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Privia PX350 help for a blind musician please!


Ambition Road

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I have recently purchased a Casio Privia PX350 as it is the last model that doesn't
have a touch screen! Being blind, touch screens are not accessible to us due
to its visual nature. The more buttons, sliders and knobs, the better it is
for a blind piano player as you can appreciate.

I was wondering if you could please help me with two things regarding the
Casio Privia PX350? I have tried to read the manual but it isn't very clear
to me as it is layed out visually! Firstly, how does one go about
transposing the Casio Privia PX350 keyboard? Secondly, I was wondering if
you could tell me the labels / description for the buttons and knobs. Also,
could you  describe how the buttons and knobs etc are laid out / arranged?

Any help on the above is much appreciated!

Merry Christmas and a happy new year to you!

 

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My experience with the PX-350 is only peripherally, so I'll let someone more familiar help you.

 

I just wanted to say that I'm glad you are able to use the 350 and I hope that Casio continues to make models that are accessible to the visually impaired. I am really excited about the touch screen models, and I hope they find a way to make them accessible for those with visual impairments.

 

Good luck!

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I will help-I'm giving lessons to a student who is 80% blind-and will guide you based on touch. I will need a little time to think this through. I am also wondering-if there is someone available to you locally who could study and prepare a template for the PX350 with braille lettering. I will do some research and getback to you here. What mechanisms are you using for posting, reading etc.?  I am a retired music educator and worked with visually impaired students in my music class, I'll help as much as i can within my capabilities.

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Hi Guys and thanks so much for your messages and for your help! If you can just post your answers here, that would be awesome! I have a computer which has a program that reads what is on the screen to me. This program is called a screen reader. so I can access everything you can and do all the stuff you can so no worries there.

Regarding transposing, how do you do that in the Casio Privia PX350? Is it a matter of hitting the function button and then because Transpose is the first item on the menu, arrowing up and down?

 

Regarding the description of the buttons, knobs and their descriptions, here is an example description of a button layout from my Roland FA06 to show you what I mean regarding needing the same for the privia px350. Exsample description follows:

 

layout.txt

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1. On the extreme left of the synth is a rectangular section measuring five inches wide and eleven inches deep. This section has a matt texture, as opposed to the high-gloss texture in other parts of the synth.

This extreme left section contains the pitch modulation lever and two click buttons. The pitch-bend lever is centred on that extreme left section, and is located about two inches from the front.

 One inch above the pitch-bend lever, and offset to the left, are a pair of rectangular click buttons, side-by-side, each click button is about a half of an inch by one eight of an inch. These buttons control how the pitch-bend behaves, I think. They are referred to as the s1 and s2 buttons, FYI.

Roughly two inches above those two click buttons is a shallow, recessed, rectangular space measuring about three inches across by five inches. This indented space has a slight concave contour, and bears the name Roland FA-06 over a high gloss surface. Since this recess serves no purpose other than displaying the name of the synth, I have used that shallow recess to rest my phone or voice recorder. Not to scratch my FA, I used a slice of hot-water bottle cut to fit.

2. The rest of the FA-06 controls are divided into three discreet, rectangular sections, as follows:

On the left is the Sound Modify section, measuring roughly nine inches across and five inches deep. In the centre is the Main Controls section, measuring roughly eleven inches by five inches deep. And the section on the right contains Arp and Rhythms, plus Sequencer, plus all the Sample Pads and their controller pads. This section measures roughly twelve inches by five deep.

All these three sections are divided by a raised vertical border of approximately a quarter of an inch wide. These raised borders are of a matt finish, contrasted to the high-gloss finish of the three main sections.

3. The Sound Modify Section (on the left).
Top left of this section is the small, one-inch, convex D-Beam sensor. One inch and a half below that, nearest you, are a set of three click buttons that modify the D-Beam. These three buttons are, from the left: the Solo Synth, the Expression, and the Assignable.

At the top of this section, approximately one inch down, is a row of six, cylindrical sound modify knobs. These knobs are firm, about a half inch high, and have soft rubber grips. These numbered knobs are not clicky. These knobs all span from the extreme left to the extreme right with a dead stop. And no click at the half-way stage.

Below these knobs is written the various functions that all the six knobs can produce. That is, four rows of six functions.

Approximately two inches below the first of those knobs, (Knob number 1), is the small click SELECT button, which assigns different effects to the knobs.

Directly below that SELECT button, (toward you), about one inch below, is the DAW CONTROL click selector button.

Moving half an inch to the right of that DAW button switch, are a pair of click selector buttons, which are SPLIT and then DUAL. This pair of buttons have the dual purpose of switching to a Studio Set when pressed at the same time.

Moving again to the right of the above, there is a set of three click button switches, which are: Transpose, Octave Down, and Octave Up.

Whoops! Don't forget the VOLUME knob at the bottom left of this section. Like the Sound Mod' knobs as described above, this is a hard left to minimal and hard right to full volume, but with no little click at the half-way stage.

We now come to the centre section of three main partitions of the controls of the FA-06. This middle partition measures eleven and a quarter inches wide and five inches deep. This partition houses the display screen, the value selector Dial, and various other buttons which I list later.

The display screen of this centre section measures four and a half inches wide by two and a half inches deep. The display screen is not central of this partition, but is offset to the left. Sliding my finger across the screen, there is no tactile indication as to where the screen begins or ends, like all one piece of glass.

As one sits in the playing position, there is to be found, roughly three-quarters of an inch from the bottom of the centre section, a horizontal row of ten click button switches, side-by-side.

These ten button switches are of uniform size of approximately three quarters of an inch across by one eighth of an inch deep. The total measurement of these ten click switches combined is approximately eight inches across.

Directly below the row of ten click buttons are the button numbers, from zero through to nine. These are the numbers of selections or favourite banks, I think.

Directly above the ten click buttons are the names of the selections of each button, as follows:
Button Zero: Drums and Percussion. Button One: A.Piano and E.Piano Button Two: Keyboard and Organ Button Three: Bass and Synth Bass. Button Four: Guitar and Plucked. Button Five: Strings and/ Orchestra. Button Six: Brass and Wind. Button Seven: Vocal and Choir. Button Eight: Synth and Pad. Button Nine: FX and Other.

Directly above Button Zero (of the row of ten click buttons), are three other click buttons arranged vertically with roughly three quarters of an inch space between. The one directly above Button Zero (Drums and Percussion button), is the BANK button.

Directly above the BANK button, is the FAVOURITE button. And directly above that button, is the PREVIEW button.

Roughly two inches above Button number Nine (of the row of ten click buttons), is the circular selector dial. The dial is about one and a half inches in diameter and is a continuous dial, having no dead stops.

The surface of the dial is edged with thin plastic fins pointing outward from the centre, to facilitate grip. The dial has incremental clicks. Turning it swiftly sounds like sweeping a fingernail down a plastic comb.

At the right side of the central section is an arrangement of eleven click buttons, which I will now describe beginning from the bottom edge (nearest to yourself).

On a horizontal line from the row of the ten selection buttons that I described above, is a set of three click buttons. These three click buttons are arranged side-to-side again, and are as follows:

(a) The SHIFT button (b) The EXIT button (c) The ENTER button.

About an inch directly above those three click buttons is another set of three click buttons, again side-to-side, and these click buttons are as follows: (a) The LEFT arrow. The DOWN arrow, and the RIGHT arrow.

About an inch above those, is another set of three click buttons, side-by-side, and named as follows:

(a) DEC, (shortened version of DECREASE. (b) the UP arrow. (c) the INC, which is the short version of INCREASE, (hopefully).

And directly above those buttons are another two click buttons, with a small space between. Those two click buttons are the MENU and the WRITE buttons.

We now move to the right hand side section of the three 'partitions' I described earlier. This right-hand section houses the sixteen sample pads, plus five sample pad controller pads, the Sequencer, the ARP and Rhythms, and the Tempo knob and the Tap Tempo click button.

From the nearest (nearest to you), at the left-hand corner of this section is found the TAP TEMPO click button. It is a half an inch from the lower edge and half an inch from the left-hand edge.

About one inch above that TAP TEMPO button is the TEMP0 knob. This knob is of the same type of knob as the Sound Modify knobs and VOLUME knob. It is firm to turn, but no clicks. Turning it all the way to the left reaches a full stop, and a right turn goes to a full stop again. As with the other knobs, there is no half-way click.


About two inches above that TEMPO knob is a set of three click buttons, side-by-side. These are as follows:
(a) ARPEGGIO (b) CHORD MEMORY and (c) RHYTHM PATTERN.
Above these three click buttons is the words: ARP / RHYTHM.

Moving one inch to the right is another column of nine click buttons, these are the button of the sequencer. Starting at the top, one inch down from topmost edge, is the SEQUENCER click button.

Below that sequencer button are two other click buttons of (a) the SONG SELECT and (b) LOOP button. These two buttons are on a horizontal line but with about one inch space between them.

Below those buttons, is a set of three click buttons of the transport kind: as follows:
(a) a left arrow abutting a vertical line. (b) Two LEFT arrows. and (c) Two RIGHT arrows.

Below those buttons, is a set of three click buttons as follows:
(a) STOP click button, with the symbol of a solid rectangle above it.
(b) PLAY click button with the symbol of an RIGHT arrow above it.
(c) RECORD click button with a solid circle above it.

Please note that there is a tiny block of plastic which separates PLAY and RECORD click buttons as listed above. Feels like a head of a match. Presumably to stop fingers to slipping onto the wrong button when in creative frenzy. :-)

Now for the SAMPLE PADS situated at the right-hand side of this right-hand section.

The sixteen sample pads altogether form a square of pads, measuring three-and-a-half inches by three-and-a-half inches, separated by a narrow space between.

Starting from your playing position, the four bottom sample pads, (those nearest to you, horizontally), and PADS 1, 2, 3, and 4.
Above those, horizontally from left to right are pads 5, 6, 7, and 8.
Above those, horizontally from left to right are pads, 9, 10, 11. 12,
Above those, horizontally from left to right are pads 13, 14, 15, and 16.

Moving slightly left from SAMPLE PAD number one, there is gap of about a half an inch, and in-line with SAMPLE PAD number 1 is the HOLD controller pad. This HOLD pad is slightly smaller than the SAMPLE pads.

Directly above the HOLD pad, is the BANK pad. Which is smaller than the SAMPLE pads and is an oblong.

Directly above the BANK pad, is the CLIP BOARD pad, which is again an oblong pad.

Directly above the CLIP BOARD pad, is the SAMPLING pad, which is again an oblong pad.

Directly above the SAMPLING pad is the PAD UTILITY pad, which is again an oblong pad.

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OK, I'm still checking in here. Now I see what you need specifically-I will do the same, try to keep my descriptions as simple as i can. Anybody who ever complains about how difficult it is to work their instruments should read this. I admire your resourcefulness and hard work. Humbly begging as my college mentor used to say! Will have some descriptions posted today. i also recall seeing a keyboard workstation as I mentioned before with braille imprinted on the work surface. I believe Ray Kurzweil did pioneering work with Steve Wonder's equipment and music to accomodate similar functionality-I'll see what I can find and post back as soon as i can.

 

                                                                                                                                                                                Joe

 

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I may have to do this a section at a time-meanwhile I don't know if you would need such a thing, but I found 2 versions of a braille-specific label maker which creates embossed stick=on labels in 1/4 or 1/2 width label tapes, very much like the dyno brand label makers. I would make labels for you with my Casio tape label maker-but these are not raised letters and would do no good and do not have the braille character set. the price for these braille tape-makers are 250 and 40 dollars US in case you are interested. I will post again asap.

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OK-I'm assuming you know none of these locations-I will start with  basics and transpose buttons.

 

1) Power on/off-12 inches from the left edge and 3 inches from the top of the PX350 is the power button. Press and hold for 1-2 seconds to power on and off.

 

2) 1 1/2 inches to the right of the power button is the circular volume knob, clockwise louder as normal with keyboards etc.

 

3) 1 1/2 inches to the right of the volume knob are 2 pushbuttons. 2 1/4 inches from the back edge of the PX is the metronome/beat pushbutton, directly below that is the thythm/user songs/one touch preset button. Pressing this button alternates between the rhythm setting and the user songs setting-there is a red led next to each of those labels.

 

4) Moving to your right roughly one inch, right next to the metronome label is the son recorder button-pressing this cycles through three separate functions-son play, song record and off. directly below that next to the rhythm button is the intro/repeat function button which is used for the auto-accompaniment functions.


5) starting about 1 1/2 inches to the right of the song recorder button is a row of 8 buttons which are right next to each other.

These are from left to right-

1) pop/dance/rock  2) jazz/European  3) Latin 4) World 5) country/various 6) ballad 7) piano rhythms 8) user rhythms

These are the categories of auto-accompaniment patterns built into the px. 

 

Immediately below that row are 8 more buttons but not so evenly spaced. starting directly from the right of the intro/repoeat button, these are-

1) normal/fillin/rewind 2) variation/fillin/fast forward 3) synchro/ending/pause 4 star/stop-play/stop

Then with a small space in between to the right is the acompaniment on/off part button. By pressing the part and play/stop button together (right next to each other) you switch the PX into demo mode to hear the preset demo arrangements built into the PX.

Immediately to the right of the part button just described are 3 more buttons which make up the end of this row of buttons.

All are right next to each other. From left to right these are-

1) rhtythm editor arrow cursor down 2) misic preset arrow cursor up and 3) tap

These 3 buttons are specifically for controlloing tempo but also for editing rhythms and putting the PX into music preset mode

 

Now these are all the panel buttons to the left of the LCD screen. Moving across from the end of the last button to your right, 7 inches to the right is the other set of panel control buttons. these in general are for selecting sounds (tones as Casio calls them) and the remainder of the functions you need to know.

 

Seven inches from the end of the last button I've just described is the beginning of 2 rows of 9 buttons. Each row is directly under the other. Again, the top row is about 3 inches below the back of the PX. I will start with the top row from left to right.

 

these are tone categories...

1) piano 2) electric piano 3) organ 4) strings 5) various 6) GM tones

 

continuing to the right there are 3 additional buttons

 

1) function 2) arrow cursor down/no 3) arrow cursor up/yes

 

the row directly below this, about on inche below are the 9 remaining buttons These are-

1) bank/reverb 2) 1A/chorus 3) 2B/exit 4) 3c/ arrow cursor left 5) 4D/arrow cursor right 6) store/enter 7) split/split point

8) auto harmonize/  F+/USB device mode 9) audio recorder/load-save

 

The letters 1A, 2B and so forth are all for selecting registration banks and individual registration settings. Note that the all these buttons have dual functions. some of these buttons have more than dual functions and must be used with other buttons to get to where you want to go! Unfortunate aspect to the PX that makes it difficult even if you can see the buttons!

 

Now and finally-your question about transpose, now that you have a descritption of every button, i hope it helps.

By pressing the function button-it switches from the function menu with one press, back to other settings already on when pressed again (switches out of function mode) Once you press the function button the LCD screen shows transpose initially. to transpose up or down, use the 2 keys directly to the right of the function button which are a set of cursor buttonsthe left one is down, the right is up. The other cursor buttons which I described as in the same row as the bank registration buttons-directly below the tone buttons-will scroll through the other function menu items.As you push the right arrow button in this row, you will scroll through

1) tune (master tune, preset to A;440 2) touch-controls key sensitivity 3) volume-pushing the enter button when here gives a submenu set of options for different voulme settings 3)temperament/effect-again hitting the enter button gives you more options for this 4) play/media 5) midi and finally 6) general

-all of these buttons give you different options by pressing the enter button. Pressing the exit button returns you to the top of the menu you just sleected-if you hit enter when in the volume menu, hitting exit will bring you back to that menu item. The PX will save changes you make to these settings provided you have the "backup" option switched on-it is by default and is one of the settings within the "general" category of functions.

 

the last item on the top panel which you probaly found already but just in case-is the thumb drive USB port. Keep in mind that many of us discovered that we can use a prett large thumb drive in these, I havve a 32GB in mine and it works fine. I hope this helps, this is a rather difficult instrument to work around since there are quite a few functions that use 2 separate buttons to access. Most of the time, I only us the function,, usb  load/save, tones and song recorder or audio recorder buttons. One of the confusing aspects to this is keeping the audio recorder functions versus the song recorder functions distinctly different-the song recorder will record a midi data file in the Casio "proprietary" format, but this can also be saved to the thumb drive as a standard midi file, which I do frequently in order to bring it into a computer for editing let me know how you manage, and if i can help further, post here. if you need a description of the back panel connections, let me know-it's alot simpler than the top panel!  I check in every day. and happy new year!

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Hi Jokeyman123,

 

Bloody beauty! That is exactly the help I am after. Your button descriptions and layouts are awesome! I can't begin to express to you how much this will help me in getting the full potential out of this instrument. For that I am so appreciative of your taking the time to help me! I have a Braille labeller already so I can use your descriptions to put Braille on my PX350. All I can say is that blind friend of yours is lucky to have you helping him! I can't thank you enough for your help to me! That's an excellent way to end 2016!

 

Happy new year to you and your family mate. Again thanks for your help and my email is:

blindboxer@icloud.com

 

 

Take care and have a nice day!

 

David Truong.

AKA Ambition Road:

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidtmusic2014

 

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27 minutes ago, BradMZ said:

This thread is the finest example of what this forum is all about. Excellent work guys.  

Hi David - so glad to see you found what you were looking for over here... and all within 48 hours!! 

Forums like this add value to the products, and are priceless!

Brad, you're right - this thread absolutely says it all!

 

Happy New Year to all!!!

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