Technics

Thanks for opening this post, Mau Van! I, for one, was really excited to see the KORG Gadget app coming out and hope that Casio counters, although this would mean to develop their own rather than using tablets to just control hardware synths. Tablets keep (and will keep) getting better and more powerful, eventually allowing them to have enough strength to be standalone instruments. I'd envision: apps as Animoog or Nave to become full fledged composition and performance suites allowing you to create sound and record and mix it down Hardware keyboard would be pretty much nothing but a MIDI controller without any engine inside Controllers would gain wireless capability (WIFI or Bluetooth) in addition to class compliant USB MIDI Musicians could choose what keyboard they would like to play on based upon their need Pick a 88 weighted controller for a piano gig 2 tier controller for Hammond or church organ users 49 key board for a bass or small gigs, etc... 61 key controller for home studio or day to day use Microkey controller for commuters Possibilities are endless and I really think there is market for this because the price could eventually come down I would have never dreamt of even owning a Moog and now I have fun with Animoog for the price of a small dinner at Chili's. Does it sound like a Moog? No, but it's darn close.. I could day dream all day long about having a full version of Omnisphere, Kontakt, Alchemy or Logic's Sculpture on an iPad :-) I think we are slowly heading there.Manufacturers could try to have these built-in, but the tablets and their OS are developing so fast that by the time they'd bring something to market, it could already be obsolete. It won't be long before ARM processors have enough horsepower to be able to handle GB sized samples, making Ivory, Miroslav Philharmonik or Lounge Lizard run on a tablet with enough polyphony to make it stage-worthy. It is amazing what quality you can get from simple iOS apps, just because they have high quality samples.

With all respect, I must disagree and wouldn't look too deep into this searching for secret deals between Apple and Casio. I believe this has everything to do with Cost vs. Benefit and ROI strategy by Casio. Mike Martin has been pretty vocal about this before on this forum and judging from his previous statements, this is how I understand it: Why does Casio state that the rubber pad is good for an iPad and never mentions Android or Windows devices?iOS devices are hands down beating other platforms when it comes to high quality virtual instruments and music making appsWhen you see musicians using tablets, they are "usually" (but now always) iPadsThere is a reason why you don't see Animoog, Nave, iPolysix, iElectribe, iMS20, etc... on Surface or Android app storesAlso one of reasons why I returned my Surface and stuck to iPadWhy is there no XW app for Android or Windows Mobile?Easy answer: the XW application was built upon Midi Designer framework which exists only on iOSMy hunch is that Casio saw the potential in Midi Designer platform and instead of building their own app from the ground up, they leveraged Midi Designer as their foundation, built the front end and were able to bring this to market much faster and cheaper than starting from scratch themselvesUsing Midi Designer also solved Casio's problem whether to hire an army of mobile developers to build everything themselvesI don't mean to side with Casio here, but to be honest, we should be asking the same question from Korg, Waldorf and Moog why their apps are on iOS and not on Surface or Android tabletsApple has had CoreMIDI built into their OS for a very long time, making various APIs available to developers and that's where the other platforms lackMIDI lag was one of the main reasons why I returned my Surface tablet, low quality music apps, or lack thereof, missing plug'n'play functionalityOne doesn't really realize how great it is to plug your controller to your tablet directly without messing around with MIDI drivers. That's what Apple did and developers started flocking around their OS. When Android and Windows RT actually implement MIDI without the real time lag they are plagued with today, things will change.

For gigging musicians, a large touch sensitive display would probably make some sense, I'd agree. But even then, as a non-gigging hobbyist musician, my preference would be a Casio with The same small display which lets you to get by to keep it cheap The rubber pad (such as on XW series) moved right in the middle of the board and have a full blown iPad mount Great intuitive iOS app which would cover the entire software capability of the board controlsAs we go today, software instruments are far surpassing anything what you can buy in the Casio price range . Nave, Animoog, Polysix or iMS20 are a clear proof that the software can be packaged in a cheap small app. This will probably sound too risky to some live musicians, but it is clearly the way we are going, smart thermostats, smart TVs, smart phones, smart keyboards..... I know that the iOS apps lack some major polyphony, but as the hardware keeps getting better, so are the apps. One note about the RAM/ROM. It is not only about raising the storage of waveform memory. We need to remember that those samples need to be processed in real time, so , if you double the memory and keep multitimbrality, you would need much faster processor to drive this increased throughput, so what I'm getting to is: raising the sample memory is not as cheap as one may think because the whole machine needs to be beefed up.

@ Mihajlo As long as you get over the unusual fact how the tracks are assigned to midi channels, it makes sense. For XW-G1 manual, look at page E-51. Not sure what page the XW-P1 manual has it on. Don't forget that this machine can work as a 4 zone midi controller, so first 4 channels are blocked for this purpose Then you've got 5 & 6 which are multifunction keys on G1 or external midi on P1 Channel 7 is a click track on G1 or external midi input on P1 Sequencer takes the rest of the channels up to 16 CH01 - always ON - solo synth or PCM sounds on G1 or solo synth, or drawbar or hex on P1 CH02 - available only in PERF mode for PCM CH03 - available only in PERF mode for PCM CH04 - available only in PERF mode for PCM CH05 - multifunction keys CH06 - multifunction keys CH07 - click track Sequencer: CH08 - Track 1 - DRM1 CH09 - Track 2 - DRM2 CH10 - Track 3 - DRM3 CH11 - Track 4 - DRM4 CH12 - Track 5 - DRM5 CH13 - Track 6 - BASS CH14 - Track 7 - SOLO1 CH15 - Track 8 - SOLO2 CH16 - Track 9 - CHRD DITTO about the manual. Spending 2.5 hours watching these two clinics is better than reading the manual 50 times over. You are absolutely right about the manual explaining the steps how to do something, but it doesn't explain the reason or purpose of the steps and what you could achieve. As far as the chains: They come in handy when you compose your own song and you can program your sequences to play in certain order, such as play pattern 1 twice such as an intro to your song, then jump to pattern 3 and play it once as a fill-in, go back to pattern 2 and play it 10 times as the main part of the song, then jump to pattern 8 and play it twice to end the song - that way you can play on top of this not worrying about pressing the pattern buttons at the right time, messing up or doing it late. Handy feature when both of your hands are playing piano or something, unfortunately it doesn't let you save the chains when you leave the sequencer, at least I' haven't figured out yet how to save the chains. Here is a nice touch: you are supposed to be able to chain different patterns from different sequences. So you could pick pattern 4 from a slow tempe sequence, then jump to pattern 2 in a dance fast tempo sequence. Long story short, you are not limited to only 8 patterns from a single sequence in your song when you use chains! XW-G1 Live Clinic: XW-P1 Live Clinic

Mike Martin posted an excellent live clinic video on YouTube for XW-G1 where he demonstrates what you are asking for (TB303 sound) and what David described above. SSEQ behaves the same on XW-P1 and G1, so you can use these instructions on either machine. Fast-forward to 00h:52m:20s mark for details.

I went to the Casio website to download the appendix for XW and was surprised that besides Xw-P1 and Xw-G1 there also was XW-J1! When did this happen? Casio Intl site has it already on. Is this available only in Asia market do far? I'm not a DJ, but that machine looks quite interesting. http://www.casio-intl.com/asia-mea/en/emi/djcontroller/xw-j1/

Thanks, Scott! When you play your own piano sample, is this polyphonic or is it just mono synth playing a piano wave one note at a time? I guess I'm not explaining my question correctly. I keep reading the manual over and over and in the sampling section it states that samples can be either played back as a drum tone or a solo synth tone, but it says nothing about how to play them in poly mode as a real piano would be played. Would you be willing to describe in steps how you managed to load, set up and play this?

Thanks, happyrat! I've done that and the New Content page shows the forums I have had picked. But, I'm still puzzled what the Follow This Forum button is for as I seem to be unable to make it active in any way. My ultimate goal is to pick 3 forums out of this site and receive e-mail notifications on anything what happens on them. I haven't been able to succeed in that regard. Thanks for any ideas or thoughts, in advance!

@ Moderators: Is there any specific step a user must do to follow a desired forum and get updates on any post in that forum only? For instance, if I go to XW G1 Specific forum, I see the Follow This Forum Button in the right upper corner of the page, but it is grayed out and not clickable. There are only a handful of forums I'd like to keep an eye on, but not all and get my inbox swamped. Any ideas?

I've read the G1 manual pages referring to loading and playing user sample sounds and wanted to ask some questions to get final clarification: Examples: Is it possible load a single Rhodes wave for instance and play it in full polyphony across the whole keyboard?Or is the playback limited only to 1 tone per octave, such as for drums?I'm afraid the manual only describes how to perform specific steps as it relates to loading data etc, but completely lacks any description of what these steps are supposed to accomplish and how they may apply to real life situations. Typical example is the SPLT mode, it describes the steps in great detail, but purpose and usage are very unclear for a newbie, such as myself.

Woohoo! :-)

Thanks, Scott! Just what I was looking for.

I played wight eh G1 at the store using my headphones and noticed a slight change in tone when loop-recording one of the built in pad sounds. The sound was nice and wide, but after recording it in the looper, it became very narrow, as though it switched into a mono mode. Is the looper mono only? I can't find an answer in the user manual.

Mike, A few questions: How are you utilizing the iMS20 in this mix? Your song sounds great by the way! I see NAVE on your iPad is depressing keys as you go So, you didn't record the pads into the phrase sequencer, but instead recorded it on the chord track of the sequencer to make it play over and over? Does it mean it is plying live and sending MIDI to the iPAD? I'm a bit confused how you set this up, because you are running the phrase recorder, but NAVE keeps playing over and overAre you running both apps via Audiobus?

There is an answer on this forum where Mike describes it. Try to scour the WX P1 section. The most important ones: P1 has dedicated Hex layer and organ sections, G1 doesn'tG1 and P1 both have the same solo synth, but G1 can use sliders to modify just about anything on the synth, P1 can't because it uses the matrix to control hex layer and organs insteadP1 has more PCM sounds than G1- I think P1 piano is a better quality, supposedly - they both sound great to me either wayP1 has sounds organized in categories quickly accessible by pattern buttons, G1 doesn't, so you have to use the wheel or buttonsG1 has more drum kitsG1 and P1 both have the same step sequencerG1 and P1 both have the same phrase sequencerG1 has a sample looper, P1 doesn'tI'm sure I've missed a whole bunch, but these above stood out for me. I've spent hours and hours @ SamAsh trying both, didn't buy one (YET), but must say, I really like the "fun" factor. It's dead easy to lay down a track. Their keyboard is kinda spongy and has no weight to it at all, but it has a good deep travel, is not as good as Novation SL, but is way better than any Axiom I've tried at the store. It is really playable and quick to get used to. I wouldn't mind this as a controller keyboard. I'm not decided which one to get either: Here is my dilemma: Like the solo synth programming on G1 via sliders - but this will be negated by the new iOS app Casio is coming out with Like the hex layer on P1 - but iPolysix, iMS20, Nave, Animoog, Sunrizer could be a good substitute Like the Looper feature on G1- awesome to sample loops from LogicAs Mike pointed out somewhere else: that's why you should get both! :-)