Redwave

As I said in the other thread, I was able to work around the problem by setting maximum velocity to 126 in zones which include the faulty key.

It happened on the Ab below middle C for me. Since the second strike is velocity 127 which I rarely if ever generate in my playing, I was able to work around the problem by setting maximum velocity to 126 in every zone which includes this key (in stage settings where I actually need this particular note). The second strike then disappears and the first strike sounds normally.

I once tried abusing the PX-5S phrase feature by loading MIDI drum tracks for full songs into phrases. It actually worked for one song, but after that it must have run out of memory as it quite understandably complained about too many events:) Since then I’ve stuck to short drum loops.

Oh, and an optional music rest :)

Apart from inheriting the improved action/sounds/screen/expression pedal from the latest PX-S keyboards, my main wishes would be monophonic zones and a proper B3/Leslie engine with nine sliders. Stretch goals would be flash memory for loading samples, and expanded phrase memory so I could load MIDI drum tracks.

This seems to be the most common hardware failure mode of the Casio PX-5S, and has been happening for me on the G#3 key for a couple of years. Blowing compressed air between the keys hasn't worked. Since the extra "ghost" note always has velocity 127 and I don't hit the keys that hard, a completely effective workaround for me has been to set maximum velocity to 126 in any stage setting zone where I might need to use G#3.

It would be great if the standard Privia music holder worked with the PX-5S. Wakar, how hard was it to remove the blue strip and how stable is the stand? Do you have photos?

The first would be for a Roland XV-5080 module: PR-E (Preset E Group) 045 Soft Padding. The second is probably a program on a Kurzweil K2500 as you said.

I just bought the somewhat cheaper M-Audio SP-Dual which is working well so far.

Until recently I was running the right output of my PX-5S though a Neo Ventilator II so I could have split settings with mono piano on the left and B3 on the right, This sounded great, and there doesn't seem to be any loss of tone when running piano though the Vent in bypass mode. I decided I wanted stereo piano and organ available at all times, so I've now bought a Yamaha Reface YC: 37 mini-keys with excellent Hammond/Vox/Farfisa/etc tones and nine drawbars. The Reface YC's Leslie emulation is decent enough (better than the PX-5S) that I can leave the Vent home for casual gigs. Also, the Reface YC sits quite nicely on the right side of my PX-5S over the battery compartment, so I don't need a double tier stand.

Thanks for the cool link Gary! The similarity for low to moderately loud playing is uncanny, though the PX-5S (at least the particular program used) doesn't quite match the loud bark of the Rhodes at 0:34, 1:26 and 2:43. My Stage 73 is in storage while I work overseas, but I look forward to comparing it with my PX-5S someday.

Thanks Loz! I thought I'd tried every possible parameter to find the release key click but somehow missed hex layer 6 - turning that down does the trick.

No idea which is which but I slightly preferred #2: more dynamics, realism, warmth and stereo definition. Obviously much of this would be affected by the choice of program, especially on the Casio.

I'm also trying to nail the "I'm A Believer" sound for a gig next week. The closest I can get is Mike Martin's superb Vox Continental V301H stage setting: http://www.casiomusicforums.com/index.php?/files/file/38-vox-continental-v301h/ To get a thinner sound I moved sliders 3 and 4 up to disable those drawbars, but this results in a loud unwanted click in drawbars 1 and 2 whenever a key is released. Has anyone else noticed this? I've experimented with changing a lot of parameters in this stage setting and tone but can't seem to find the source of the key release click.

A Casio CZ-5000 was my first electronic keyboard, in 1985.

Steve, thanks for these great instructions which I stumbled across a couple of weeks ago and finally got around to building last night. I wanted it a little higher so sanded down a 1-foot 3/4" dowel for the rear leg and halved a 69c yardstick from Lowes for the front struts. The resulting elevated stand works fine and will look better when I get around to painting the wood!

Is there an easy way to copy a tone within a stage setting from one zone to another? For example, I wanted to change the very nice stage setting 7-1 "KeyUp EP-S3" to have drums in Zone 1 and move the EP to Zone 2. But Zone 1 uses HEX:U050 "Zone 1 Tone" which is local to this stage setting; unfortunately this tone doesn't seem to be visible to Zone 2, which just sees the global tone HEX U050 "Hex E.Piano1". My eventual solution was to do a global write of "Zone 1 Tone" to HEX:U199, but it was a laborious process. It would be much easier if tones edited internally in one zone were visible to the other zones.

Thanks Mike, much appreciated. On a related note, if would be awesome if drum tones could be assigned to Zone 2 instead of just Zone 1. I understand that it's not a workstation, but typically I just want to add a drum zone and simple phrases to an existing Zone 1-only stage setting and that would simplify the process. Aside from these minor nits I'm really enjoying jamming with the Pro PX-5S - congratulations to you and the Casio engineers for producing such a powerful instrument!

Mike, would it be possible for a future firmware update to increase the Octave Shift range in Midi Edit beyond the current -2 to +2? I tried to create a Stage Setting with drums shifted five octaves up to the top of the keyboard, leaving the rest of the note range for bass and pianos, but the combination of Octave Shift and Transpose is limited to a total of three octaves up or down.