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MrSteveVee

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About MrSteveVee

  • Birthday October 22

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    Kent, UK

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  1. Ahh the semantics and legalities are such a minefield in this area for sure, if I was a legal expert in this area I could probably make a fortune! However if the rules of the house are no, then effectively discussions in this area are pretty much irrelevant. No probs, rules are rules, I shall drop the topic. Steve
  2. I do not think that this is quite true. You are not allowed to sell or trade etc an official wav form used within a keyboard, but you can quite happily sell /trade/ give away music that you create from a keyboard (otherwise no one could ever use one commercially) and a single note is classed as this Steve
  3. Hi all, while we would all like better and more, I think that sometimes our views become a little distorted with the passion of our problems and we need to look on things from a different perspective at times so may I use Songwriters post to look at things from a different perspective and one that may help open the picture a little. I guess that this depends on the part of the world you are looking from and for that matter what markets Casio was aiming the product at. Yes there are Videos and tutorials out there from Casio that we cannot understand, but just because they are not in English does not mean they are not supporting it. We know it is not sold in the UK so why should there be support for it here? . You may ask why it was not sold in the UK? Well when a product is launched you would not do it globally, it would cost too much to set up and if it failed, would be an economic disaster with units built but unsold. Instead you launch in the areas you expect to sell the most. If its successful you roll it out further. If not, you scale back or stop. Justifiable complaints. I guess it depends who is complaining and where. If people complain on a forum, what is the chances that someone from Casio has read them (or auto troll for them)? and if they do, would they actually speak to someone who can document the changes?. And if we assume that that did happen, then someone would have to evaluate the problem/request and deicide if it is worth doing, financially. Why financially? well although we are all passionate about the music and keyboards, Casio is a company, and as a company they are interested in only one thing, making money for the shareholders. It is the prime reason for their existence, and it all revolves around money (unfortunately). If they produce the perfect keyboard, support it fully, add all the enhancements we ever needed, we would be ecstatic and, they would go bust! Casio must sell their products constantly to survive, and a happy user with the perfect product is unlikely to buy another. Casio employ marketing directors who's job of course is to direct the company in the market, that is their sole job and one would expect that they know the markets for the products that they are selling far far better than us. They look where they can sell in the multi 1000's anything less is not worth looking at Not at all. They are obliged to honour the guarantee period of the product, and also ensure it has not violated any health & safety problems that were not originally known, and that's about it. As mentioned, Casio is a company who's prime existence is to make money. If supporting a product helps in future sales, then yes they will do it, if the product is end of life, not selling, obsolete, then no, it is just a waste of their internal revenue and leads down the path to insolvency. Speaking of support, personally I worked in IT for 40+ years through programming, R&D, support up into team leading and finally complete project management (one billion GBP company) so I have some experience in how these things tick over. At the lower end of the chain it is rare that anything can be fixed or enhanced unless it comes down from the top . Even the bug list (and I am sure that most of the complaints aired here are on a bug list somewhere) has to be vetted and approved by someone before anyone can work on it, and these enhancements/fixes are all time and cost estimated. Enhancements are put on the "yes one day" list or given to R&D (is it known, is it under development for the next product, Will it increase sales for current product and if not, can it be easily and cost effectively be developed for the existing product) One must pity the support department, a company is a bit like a mini world, each Section in this world has to justify its existence and has a budget plus a set of obligations, in turn the sections have departments, all working the same. Now the support department is the unwanted runt of the lot. Why? It is because it brings in to income to the department, just costs money. no one wants the support department in their budget and if they have it, they keep it as small as possible and on a tight reign (R&D is different) , Ooop sorry I digress Again, Directors job to dictate the market areas based on their knowledge of what will sell? The fact that we would like it different is pretty irrelevant. I spoke to a couple of companies when I was looking for the X500 in the UK. Obviously they did not have one to sell, but both said it was not something they wanted to sell anyway. At a guess, not enough profit and too few sales for it to be worth their while to stock. Remember if Casio wants to sell to the UK market they would need to see sales in the umpteen 000's not a couple of thousand Argue? , no not at all, pure discussion When I worked at the lower levels I so wanted to add in enhancements, fix areas that I knew needed improving, begged, pleaded, even threatened to get my own way, but rarely did. As I went up the ladder so to speak, it changed from a personal knowledge of the product code to how the uses and the company (The world) perceived the product, it uses and how they needed it. The perspective changed from my wanting to change things, to how the users wanted /needed changes, but again, discussing with my peers more often than not had little effect. It was not until I reached the upper levels into the full project management you fully understand why. Then I was the one that fed down the yes/no/working priorities. Yes it would be good, yes its was needed, yes the users are screaming, BUT if I delay this here, it affects the delivery HERE! and that will cost us millions. Yes its a good idea, yes it will make the product brilliant, but sales said it will only marginally affect output so where do I get funding from to pay R&D time! Now think of the effects of a multi billion pound complex world like Casio. Now how can one even think of discussing this any different Steve
  4. I had a similar problem when I first got my keyboard, it turned out to be the vibrato wheel on the left of the keyboard that was turned up just a little that was affecting the tone. Have a check to see if that is your problem Steve
  5. Hiya Pete, welcome on board Steve
  6. Only the titles Rick?! You mean you didn't go and learn German to translate it all for the rest of the community!! HAHA. Thanks Matey, they are very useful a key guide Steve
  7. Happy New year one and all
  8. That sounds a bit better. The guy I was chatting to (it was on a web chat) finished the conversation with words to the effect that he didn't like Casio's so that probably had a bearing on his dismal offer Steve
  9. I did an enquiry on a couple of sites using a cica~£1300 Yamaha as the trade up product. I think it was AC Hamilton who replied "£220 as they go for £300 on Ebay", so not a lot on your initial purchase Steve
  10. Personally I would not worry about getting weighted or 88 key etc at such an early stage. I would look more for getting your boy something that he will have lots of fun with and enjoy, and also I would ensure that it would be easy to move about to take to his friends houses plus cheap enough that if he gets fed up with it or it gets a bit damaged it's not a huge loss. If he keeps playing and enjoying the keyboard, I would then look to something better for his more serious learning, but I would still keep the original one to take to mates play, as that's the most important part in the early stages, the fun factor. Steve
  11. Assuming the keyboard sends standard midi, then yes you probably could use it as a MIDI controller. Now I am in the same age bracket and situation as yourself and also like our good colleague Rick Sterlin, I too am lucky enough to have a Korg Kronos, which is probably the most complex workstation on the planet! I spent many, many hours running round in circles in frustration with this board for a good year or so until a few months ago when I bought a B stock MX-500 to try out a Synth/arranger hybrid. Now my 500 has the keybed clatter on most keys so that's a bit annoying so I started to use the Korg as a Midi controller. I personally found that I was just spending too long trying to see what I could control , setting up, Midi between the 2 (both ways) and never using the 500 for anything much. Over the last week or two, I have disconnected the boards and I am now just using the 500 on its own, and by severing all the distractions I have learned so much more about this board, its extremely versatile and I have been having great fun and hardly notice the clattering keybed. So my advice would be to forget trying to get the perfect setup for now, instead just concentrate on the keyboard and see how much enjoyment you get. Play with it, change things. don't worry about setting up a perfect song, just press buttons, slide sliders and have a ball. Do this for a good solid week and I think that you will start to get a good feel for the 500 and you will then be able to answer your own original questions Have fun Steve
  12. This is true of course and we all have different ways to enjoy our hobbies and professions. For me part of the attraction of a workstation/arranger is that it is all in the keyboard. I press a button and twirl a knob and it reacts. There is no incompatibility, or delays, no loss of connection, no trailing wires or third party plugins that have to be bought or registered, no worries that it might be incompatible and corrupt something, its just all in the box ready at hand. Switch on and away you go. Steve
  13. Rick Stirling has created one for Sonar that he has kindly shared with the community, see this thread
  14. That setup looks a lot of fun
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