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PX-350 sustain annoyance


Phil Elliott, Jr.

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Greetings, everyone.

     I don't like my first post to this group to be a gripe, but I guess that's the

way it goes.

     I am a young kid (oh, all right then, I'm 52) who has been playing for just under

a year. I purchased a PX-350M in December of last year, and was (operative word)

very pleased with it. Now that I'm starting to play some more advanced pieces, I

have discovered a serious flaw - quite often, when I release and immediately reapply

the damper pedal, it picks up the release samples, as I believe they are called, from

the previous chord and sustains them, which often causes a hideous-sounding mush

with the next chord or note I play. This occurs both with the internal sounds, and through

the USB cord to a VST. Is this a design flaw, or a problem with my machine? (Not the latter,

I hope, since there is no Casio repair center in my state.) I thought it might have something

to do with the reverb setting, so I turned off the reverb, but to no avail. Might there be some

sort of menu setting that I am overlooking?

     I see now that I forgot to mention that this occurs with all of the grand piano sounds,

     I will greatly appreciate any assistance you may be able to offer.

 

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I agree with Brad, (I think) what you are hearing (without hearing it myself) is characteristic of the larger acoustic grands and Casio is emulating this effect. I play the PX350 fairly regularly and work on classic and jazz repertoire with it and I think I hear the effect you are referring to. Do you play classically? If so, remember that the damper pedal must be used "judiciously" and precisely to get the effect you want, or so my classic piano teachers stressed years back. Overuse of the damper pedal is a common problem when playing classical pieces and why composers demanded precise up-pedaling for specific passages which  can be a feature of the composition-some pieces use this "over-damping" or carry-over effect to add harmonics to passages but it can turn to mush if not done carefully. This can take practice and if you have access to a serious acoustic piano (some uprights will not demonstrate this effect as much, there is less overall resonance than a grand), play it and see if you get the same response.I am aware of some pieces that specifically call for this carry-over of harmonics, and even some contemporary pieces which add directions for "stomping" the damper pedal to create a harmonic effect-a kind of "thump" that makes the entire sounboard resonate lthough Ihaven't tried this effect with the Casio, I have with Steinways and it's not easy to do! Hope i helped.

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     Thank you for the responses, BradMZ and Jokeyman123. Now that you mention it,

the carryover is much more pronounced in the lower ranges. I have attached an

MP3 file where I play a C major triad in three different octaves with the pedal down,

let it run for a few seconds, then release the pedal and put it right back down. 

(You'll have to excuse the USB ground-loop buzz.) I am currently working on

Satie's Gymnopedies and Glass' Metamorphosis (all five parts, so maybe that

should be Metamorphoses.) I'm not sure what I can do to keep them from sounding

choppy and disjointed unless I use the pedal, but I don't want the low notes bleeding

over into the next measure until clearing the pedal again. On the other hand, it's

good to know that my machine is malfunctioning, although that probably means

that the operator (myself) is a lousy player.

20160912_0926_50.mp3

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I use the pedal that came with it for the una corda/sostenuto jack,

but I got an M-Audio SP-2 pedal for the sustain operation. I have

the switch set to the proper (i.e. normally open) position, if that's

where your question was leading to. Don't be worried about

insulting my intelligence - I'm so scatterbrained that I once thought

it was broken when it wouldn't start up: turned out that I didn't have

the power cord plugged in. :o

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  • 2 weeks later...

I will consider this discussion or thread or whatever it's called to be closed.

After a bit of experimenting, I discovered how I could modify the SP-2

pedal so I can use it for both full- and half-pedalling. With two more

SP-2's, I was able to make my own pedalboard: much cheaper and a lot

better than Casio's SP-33.

Thanks to Jokeyman123 and BradMZ for their help. I'm not sure why

sslyutov's posts quote me saying something I didn't say.

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