MrSteveVee

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

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

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

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

Hiya Pete, welcome on board Steve

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

Happy New year one and all

Great

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

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

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

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

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

Rick Stirling has created one for Sonar that he has kindly shared with the community, see this thread

That setup looks a lot of fun

Thanks for the links chaps, Steve

From my perspective Casio need their customers to start to look at them as a professional supplier rather than just a cheap consumer supplier as perceived here in the UK so I doubt that they will react to this at all, merely look at what is being offered and try to gauge how the customer respond and what sales are made using this information as a guide for any future designs and developments. In my opinion Casio need to concentrate more on promoting their current line up better first. For example the MZ-X300/500 is not even sold in the UK and to tempt the pro's they will need to show a steady release of more rythm/styles plus get more 3rd party developers to buy into development of them. Steve

Haha I had to rise to the.bait of that question! When I was watching the you tube videos there was one where a new free sampler editor was demonstrated and it had hex layer on the menu, does this not do what you are asking? steve

Update. Yup, you was spot on Rick, it was the arpeggio menu, I just had to sneak back to power it up to check whilst the wife patiently waited looking at the TV on pause!! thanks for setting me back on the right path, appreciate it Steve

Hmm there is a distinct possibility as I was going through all menus to try and get an idea on how this beast works. I will have a look tomorrow to see if it the settings I can visualise that I saw thanks for the help steve

Hi all, A genuine question this time if I may. When playing with the menus I came across the setting where you can state what the Harmonise will affect Upper 1 (by default I believe) or upper 2 or both or lower 1/2/both. I have just spent the last hour trying to find it again, going through the menu's over and over but I cannot find it anywhere! The manuals have no mention of it either so I am now stumped. Please tell me I am not dreaming and point me in the right direction for the settings please? thanks Steve

Thanks all, it looks like the keyboard suffers from key clatter on some of the keys as others have reported on theirs and may have been the reason it was returned to become B stock but everything else seems to be working fine so I can live with this as its only home use and more an annoyance than a hindrance I have been busy diving into menus to see how to drive this beast. Immense fun, at first I thought it was a bit reduced with tones rhythms held togetiher by registrations but about an hour ago I found the music pre sets, Oh yes! The next step its to work out what the difference between a registrationand and a musical pre set is but as my 2 year old Grandson is here at the moment so it is put away safely as he only wants to jam on it with the jam in sandwich Speak later Steve

Hi all, this is the continuation of the keyboard purchase saga from Bax. Apologies that it is a bit long winded and apologies for my quirky English humour! So last night I packed up the keyboard and delivered it to the UPS pickup point. I then Emailed customer services to inform them that it was on its way before returning to perfect my Ralph Maten impersonations This morning wondering downstairs muttering "Was ist für das Frühstück" when I heard a ding dong from the doorbell, My good lady wife went off to see who it was and returned with.......the power supply!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! How, why! Customer telephone support had said they had not shipped it as there was a glitch. Customer Email support confirmed there was a problem and it had not shipped, Ralph Maten had said "Es gibt keinen Löffel", but they lied, they lied!! It had been shipped, it was chugging away to me all along except no one had actually notified anyone about it Aghh panic panic what to do! I quickly ran outside to jump in the car, heard a neighbour scream, quickly ran back indoors, got dressed, then repeated the manoeuvre! I raced down to the UPS drop of point, keeping to the limits but revving the engine like mad so that it got me there faster. Screeching to a halt I charged into the shop and begged for the return of my parcel waving my receipt manically to the staff, onlookers and a nearby pedestrian. Chastened by the chorus of "back of the line" I waited my turn before pleading with the shop keeper. "sorry" informed the shopkeeper in a passive tone, it was collected this morning NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I left the shopkeep my number in case he had somehow misplaced it! and slowly slouched back to the car. What a dingbat, if I had just waited one more day. Aha! Maybe I could get it from UPS delivery depot. I poodled off home, revving the engine even harder. Back home I phoned UPS. After what appeared to be several years they called back and informed me that they had not actually picked up any parcels from that pickup point so it must still be there. AHA!! I knew it, they had lied as well. Its a conspiracy, a trick, they want to keep my precious! In a half deluded state I raced back to the drop of point and charged up to the shopkeep and stammered in a non stop voice. Its still here, UPS said they have not picked it up, You are wrong, it has not gone, gimme gimme! The Shop keep just looked at me. No smile, no smirk, not even a raised eyebrow. He slowly looked at the corner that had one tiny parcel deposited today, and looked back at me. Sob! it was gone. Winging its way back to the Netherlands and now UPS has lost it too! Yesterday I had a keyboard without a power supply. Today I had a power supply without a keyboard. I thanked the shop keep and drove home. My wife ran up to me and in an effort to cheer me up said "Willst du Sex" But even that failed to cheer me up, and I made a mental not to delete those darn Ralph Maten videos from the recorder I sat in my armchair and quietly cried to myself, my left hand wandered off to find a beer and I wallowed in self pity. The phone rang "Guten Tag" I said "This is the shopkeep. Are you the guy chasing a parcel that frightened away all my customers" "Ya" "Well UPS have just delivered it back to me. Can you please collect as its blocking my doorway" WHAT!!! Yes YES YEEEES! Thank you UPS. Thank you shopkeep. I now have the keyboard and I have the power supply and I am now going to conjoin the two forever and play play PLAY all night Thanks for reading all is trueish with a little exaggeration and maybe wishful thinking with the wife!! Speak later Steve Translations: Was ist für das Frühstück: What is for breakfast Es gibt keinen Löffel : There is no spoon (Matrix) Willst du Sex: Do you want sex

Haha not heard that for many a year

Haha love the Bees! Thanks chaps Steve