Rudolph R-N R

So was it a matter of Casio not having the time before they launched the S500? It seems like a huge missed opportunity, that each Tone could have had a factory customized setting of the 3 knobs, a starting point and good example of the use of the mod Knobs. That’s something that could be implemented with the next firmware update? It would be a major upgrade in playability, and of course shows off those fabulous mod knobs. The other missed opportunity- the Registrations aren’t chock full of examples of good edited single Tones with Knobs 1-3 assignments, or good layers and splits. It’s not like there’s a lot to draw from the community- Brad’s 4 organ Registrations are the only Registrations I’ve seen for these boards. This wouldn’t require a Firmware Update, it could be an optional SAVE ALL file or Registration Bank SAVE (more flexible).

It’s mostly Greek to me- I’ve seen LSB and MSB before and know they’re addresses to tell the external synth/program what to do, I suppose for program changes and for the mod knobs. But reading thru the manual a few times I still don’t get the ins/outs of how to use the MIDI Control mode. It’d be super helpful to have a tutorial of typical ways to use this mode, I would bet that most users on this forum would benefit from that, that they also are scratching their bald heads and wondering, huh? Instead of MIDI CONTROL, so far I’ve resorted to turning LOCAL ON to off, and Neo-Soul Keys Studio 2 responds to the knobs with MIDI LEARN. I’m not going to a DAW, my primary use is to get instrument sounds from my IPad. As AS noticed, I see that MIDI CONTROL mode doesn’t save to Registrations, so how are you supposed to save your settings? It’s usefulness is considerably lessened if it’s only a real-time operation, given all the things you have to setup. And I agree with AS, about building in flexibility, that you can’t play internal sounds at the same time seems a shame. Perhaps with the knobs assigned to internal and external sounds that’d be a graceful way of independently controlling the volume of the S500 and the external source.

Brad, Good news! I was able to load your organ registrations into my 500S. It sounds like you left the first and 4th registrations close to the same, I heard big differences in the 2d and 3d, for the better. What are some of the key parameters you changed? Those were useful K1-3 assignments, for my tastes I set the speed, K2, between about 105-118. Was surprised that each of the registrations called for a different fast speed to sound good to me. Looks like I need to dive into this DSP, the slow speed could have been a bit faster for my taste.

I was hoping I could turn off LOCAL ON and save that to MY SETUP, but no go. I would venture a guess Casio didn’t want to have a MY SETUP that produced no sound! But it’s honestly the first thing I wanted to do, it was going to be MY SETUP #4, appropriately named as LOCAL OFF.

Being that Casio is offering this price, as well as Amazon, this is just spreading the word. I wish someone had told me! The 15% off the regular price of the 1000V means it’s only $30 more than the S500. I definitely would have bought it instead had I known. I’d dismissed the 1000V vocal synthesis out of hand as not worth the time, but after watching this video from this well-known Japanese reviewer, I realized it wasn’t a gimmick and could be used flexibly and musically to some degree. Japanese reviewer of CT-S1000V

With a newly formatted thumb drive I was dismayed to find you can only save one Registration bank at a time, is that right? With 16 banks, that seems like a tedious process, why wouldn’t they have an option to save all 16 banks at a time? Looks like it’s the same with the four My Setups, you can only save them one at a time.

Thanks Brad. I would think that anything related to the synthvox features of the 1000V would have its own file name, those 3 letters for different kinds of files.

Hey, wanted to download these organ registrations. It’s unclear how to do it. IPad: am not able to copy Brad’s organ to my flash drive (error: the flash drive requires too much power) USB cable (micro) to iPad CCK: nothing happens or registers. In the manual it sounds like this USB-to-host connection is designed for use with music apps, not for loading new User Tones directly from the iPad I am however able to use USB MIDI thru this cable, so the connection is there-

With a newly formatted thumb drive I was dismayed to find you can only save one Registration bank at a time, is that right? With 16 banks, that seems like a tedious process, why wouldn’t they have an option to save all 16 banks at a time? Looks like it’s the same with the four My Setups, you can only save them one at a time.

5 days in I wanted to share my initial reactions to this Mini-Mighty-Mite. In getting a new board I always dread that no-mans land of figuring out my way around. For me that mostly means basic Tone editing and setting up Multis/Registrations. I’ve got to be able to know how to customize the individual sounds, and then go thru the considerable work of throwing sounds together in layers and splits. For me this is a very circular process, organic in nature if you will, and it takes me a ton of time- so I appreciate when the UI is intuitive and immediately understandable. Have been so pleasantly surprised at how well this minimalist approach works. I’ve always thought you needed a tablet as an interface in order to make things user friendly, or 4-5 times more top panel control knobs/buttons/etc. Turns out Casio has figured out a way to do it with a smallish screen, a jog wheel, 5 soft buttons, 10 assigned buttons, a PB wheel and 3 mod knobs. That’s practically nothing! And yet it works well. Like any board, esp lower priced, there are a ton of compromises that naturally go into that kind of purchase- it comes with the territory. But happy to say, as a 20+ years consumer of a half dozen cheapie boards, things have finally started to really turn around. Casio came out with the AIX chip, and the difference in quality is super noticeable. I suffered thru a Casio WK7600 and more than my fair share of mediocre sounds on so many boards. > So as someone who highly values bang-for-buck brands, this is sweet indeed. And to see a substantially better keybed (WK7600 and the CT-X5000 both grew to be terrible over time and were subpar from the beginning) at this price level blows my mind. AND for the UI to be a total happy surprise- For getting up to speed on the basics it helps that I printed out PJD’s cheat sheet of 2 columns: Menu and Setting items. > AND that the 3 knobs act as specified control knobs OR as Menu functions setting knobs. > AND that most pages show 3 choices, so you advance quickly < AND that with the dedicated TONE, RHYTHM and REGISTRATION buttons you always know how to get where you want to go. > AND that thru the MENU button you have access to the innards thru 2 pathways. > AND that a second press of most of these function buttons brings you back to the last screen you were on. Things I like so far: - for a sub $500 keyboard with 5 watt speakers, this board really does OK. It’s an over-achiever with a large bass-reflex speaker, all while maintaining its svelte form. That said, it’s a 6/10 on an absolute scale, the PA1000 speakers are a 10/10. But judged on its own Mérits: price, portability, good keybed and sounds, it’s a 10/10. I didn’t know this quality of sound system could be done at this price point / weight / size. - I love that its so portable- that it’s not a huge aircraft hanger sized top panel is such a relief! I can put it on my lap when sitting in the recliner, or I can put it out in front of the couch on a small table and it’s perfect while I’m watching movies and playing along with the sound track. Have never been able to do this with such ease before- - the keybed is really decent- I don’t find myself complaining like I did with the CT-X5000- the keys are very well mannered, quiet, and while it’s slightly harder to play towards the fall board, its a better keybed than I had on the $2k Korg PA1000 (an otherwise mind-blowing keyboard). I find myself playing energetic block chords, so far my hands have been pretty enthusiastic and at home on this keybed. > I’ve felt the most expressive setting when I’ve set the touch to LIGHT. Like with some of the EPs that have some of that satisfying growl in the low end- with those I get frustrated cause it feels like I have to reach a velocity of 115 in order to trigger that growl, whereas I’d much rather it was triggered around 100. > So it’s only on LIGHT that I can reliably trigger that. It’s way more effort than I want to make- I don’t want to have to bust my hands whacking the keys in order to trigger that growl sample , a medium whack would be much better. - mostly like the sounds, haven’t auditioned much beyond the pianos and EPs. I enjoy the APs, still getting comfortable there, but I’m finding the EPs a let down. I’m spoiled by Neo Soul Keys Studio 2, an iPad app that helps you get funky with those sounds from the 70s. > Happily, with BT MIDI to my iPad, which works well, and an 1/8” cable to the Aux In, I’m golden. Looking forward to mapping the 3 knobs to iPad instruments. I’m due to be getting the Yamaha PSR EW425 in a week or so. It’ll be great fun to compare and contrast. From what I understand it has also gone thru a similar substantial upgrade in sound and keybed and functionality. Ain’t competition grand! I’m tempted even with my limited budget to keep both: - EW425: 76 keys /// a substantial sound system, 24 watts /// new piano and organ sounds /// new keybed, I tried it, very similar to the S500 /// audio interface /// microphone in!!! /// - CT-S500: 10 pounds and 10” deep! /// Decent sound system /// controller capabilities /// decent keybed and sounds /// User Friendly, intuitive /// recliner/couch/bed friendly /// Rudolph R-N R

Thanks Brad, I’ll check them out. I was hoping there’d be new EPiano sounds, I found them to be lacking with the CT-X5000 as well. I suppose though that there are User Registrations of EPs that improve upon the factory sounds? I noticed the new Electric Grand Piano sounds, and while it’s normally not my cup of tea, I thought they sounded very good. From the manual, page 270: “Advanced Tones: when 64 is received, the reverb, delay and chorus types change to match the tone.” ? 64 refers to the velocity level? What are they talking about? Advanced Layer Tones: neat trick! So I take it that there’s no Music Presets like the CT-X5000 has, the 310 chord presets. Anything similar on the S500, like being able to create the backing chords to songs so you can solo on top without having to play the chords? Thanks!

Hey everyone- just received my CT-S500! I heard there were new sounds as well as old sounds that have been upgraded compared to the CT-X5000. Does anyone know what sounds have been added compared to the X5000? Which sounds have been upgraded or changed? I did a cursory sweep of the topics and didn’t find anything. This would be very useful as I’m somewhat familiar with the X5000 sounds, esp the bread and butter sounds, but I don’t have a photographic memory. I’d love to go directly to these new-to-me sounds on the S500 and audition, otherwise it’s a big confusing jumble of sounds to evaluate, esp since 90 to 95% of the sounds are the same as the X5000. Thanks! Randy the Rudolph R-N-R

Yes indeed, I didn’t know this was possible! Awesome- I just confirmed it works! Thanks AS, and for pointing out that MIDI router wouldn’t work, was thinking it would be fed by the USB MIDI. Only recently discovered BT MIDI is my friend, works well. Not sure why the simplicity of what was on offer was unknown to me. To give myself credit though, It does take a willingness to study a bit to figure out all this stuff. Was just talking to my non-musician sister about enjoying making vast and lush sounds for theatrical-style playing, and her immediate comment was, “That’s really technical, isn’t it. Just for that reason I wouldn’t do it”. I’ve encountered this often, otherwise very intelligent (often moreso than myself) women who have a great memory, but have an undeniable reluctance when it comes to the complications and challenges of dealing with tech. Which is good I suppose. There’s the field of doing, which is usually a vastly different approach and perspective than the field of being, which typically involves emotions. Most men and women fit, roughly, into these 2 fields, sometimes the stereotype has a lot of truth. When I lived 5 years in Europe, I was really surprised that every country I went to they lived up to their stereotype. After experiencing how close these countries are to one another, I began to understand this need for differentiation. Anyhoo, super glad this was a slam dunk solution that I shoulda/coulda/woulda known with just a bit more study. Motivating!

So you’re saying all I need is a USB A to B cable and my CCK and that’s it, I can play my keyboard and the iPad instrument app registers my playing? That would be awesome!

Yes, that makes sense about the cutoff filter, but as Brad said, there are at least 3 cutoffs: low/high/band pass. I would think the engineers programming this would choose the one that is the most dramatic/noticeable/sounding-like-a-freaking-cutoff filter! Hmmmm…. For $500 I imagine most of us would try to buy the MZ-X500! I got mine for $900, they usually sold for $1,100? I’d probably still have it if it wasn’t stolen! Really enjoyed that board, definite step up in many ways. Hex layers are a brilliant idea, but the implementation for editing was not sufficiently developed, took way longer to edit them than was necessary if they’d optimized it.

That’s awesome! It’s one of the first iPad Pros, it has a lightning connector. I do have a CCK (camera connection kit, a lightning to USB A female cable)).

Found this at SW: Yamaha UDBT01, wireless Bluetooth I wish they’d walked thru a few scenarios. If I understand correctly, this device plugs in with a USB cable to the keyboard USB To Host port, and works its magic once it’s powered thru a smartphone power supply. Thanks for the suggestion, IME BT MIDI works quite well. I would have thought it could be powered thru the keyboards USB port, oh well, I guess all of these USB to MIDI products require a power supply. It does have a smaller footprint than the USB MIDI box I was looking at.

I had a chance tonight to play an EW473, the 61 note equivalent of the Yamaha PSR EW425.. Was thrilled to find the keybed was actually quite good, decent for piano which is usually the hardest sound to match a keybed with. However, upon testing the cutoff filter knob, I was really surprised to find that moving the knob from the center position to all the way cranked did not always yield the resonant filter sweep that tends to get edgy- there were a fair number of sounds that behaved like the X5000, that is, even cranking it made little difference in the sound. So maybe I’m wrong, maybe that is something I didn’t pay strict attention to with my other boards, but if so, I just don’t get it- it’s such a cool filter sweep, why wouldn’t it be setup like that for all sounds? I assume it’s the band pass filter that would be the most dramatic of these filters? I’m placing my order tomorrow for the EW425, so hopefully by the end of the month I’ll be able to compare these two keyboards. Have to say I’ve been having one fun evening after another creating 4 voice Registrations on the X5000 that are perfect for jamming out! Maybe keep both the EW425 and the X5000? That doesn’t seem practical, don’t have the room or the time for 3 keyboards. Regardless, still interested in peoples opinions about Yamaha sounds. The EPs were mostly stuff they’ve had around for years, 4 or 5 out of 10, I thought they’d be way better by now, but I’m not sure I heard all of them. And the Basses were also lackluster, at least the ones I tried. Oh well, at least it’s easy to use an iPad for more sounds. And then there’s the unlikely possibility (too expensive) to get the SX600, which would primarily be for the upgrade of sound quality. Hard to pass up 76 keys though!

Thank you Brad!

Please tell me I’m wrong! I’m thinking the only way to connect a X5000 to an iPad in order to run an instrument app, is to buy a $40-50 USB to MIDI conversion box like this: USB to MIDI box Are there cheaper options? Or ways of doing this I’m not aware of? I wish the X5000 at least had MIDI BT! No need for a box then, the iPad instrument app would receive the keyboard playing, and the latency is very useable.

Just Alex, Hmmm…. Thanks for the feedback about the sound quality of the EW425 piano. Do you have one? The other equally important question is how well does the EW425 play piano? I’m mostly OK with the Casio piano tone, to my ears the Stage Piano sounds clear and powerful up and down the keys. It’s the keybed that hampers my enjoyment somewhat. MIDI keyboard- tempting! You can certainly get a quality unweighted/semi-weighted MIDI keyboard for less than the price of the X5000 and EW425, but having a module or having to always connect to an iPad/laptop, that’s not the user experience I like! I want it all- an under $500 keyboard that 1). Feels good under the fingers, 2). Has decent sounds and some degree of editing possible, AND 3). Can be easily connected to an iPad for more sounds. 5-10 years ago that was an impossible ask, nowadays Casio and Yamaha have gotten really close. At least features wise, I’m guessing the EW425 will come the closest to those high standards for me, but I imagine within a few years Casio will innovate their way to the next level. Keybeds improving? But overall, I think it’s next to impossible to design these budget keyboards, esp with auto-accompaniment and sequencing capabilities. Trying to accommodate sooooo many features, it usually comes down to: WHAT IS THE FOCUS? Is it primarily for the person who values the accompaniment part of the board? For the person, like me who is all about creating powerful registrations for maximum and most dramatic sound quality? For the person trying to sequence and record? There are only so many buttons for easy access to features that these budget boards can afford to include. At some point I believe there will be more boards that are simple and user-friendly because the user interface is all about the sounds and perhaps buttons for the auto-accompaniment. Most of the accompaniment and sequencing and sampling will be done thru an iPad/laptop. In other words, a hybrid between a keyboard with it’s own sounds and a MIDI keyboard!

Brad, Thanks, that helps explain it a bit. However, having used cutoff filters on at least a dozen boards I have owned over time, including the MZ-X500, I have never seen one exhibit this behavior. And to my ears, all the tones I have tried to modify with the cutoff filter on the X5000 sounds like it is truly at 64, the middle of the range. Cutoff filters can get very edgy as you get to the extreme of its range. This feels like another fail for this board, like the microphone input, just not engineered well, a feature that is all but useless. Whether it’s high pass or band pass, the expectation is that it’ll give you a quick and simple but invaluable tool for getting a sound to be more mellow or edgy, and it fails. Why wouldn’t they design it to be effective, esp with so few other editing tools? Not taking a dump on this model- I’ve been enjoying it a lot as I create 4 voice registrations. The EW425 does NOT have User Tones, and only has 3 voices to work with. Have been very pleasantly surprised at how full sounding having 2 voices can be for upper and lower. Every board has its up sides and down sides. No matter the explanation, for my uses this board does not have a useful implementation of the cutoff filter, have not once used it to mellow out a sound. Hopefully the next board will not have this shortcoming.

Thinking out loud here, would appreciate your thoughts given my needs! And while I did due diligence, I’m not 100% on all the comparisons made. These days I’m solidly in the weighted piano playing realm, spending most of my time with the excellent Kawai ES920- the sounds, the keybed, the built-in speakers- all top notch, great satisfaction achieved! For me there’s no substitute for weighted action for most of my playing / practicing. HOWEVER: -some sounds, like organ, synth, etc., are better played with unweighted / semi-weighted boards - a lighter, cheaper board is more convenient and not as worrisome as taking a heavier, pricier board to parties/jam sessions - having a 2 board setup at home is sweet: bottom board weighted, top board: semi-weighted / unweighted - the ES920 is super limited: only 2 sounds at once, very little editing possible, and only 39 sounds (!) - with limited funds I would be better off just keeping the X5000 Given all that…. Pros of the X5000: - 100 slots for saving/naming User Tones! Love this! > EW425: no User Tones. - 8 registration buttons! This is super useful, I like to have my registrations grouped together, like 8 prepared piano tones in the first bank, 8 EPs in the 2d, etc. > EW425 has 4 registration buttons - 128 registrations total! > EW425: 32 total. That’s just ridiculous, considering you’ve got 800 sounds to work with - 2 pedal jacks, including 1 for expression > EW425: 1 pedal jack. Why oh why when making an arranger have only 1? - 4 sounds to work with > EW425 only has 2 upper, 1 lower- - Portamento!!! > EW425: no Pros of the EW425: - 2 pre-defined mod knobs!!!! Yes yes and Yes! > X5000 has a mod button - 76 keys!!! Hell yah. - Battery capability (6 D cells), rechargeable Ni-Mh D batteries/charger costs about $50 > X5000, no battery - Keybed: presumably better (same as new PSR E-473), almost anything has got to be better than the noisy, hard-to-control-dynamics keybed of the X5000, though my WK7600, over time, was the absolute worst, made me into a sloppy player, some really bad keybeds can do that - USB audio/MIDI interface built-in!!!! iPad and notebook sounds would be a slam dunk > X5000: only USB MIDI, connecting to my iPad for sounds would require a $40-50 USB to MIDI conversion box - Microphone input is useable! > X5000 is the worst, I’ve gotten it to work but it suffers from lack of volume and requires particular microphone cables; big fail by Casio, this is not rocket science - Microphone control button: effects / no effects / off > X5000: no top panel control - A real cutoff filter > X5000: so weird, only the sweep from 64 to 0 works, from 64 to 128 it does next to nothing. Big bummer, with so few sound-editing tools, the cutoff is very handy for sharpening or mellowing out a Tone - 6 Front panel buttons to play/not play accompaniment: Rhythms/Bs/Chord parts. > X5000: 1 button; not fully up to speed on this, but it seems obvious that while using auto-accompaniment I’d have 6 buttons vs 1 for bringing in or out the various accompaniment parts As you can tell, I’m leaning towards the EW425, mostly cause of the 76 keys, built-in USB interface, useable microphone input. But as i get back into the X5000 after not playing it for the better part of a year, I’m finding myself enjoying it. For the things I do, the editing process is not that bad, and the lousy keybed is still serviceable, I can still enjoy myself with the sounds. Even after selling the X5000 It’d cost me $250-300 to buy the EW425 (rechargeables, case?, etc.), and on my retired money, that’s a factor. The thing I’m most curious about (besides the keybed quality) is the difference between these two board for the quality of sounds. I’ve got decent headphones, the BeyerDynamic DT 990, open back, so I don’t have to rely on the speakers to judge the sounds. In the bad old days of poor sound quality with these cheaper boards, layering sounds was one of the only ways to get a decent full-sounding patch.. As I layer up Tones with the X5000 I achieve some degree of satisfaction, but the real test is a single Tone being able to sound great on its own with no layer needed, and so far I’d say: Sound Quality (SQ): Pianos 6-7/10 SQ: EPs: 3/10 SQ: Organs 7/10 But all of these are preliminary. Haven’t messed with the Leslie effect, or tried modding the EPs much with DSP, but so far the EPs are incredibly lackluster, the EPWah is the only one that comes close to being decent. I have no problem with the piano tones, and without modification, the organ tones have been really fun. Haven’t dug into woodwinds/brass/orchestral/pads/synth very much. So the jury is still deliberating on that, esp since I don’t have the EW425, it’s on back-order. I’ll probably buy it from a local GC, which would give me 45 days to compare/contrast the two. For those of you with relatively newer PSR E and PSR EW Yamahas, how would you compare the keybed and sound quality to the X3000/5000? It’s all subjective, but yet it’s not. I remember how put off I was by the lousy SQ of my WK7600, and was pleased with the obvious jump in SQ with the CT-X700 and X5000. But as I dig deeper, I’m finding very few of the X5000 sounds having the wow quality that I’ve experienced with my Korg PA 1000 (before I sold it). It’s 4-5 times more expensive, but the point is that SQ has gotten progressively better over time and SQ is what inspires me as a musician. And when SQ is not dramatically great, it takes a lot more time to distinguish the fantastic from the mostly excellent from the OK/good to the meh. So I don’t take these evaluations lightly, it’s as important as the keybed and finger to ear connection as far as achieving playing satisfaction! As you can tell, I’m kind of obsessed with all this- it’s fun to evaluate boards, esp at such similar price points. Your opinions welcome! And please, this is not a slam on Casio, I’ve owned a handful of them, including the MZ-X500, and gravitate towards them for their bang-for-buck offerings. I have been sorely disappointed with the X5000 though with the hardly-functioning microphone input, the non-performing cutoff filter, and the barely-adequate keybed, so some criticism there for sure.

Hmm….. are you sure the mz-x is still available? I had the mz-x before it was stolen, and have the ct-x5000. Was disappointed with the implementation of the hex layers, brilliant concept but building your own layers were unnecessarily onerous. Enjoyed the tilted panel for the speakers pointing towards you and the sound quality of the speakers was great. Given my current needs, I wouldn’t buy either of them again. I remember you being one of the first reviewers of the mz-x, helped a lot in deciding to buy it!

Hmmmmm….. good suggestion, had forgotten about that board, thanks. While that would be a bonus I’m not much of an organ player, just getting used to having such quality sounds with the B-3X ipad app. What I haven’t figured out is how you’re supposed to use the presets when the organ itself takes 5 octaves, 61 notes, and the reverse color keys for the presets takes another octave. Those presets are very handy, so optimally I suppose having a 73 or 76 key board makes the most sense. Talk about a Casio unicorn, my Casio MZ-X500 had drawbars as well, not sure they could be used for an iPad app. Unfortunately it was stolen.