Making music unplugged: retro samplers are back
Casio’s SXC-1 is the latest sign that a generation raised on software is reaching back for something analogue, to reconnect with the natural dynamics of making music.
Casio is not exactly a brand associated with the avant-garde; for decades, it occupied a niche of affordable, functional, and slightly nerdy objects like calculators and wristwatches. However, it also had a second life in the memories of producers and experimenters, anchored to the lo-fi charm of the SK-1, a 1985 sampling keyboard that allowed many to start making music creatively for the first time.
Now, we have its successor. The SXC-1 is a standalone portable sampler that first appeared as a prototype at one of the world’s largest music industry trade events, NAMM 2026, and it sits aesthetically somewhere between a game console and a beat machine.
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Casio SXC-1:
Technical specifications
The SXC-1 comes loaded with over 80 sample banks drawn from the brand’s classics: the SK-1, SK-5, CZ-101, and MT-40. The device carries on the heritage of its ancestors, but it also acknowledges the particular texture of early digital sampling, with its 8-bit grain and compressed frequency range. What was once a technical limitation is now perceived as a language.
The device maintains an ultra-compact design housing a high-fidelity sampling engine capable of capturing audio with clarity, enabling the user to sample from field audio, vinyl, or live instruments. The front panel includes a 4×4 grid of 16 backlit pads, a small OLED display, and two rotary knobs: one covers filter, flanger, phaser, and bitcrusher, while the other handles delay and four-note roll types.
The return of the analogue
Something absurdly refreshing about the SXC-1 is that it does not require an app, a subscription, or to connect to anything else at all; it exists in the physical world as a complete, bounded object. This seems like a banal observation, but it is, in fact, rare to find standalone products in tech anymore, as we now even have light bulbs that only work by connecting to an app on our phones.
Analogue gear sales have been rising steadily; the embrace of retro technologies is one of the dominant wellness trends of the past few years, with young people actively seeking to unplug from their hyper-connected lives. What’s interesting is what’s driving it, as the trend seems to be stemming from a human desire for tactile experiences rather than the vague umbrella of nostalgia. When a 22-year-old buys a record player, they are not trying to go back, they have nowhere to go back to; they are trying to go somewhere different from where they are. It’s about mindfulness and craving experiences that slow life down.
Constraint as freedom
What emerges from the retro trend is not a complete rejection of technology so much as a renegotiation of its terms: people are signalling that convenience without consent is no longer a great proposition. Every device in the tech ecosystem extracts something from its users: attention, data, behaviour, in exchange for its convenience. A standalone sampler extracts nothing, and even with its limitations, it can provide significant creative freedom to musicians compared to digital applications.
The Casio SXC-1 arrives at a moment when the appeal of bounded, self-contained tools is no longer niche. Experienced and amateur producers are buying hardware not out of nostalgia but because it removes a category of decision-making entirely, no plugins, subscriptions, or distractions to manage, and therefore brings the artist closer to the craft.
