland WE DESIGN THE FUTURE." One dealer flyer lists the "MKS20 digital piano rack module" at a list price of $1,895, discounted to $1,099 on a single-unit special. Another lists the "MKS 20 Digital Module" at a list of $2,295 and a sale price of $1,599. A third offers the "MKS 20 Digital piano mod" at $1,295. The prices are all over the place, which is normal for dealer ads of the era. The product is the same every time: a digital piano module, rack-mounted, sold by Roland dealers.

In no source available here is the MKS-20 a Casio product. The MKS prefix is a Roland rack-module convention, shared with the MKS-50, MKS-80, and MKS-100 in the same dealer ads. Anyone looking for a Casio digital piano module from this era needs to look at something else.

The MKS-20 does show up in serious studio settings as a piano voice in MIDI rigs. A Recording Engineer profile of Los Angeles session players places one in the rig of Mike Lang, the busy television and film keyboardist, alongside a Roland D-50, a Jupiter 8, an MKS-50, a Super Jupiter, and an MKS-80. Lang's stated approach is choosing instruments for their individual character rather than for convenience. The same article lists an MKS-20 in the studio array of Steve Lindsy at the Village Recorder in West Los Angeles, a room whose client list included Luther Vandross, Joni Mitchell, Elton John, and the Pointer Sisters. Two separate professional rigs, one module, no mention of Casio.

That is all the sources verify. The MKS-20 is a rack-mounted digital piano module, derived from the RD-100, sold through Roland dealers at list prices quoted anywhere from $1,895 to $2,295, and used by working session players in Los Angeles studios. Its secondhand value in the UK in late 1996 sat around £450. Past that, the sources are silent - no production years, no circuit details, no voice count, no key specifications of any kind.

This archive has the MKS-20 filed under the wrong brand. It belongs with the Roland rack modules, not with the Casio instruments that fill this section. Collectors hunting for one should search under Roland, expect it to be described as an RD-100 in rack form, and treat any listing that calls it a Casio as a mislabel. The module itself is well attested in professional use and in dealer inventory. The Casio attribution is not attested anywhere.