Robin Baugh

Dear Chris, Thanks for the good wishes. I am looking for to diving into the software. Regards, Robin Baugh

Dear Leonh, Thanks for the tips. I purchased Ableton Push and the Spectrasonics Omnisphere 2 package of software which has over 10,000 sounds. Once my software arrives I am looking forward to setting everything up. I agree that the MZX-500 is a great unit...it won best of NAMMH 2016, which is what caught my interest. I am also aware of the differences between a regular keyboard versus a keyboard arranger. I had the option to buy Roland, Korg or Yamaha but at this price point (under $2500 in the States) it seemed to be the best in it's class. The only thing I saw that was better was a $5000 Yamaha. Thanks for the helpful suggestions - I appreciate all of the input. Regards, Robin Baugh

Dear Chris, Thanks for the input I know look forward to all the things I can do with the Casio MZX as I continue production on my next album and the other projects I have going. Hopefully, my ignorance on certain aspects of keyboard arrangers will help somebody else in the future. Thanks everyone for the suggestions and critiques. Regards, Robin Baugh

Hello everyone, I really appreciate all of the helpful comments. My questions come from not having an in depth understanding of what are the limitations of keyboard arrangers, not just the Casio MZX-500. My day job is as a technician, so my approach and frustration comes from not being able to get a solid grasp on what this keyboard is fully capable of. Furthermore, my first album was created entirely on an iPad, before editing and then Mastering and a subsequent release on iTunes, Amazon and roughly 160 countries. So my approach is a bit of the box. This keyboard arranger is designed to take my music to a whole new level and with that comes a lot of questions. I am learning this all of by trial and error and have been relying on the Casio manual to tell me what the MZX-500 can and can't do. I think my frustration is really because there isn't a lot of documentation for the MZX-500 other than the owners manual. It only has a few pages on my particular question. In general, keyboard arrangers are complex and it seems to me that much of the learning is by trial and error for everyone, which is what prompted my question to begin with. Since I have a technical background, I have been approaching this from that point of view - so yes, I have been looking for a "batch load" feature. It seemed like a logical question to me to ask and maybe someday, a keyboard manufacturer will include that. I can see from further research that this is not something keyboards can do (not just Casio), but at the time of my initial inquiry I didn't know that. I appreciate the critiques and suggestions from everyone and let me be clear - this is my very first keyboard arranger and I know nothing about them. I am entirely new to this so I appreciate each of you bearing with me on my journey. Since my initial questions, I have seen that I need a full DAW, which up until now I have not needed. I just purchased Ableton Live and hope to be able to interface with that, the Reveal Spire Sound EDM files that were the reason this issue came up and the Casio MZX-500. For anyone else thinking about a Casio MZX-500: I spent over a year deciding between the Casio MZX-500, Yamaha, Korg and Roland. I saw one demonstrated by Casio at the ASCAP Expo in Los Angeles and was so impressed finally bought it. I have some very specific recording industry needs, in terms of music and have a short timeline to get up to speed on this unit. It is my hope that someone else who is new to Keyboard Arrangers will benefit from my learning curve. Thanks for all of the suggestions and comments. Robin Baugh/A Rising Wave

I'm not an expert on this as I've only had mine a few weeks, that being said I think overall it's a great keyboard arranger. In terms of dance/edm I think it has a decent amount of trance style loops, but it seems like batch loading isn't possible (see my earlier questions about this). I ordered from Reveal Sound (a top site for Trance/EDM recommended by the likes of Armin Van Buuren,) about 8 large sets of music files which include midi, wav and files that will only work in DAW's. I wasn't worried though because I knew the MZX will read midi and wav files. There is a bit of a caveat here - it will see them if you have them in the MUSICDAT file but it's a process. You can't do what I was expecting, which was to load them into user profiles in one shot, like if you downloaded a CASIO file, it will batch load them. I don't know if this is a common issue with other keyboards (although I kind of think it might be) otherwise programs like ABLETON might not be needed as much. So if you order a set which has a lot of loops, it seems you have to pick and choose what to load one at a time. For myself, I am thinking about getting ABLETON LIVE and throwing my EDM files on a computer and then seeing if I can run ABLETON LIVE as a midi in time with the keyboard, so I can hopefully grab files easier as I am composing. Hope this helps.

Thanks. I did download the PDF Manuals but they are pretty slim in this area. I did the firmware update to 1.5 and i have downloaded the Sample Manager App. Thank you for your help. I also put out a call to Casio Tech support but apparently my question was to complex and I have to call back Monday and talk to their keyboard guru. Thanks again for your help.

Yes, my goal is to create new rhythms and tones from these files under the "USER" presets. So how does one go about creating new user inputs? Do you just load one at a time and save a preset? That seems really inefficient. Would you recommend running a MIDI program with the files I want on a computer and hooking that up via USB? I was thinking a program like ABLETON or PRO TOOLS which I know are fully compatible with the Reveal Sound Spire Synthesizer files. http://www.reveal-sound.com/ The interface is one top artists such as Kaskade or Armin Van Buuren use, l simply purchased some of the kits from here and was expecting to able to upload large amounts of the kits into the appropriate TONE or RHYTHM and use them as a USER preset ...like adding to the Indonesian section of TONES for instance. I want to have the ability to use these new files to add to the music I am playing rather than programming it on a DAW. Thank you for your patience against my slow understanding. Robin Baugh

Dear Brad, So sorry for the confusion. I have roughly 8 complete sets of files I got from Reveal Sound. Some of these are exclusive to the Spire Synthesizer (a virtual system that works with Ableton and Final Cut). These sets of are things like, "Essential Pop Moments." Because they are a complete set they include lots of different folders that are exclusive to that pack. I am trying to take as much from each on of these sets as I can and use them to add to the built-in sounds on the MZX. I am doing professional work and need a large variety to choose from in the Pop/Electronica world. Since I am new to the MZX I have been stymied by how to mass load a whole kit of sounds as opposed to only seeing one at a time, which could take months to go through. I have a dj program where I can bulk load loops, presets etc. and then pick and choose, so that is my goal here, to add to the stock system of tones, rhythms etc. I really appreciate the pictures and perhaps I haven't organized my MUSICDAT folder correctly, but I only see small sections of what is actually in the MUSICDAT folder. I don't want them to live on the USB, I want to input them into the keyboard in the appropriate sections/presets to add to the SYNTH TONES a wider array and the same for the DANCE RHYTHM sections. When I go to MEDIA LOAD or LOAD ALL if i look under Rhythm, I can see my individual folders, such as "UPLIFT" one of the titles I paid for, then I see the PARENT FOLDER, "UPLIFT" and from there it breaks down to, "ARTWORK, DEMOS, KITS" ...this is the way Spire organized it. Under KITS for this one title (UPLIFT) there are 3 whole pages of KIT folders. Each KIT folder then breaks down to DRUMS, DRY, MIDI, WET. But when I try and look in each of these subfolders they are blank...even the MIDI folder shows nothing in them on the keyboard itself, when I know there are files. Nowhere does it show any of the extensive WAV files. So my goal is to load all of the MIDI files in bulk to go to the appropriate presets (tone, rhythm or pad) and the same for the WAV files. I then tried it where i took the subfolders from the MIDI in bulk and put them in the MUSICDAT but the folders come up empty. When I follow your instructions and look in the AUDIO RECORDER, i see only 1 WAV file when I know there are several hundred. I am assuming somehow my organization isn't right, and I have tried different methods of storing the files in the MUSICDAT folder but haven't had much luck. It seems from what you showed me that you can only look at one file at a time in the MIDI RECORDER or the AUDIO RECORDER (once the files are organized correctly), this seems an inefficient way from Casio to add more sounds to the keyboard other than the stock ones. Thanks for asking and wanting to help.

Thanks for the tip Brad. But my real question is that it seems that there is no way to store these either Midi or Wav files on the MZX. I purchased several gb's worth of files that I would like to input to either the rhythms, tones or pads as applicable. In one folder alone I have roughly 35 to 40 wav files, now multiply that by 8 complete sets of styles from Spire Sound and you get my problem. Surely, there must be a way to batch load these files? If not, then that's just stupid on Casio's part. I'm getting the sense that you have to run a DAW as a Midi in order to load and run files which you might want to change on the fly. I am thinking of these files that I have in particular because they are Trance/Electronica styles which you need to be able to switch live on the fly. Any suggestions are welcome. Thanks for the detailed snapshots btw - very helpful and very kind of you. Robin Baugh

Hi everyone, I just purchased my first keyboard arranger and it is the Casio MZX-500 series. I downloaded about 8 sets of external music files to add to the MZX-500 and am having difficulty. The manual is slim at best. My files are a mix of Midi and Wav files. I can see the Midi files - one at a time but have no idea where they go when I try and load them from the MUSICDAT folder. Since this is a download from a vendor you can imagine each folder contains well over a hundred Wav files and numerous MIDI files. These are from Spire Music and are sets called things like, "Chillout", "Dreamscape" et. al. These are large sets of files which can be used without owning a Spire Synthesizer, I stayed away from ones that were Spire only. 1) how do you batch load MIDI Files and where do they go? 2) How do you/or can you batch load Wav files? These are kits such as drum kits, bass loops, full loops etc. This is electronica/trance music so for instance a Master folder is called, "Chillout Perception", which then has roughly 10 subfolders. I know the MZX-500 version 1.5 software (which I have installed) is supposed to be able to read Wav files otherwise I wouldn't have purchased the music files. I can see the individual midi folders but can only see one midi file at a time and if I hit execute I have no idea where it's gone too. I am stumped, so any help is appreciated. Thanks again, Robin Baugh www.robinbaugh.com album: A Rising Wave Now A Mastered for iTunes release