AlenK

Realistic slides even with no other notes playing are hard to accomplish without actually sampling them. Hammer-ons and pull-offs (do bass players do the latter?) are also difficult to do well without sampling. Maybe impossible given that I have yet to hear any of those done convincingly. Maybe there is something in the TwiddlyBits library, which I have not heard other than the few freebies that were (once) on the company's website.

Seems to be be some atypical bass playing there. I am going to make my life simpler and not try to emulate any of that!

The 560 (and presumably the 5S) allows triggering a layer on key release. Unfortunately, the XW models do not. Re release velocity, AFAIK, no current Casio keyboard generates or responds to it. Heck, I doubt there have been more than a few synths/keyboards that could. But, not being a bass player, I don't understand how triggering a layer on release would help for any of the articulations needed. For example, a string pulled in order to do a "pop" doesn't seem to make a sound until it is released (AFAIK from listening to videos). So when emulating the sound you would need only start it on key depression as normal. What am I missing?

Luckily, for most songs employing slap bass we wouldn't need to emulate every possible articulation. Nor would we need to sound like any particular player's personal style or like any particular bass guitar. We just need to sound like someone reasonably competent is playing _a_ bass guitar. I was initially motivated to explore this after watching instructional videos of how to play Mark King's bass line in Level 42's "Love Games." Every player did it somewhat differently, every player had a different sound out of their bass guitar and even King played it differently live than on the recording. Unlike Jokeyman, I don't play bass, only regular guitars, so it makes the challenge somewhat harder.

I don't have a PX-5S and apparently the PX-5S data editor won't let you see the structure of tones without having a PX-5S attached. If a similar tone were available for the PX-560, which I do have, I would be all set. Re muted "dead" notes or what most bass players seem to call "ghost" notes (ghosts are dead people, right?), there are apparently _three_ different kinds and they all sound different. One is a slap with strings muted. The other is a pop with the strings muted. The other is a slapping action against the strings with the _fret_ hand to mute them. The latter was often used by Mark King of Level 42. As if complete slap bass emulation wasn't hard enough.

How could I not read this? Utter madness for sure. Maybe you can record the result and sell it to pest removal companies, for surely it would drive invading critters out of any house (as well as all the people).

Since the step sequencer and phrase sequencer (and the arpeggiator and the LFO's) all run off the same clock, they are certainly synchronized to clock ticks. But the question is, and what I meant by being synchronized, is the start of a phrase aligned with any larger unit of time such as a beat or a measure of the step sequencer? I'm pretty sure it is not. But you can easily test this by intentionally trying to start a phrase in-between major beats (say, in-between quarter notes in 4/4 time). P.S. I should address how quantizing incoming notes in the phrase sequencer affects things. My guess (I have not checked) is that the quantization timing is with respect to the first note (or controller movement) you enter when recording a phrase. So, for example, if you select quarter-note quantization and 4/4 time in the phrase sequencer and you start the phrase a little late after the beat of the step sequencer, the resulting notes will all align to quarter notes but with the same delay after the beat as the initial note. The notes of the phrase will not snap to the quarter notes of the step sequencer. But I could be wrong. In any event, this shouldn't be a problem in practise because most people will be able to start recording a phrase on a beat.

double post

The phrase sequencer does not actually synchronize with the step sequencer, at least not when operated by the front panel button or by pressing keys with KEYPLAY enabled. Are you perhaps referring to the ability of the sequencer to call up phrases? That will indeed synchronize a phrase with a sequence but this is actually separate from the phrase sequencer itself. Because it is separate you can actually play a phrase directly from the phrase sequencer while a phrase is being played by the sequencer. However, there are some caveats regarding the use of a phrase in a sequence. First caveat: the phrase can only play a tone in part 1 or parts 8 to 16 (1 only when that part is selected rather than part 14 for the Solo1 track) whereas a phrase played directly from the phrase recorder can play whatever is enabled in zones/parts 1 to 4. Second caveat: A phrase played from the step sequencer can only be as long (timewise) as the step-sequence pattern that plays it. When a pattern loops, the phrase will be restarted. Regarding the action of the sliders in the mixer, yes, it's unfortunate that the sliders for non-step-sequencer parts (1 - 7 ) behave in that way. I tend to think that this is a bug. There is no useful reason for such behavior whereas the usefulness of behaving the way we want it to behave is obvious.

Every keyboard that includes a GM sound set has a slap bass tone or sample. But it is almost always ONLY a slap bass tone or sample. When playing a bass guitar in the slap-bass style, two other tones are typically produced in addition: a "pop" tone made by pulling a string away from the body, and a dead-note tone resulting in part by muting the strings or string with the fret hand. Does any current or past Casio keyboard implement any of those "extra" tones? If not, has anyone here managed to emulate them by editing some other tone? I have a few ideas along those lines but I don't want to re-invent the wheel, so to speak, if it's not necessary.

An interesting observation. Can you provide some examples (identifying both the phrase and the Peformance that normally plays it)? If indeed some phrases are designed to play specific Hex Layer tones, then this is reminiscent of Yamaha's old "MegaVoice" technology. In Yamaha keyboards, this was (still is?) used with pre-programmed "arpeggios," which can incorporate what we would call phrases.

Everyone here should be familiar with Kristian Terzić. He has demoed product in the Casio booth at NAMM (and Musikmesse) for a number of years and the many YouTube videos of him playing various Casio products (XW-P1, PX-5S, PX-560, MZ-X500 and maybe others) are some of the best you find out there. What seems to be his latest video release to YouTube is of him playing ONLY the XW-P1. His playing, of course, is excellent. But what is even better is that he states in the description that he intends to upload the tones he created and plays in the video to the Casio Music Forums. There are some great sounds there, especially IMO the string tone he starts playing at 2m10s. It's just about as smooth a string sound as I have ever heard come out of the XW-P1 and in answer to my question in the video's comments, Kristian says it is actually a combination of a PCM string tone preset and an edited PCM synth tone.

Outstanding! Thanks for posting this and the Blade Runner stuff. The demos of the XW-P1 you did are still the best out there. These two are the best of the best IMO. They illustrate the enormous potential of the XW-P1, still probably largely untapped.

I wanted to follow up on this. AFAIK there are only two random processes in the XW-P1 and XW-G1: the random pitch patterns in the arpeggiator and the random waveform selectable in the solo-synth LFOs. The latter isn't going to help implement random velocity values for arpeggiator notes, even if you arpeggiate a solo-synth tone. But as I said, there is something you can do using the sequencer control tracks that may sound the same, depending on how you program it. The idea is to point one or more of the control tracks at knobs, with each knob programmed in a Performance to control one or more parameters such as expression (CC#11), filter cutoff (CC#74) and attack time (CC#73). If you program the steps in each of the control tracks to vary over a range of random values and program the length of each track with a different, non-related value (e.g., 11 steps, 13 steps, 14 steps, 15 steps), as your arpeggio plays the chances are good that there will be no apparent repetition, i.e., it should sound completely random, even though it isn't. True, the velocity itself has not been (pseudo-) randomized. Since velocity is transmitted with each MIDI note command, I know of no way to accomplish that. But the above does vary the parameters that typically change with velocity, hence can usually sound very similar. PS. I should add that the knob(s) addressed by the sequencer control track(s) implementing the pseudo-random CC value changes must be enabled in the same zone(s) the arpeggiator is enabled in, and ONLY enabled in that (those) zone(s).

Software is complex. And hence, devilishly difficult to fully test and debug. It's possible that this particular bug of the older software version doesn't rear its ugly head until the Flash memory is stuffed with user content to a certain amount. As a design engineer in my old job, I used to write embedded code for microcontrollers (on circuit boards that I had also designed). I spent many late nights debugging my own code. It was amazing just how many dIfferent ways I could screw it up!

There isn't necessarily a mystery here. All software updates fix bugs as well as (sometimes) adding features. This timing problem could have been caused by one of those bugs. Casio didn't list anything that sounds like it might cause this problem in the release notes but that doesn't mean anything, not with "Improved certain operation" in the list of both updates to the G1 and P1 to date.

Did Mike ever release the tones and other elements he used for the Daft Punk demo he used to do on the XW-P1?

The keyboard arrived and I tried it out with Chordana Play. Indeed, Lesson Plan 2 in Chordana Play behaves in exactly the same way as Watch lesson mode for internal songs in the LK-S250. Lesson Plan 2 works that way for Chordana Play's built in songs and for imported MIDI files. Nice.

Hope you get your G1 working again. Re jumping across two octaves, that is what the "Random 2Oct" pattern does. Patterns are also available for jumping across three and four octaves. Re control tracks with the argeggiatr, on the XW synths you get up to four if you trigger the sequencer to run in parallel with the arpeggiator. For more about that, see section 5.2 in The XW Companion. Re random velocity with a hex layer tone, there is likely a way to do something that is perceptually indistinguishable by using the sequencer in the way described in section 5.2. But I will have to give it more thought to figure out exactly how.

Random modes (four of them, in fact, covering different octave ranges) are also available in the XW-P1, XW-G1 and PX-560. I would assume that they are also available in the MZ-X instruments. And it would surprise me if they were not in the CT-X instruments. So, looks like your wish was granted before you even made it. ;-> But, it seems you want a configurable random arpeggio mode, so maybe your wish has not been granted after all. What parameters would you like to be configurable? If you have an XW-P1 or XW-G1, it is possible to run the step sequencer alongside the arpeggiator (the latter can automatically start and stop the former), which allows a whole bunch of different parameter modifications by using the sequencer's four control tracks.

This is yet another thread about Chordana Play and the LK-S250, but concerning the functionality of the app not about problems with connectivity. As background, I have ordered an LK-S250 as a first keyboard for my grand-daughter's 7th birthday. She has enjoyed noodling around on my PX-560 whenever she has visited (a while ago now given the pandemic) but can't actually play anything. I am hoping that the light-up keys of the LK-S250 and the built-in lessons that use those will motivate her to learn. The UI also looks pretty simple and I hope that with a little instruction she will be able to operate the machine on her own. The dance music mode also looks like something she could have fun with. When she outgrows the LK-S250, I hope it will be passed down to her younger brother. The LK-S250 hasn't arrived yet so I haven't had a chance to check it out in person. But one thing I wonder about concerning the lesson modes is fingering instruction. The previous LK model (LK-S265) has a graphic showing the correct fingering for each step in the Watch lesson mode. The LK-S250 doesn't have that and I presume it does not even list the proper finger(s) numerically, correct? But I see that Casio's Chordana Play app does have this functionality using on-screen graphic depictions of left and right hands. However, when connected to the LK-S250, does Chordana Play support the equivalent of the LK-S250's Watch lesson mode while playing one of the app's songs in the exact same way Watch mode operates on the LK-S250 with an internal song? In other words, does it flash the light for the key (or keys) and play a tone for each step, waiting for the correct key (or keys) to be pressed before advancing to the next step? Unsurprisingly, the Chordana Play user manual is less than clear about this, only describing a lesson plan 2 mode "...in which playback waits until you play correctly using either the app keyboard or a MIDI connected musical instrument keyboard." It doesn't say if it will light up the correct key or keys for a given step while it waits for user input.

Bravely done! You got several of the synth sounds quite close to the original. That song has always been one of my favorites.

A late update but Martin posted another video in 2019, number 11 in the series. It concerns the phrase sequencer.

The app is good - Mike Martin was the driving force behind it - and it does indeed allow interactive control over all envelope and filter parameters of the solo synth. All its parameters, in fact. Nothing appears to be missing. I can't answer your Akai question but you might find some of the answers by reading the XW-P1 midi implementation document and Appendix C of my XW-P1 Companion document. AFAIK, the XW-P1 will respond to all of the CC's, NRPN's and RPN's listed in that appendix of the latter document when it receives them from an external source.

As far as I know, the PX-560 (I have one) does not support hard sync, which is a specific oscillator cross-modulation technique that the "Let's Go" tone depends on. So, an exact emulation will not be possible. However, you might still find something out there that sounds reasonably close by using the resources the synth in the PX-560 does support. It is otherwise a very capable synthesizer, and of course highly polyphonic. (The XW-P1's most capable synthesis mode and the only one that supports hard sync is monophonic, while the Prophet 5 synthesizer that the original "Let's Go" tone was created on is five-note polyphonic.)