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Casio zone keyboard in midi


bigdude

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Hey folks,

 

Just recently received my Casio X1-P1 and enjoying it. Am learning to navigate it. I know how to zone up the keyboard to play up to 4 different parts and sounds at the same time. I have a song written in midi data on Cubase, have drum midi data recorded, and keys data recorded, but I can only hear one zone at a time "i.e. my piano tone or a bass tone", is it possible to split up the keyboard and hear all the parts at the same time(Hear the piano when the midi data is in its zone, hear the bass when the midi data is in its zone, hear the lead when the midi data is in its zone.

 

Hopefully it makes sense what I'm trying to do.

 

Thanks for the help!

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Since you are playing a MIDI file what you need to be concerned with is the MIDI channel that each of your instruments (tracks) in the MIDI file is sending to. Drums are normally on MIDI channel 10, the piano is likely on channel 1 (but may not be if it is considered an accompaniment instrument in the song), the others could be any of the other channels. If you go into the Performance Editor you can see (and change, if necessary) the MIDI channel that each of the XW-P1's sixteen parts receives on (see page E-66 in the XW-P1 User's Guide).

 

It sounds like Cubase isn't sending any program change data on the MIDI tracks, which would automatically configure each of the XW-P1's parts to play the "correct" tone for a given track. I'm sure you can make Cubase do that but since I'm not familiar with the program I can't advise you there. I suspect you could easily tell it to send program change data for General MIDI tones, which the XW-P1 supports. If you want to use other (superior) tones in the XW-P1 you would have to specify the program change data yourself, which you can find in the Appendix document for the XW-P1. This task is made far easier with an instrument definition file, which specifies the names of the tones in the XW-P1 and the program change data required to call each of them up. There is such a file for Cakewalk here on the site but I don't know if Cubase can read it. 

 

Failing the above, you can set things up manually on the XW-P1. Find the part that is receiving on the MIDI channel that your MIDI file is sending for the piano track, for example, and set the tone for that part to a piano tone (any piano tone you like but PCM Melody tone P00 in the Piano category is the default). If the part (not MIDI channel!) is in the range 1 to 4 you can stay in the Performance Editor to do that (page E-64) but if the part is in the range 5 to 16 you need to go into the mixer where you can do all sixteen parts (see page E-67). (Note that you CAN'T set the MIDI receive channel for parts using the Mixer, which I find inconvenient.)  I would personally avoid using part 7 since its settings aren't stored in non-volatile memory and will disappear when you turn off the P1. 

 

Do the same for the other tracks/instruments in your MIDI file. If any of your tracks are using parts 1 to 4 make sure that the key ranges for each part are wide enough to cover all notes sent for that track/instrument. Save the current sequence to a new sequencer user memory. The mixer settings for parts 8 to 16 are stored in there. Save the current Performance; the mixer settings for parts 1 to 6 are stored there. Call up that Performance (which will reference the sequence you saved) whenever you want to play that MIDI file. 

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Thank you very much for the reply, I appreciate it.

 

i currently have three tracks in Cubase that are routed to the XWP1. One for a bass, a harmony lead, and one for a melody lead. I would like each track to have it's own tone, or zone, which ever is the more correct way to go about doing it. However, when I changed the bass lead an octave down so it will be a proper bass tone, the other 2 tracks change to be the current bass tone. So if I change a key lead tracks the second key lead tone and bass tone will change to be the current key lead track.

 

I know I'm messing up somewhere - How can I make it so that when I change only one track the sound will only change for the track that is currently selected, and not all three? Is that where program change comes into play?

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It sounds like Cubase is sending each track on the same MIDI channel (probably channel 1). You would have to correct that first in Cubase before dealing with which tones are called up for each track, which as I said can be done from within Cubase or in the XW-P1 itself (pros and cons to both approaches).

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Hi,

 

I have learned a lot recently. Am able to assign each track it's own sound via program change data. However, I would like to play along with my keyboard as well. There is no problem when I push play and just listen to the project, but if I try to find a tone on the keyboard to play harmony with the project, the rest of the midi tracks I have changes to that tone I have selected on the keyboard. Either that, or there will be several layers of tones, split up as well, which makes it sounds like something got screwed up on the keyboard. Here's an example:

 

Bass is assigned to the keyboard(USB midi interface), channel one, with program data 33.

Lead 1 is assigned to the Keyboard(USB midi interface), channel two, with program data 80

Lead 2 is assigned to the KEyboard(USB midi interface), channel three, with program data 81.

 

As said above, I would like to play harmony on my keyboard with these tracks, but whenever I look for a certain tone or sound, the other midi tracks change to the current tone I want to play harmony with, or the keyboard just sounds screwed up with the tones I programmed in Cubase.

 

Thanks for the help. Perhaps there's someone here that's familiar with Cubase that might give me a hint or a link to a tutorial somewhere that could get this working right.

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How are "looking" for a tone to play live? If you select a tone in Tone mode I believe (but am not certain) that the XW-P1 will not behave multitimbrally when receiving MIDI data. I believe you will need to be in Performance mode. And you will have to ensure that at least one zone (the one you will play) is NOT being driven by MIDI. 

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Hi, I have figured out how to make it work. Each tone has it's own number in a certain channel that I program via program change and I make that change in Cubase. I do that for each track and it works. 

 

Just one more question. When I hit some notes while Cubase is running, the notes will hang sometimes, with the only solution I've found is to re-initialize the keyboard, which is not a good solution if I were playing on stage. I have looked in the manual, and all it says is to switch to DC power instead of battery power. Unfortunately that is not the case for me, as I am running the keyboard through the power cord. Any recommendations on how to stop the notes from hanging?

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Send an All Notes Off MIDI message from Cubase. I presume the notes are hanging because for some reason a corresponding "note off" was not received for a previously sent "note on." Of course, that won't solve the underlying problem. You'll still have to figure out why the notes are hanging in the first place.

 

See here and here.

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Anyone around here familiar with Cubase? I am stuck. I am able to use program changes with events, but I don't know if it's the best option for live stage.

 

I am trying to go about installing the instrument definition file provided by the user that is for Cakewalk, but I have no idea what to do next. I have tried for a couple of days now and it's getting a bit frustrating because when I create the midi-device, I select it in the inspector, but there is no midi patch bank list available for me. Am really quite confused about what I'm doing. There are not a lot of articles and watched videos on youtube talking about how to do something like this, but whatever I do, nothing works - Bank Selector says off, and Program selector says off. If I use some other default devices included, the midi patch banks work just fine and can see a list of programs to choose from(of course I can't hear any of them), but it seems that nothing I do has worked so far. I will assume that I am going completely the wrong way about this.

 

Thanks for the help!

 

Edit to be clear: Bank select

 

Edit 2: I am on the right path. I am writing a .txt patch script version for Cubase and have a patch seen in my midi track inspector. I think now it's just a matter of finding the right values to put in when defining the patch names - I have Synth-bass 1 in the script but I hear the piano tone...

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Okay, so I am having some mild success in finding tones to be read by Cubase. I have the Synth Bass1 tone correctly loaded in Cubase and it will play the Synth-Bass 1 sound. I would also like the VA SynthLead 2-0 tone. I have written in the program change, and the Bank MSB value, but for whatever reason Cubase thinks I want the Square lead 1 sound - I assume it's the default tone for a wrong value. VA SynthLead has a program change value of 80, and an MSB value of 16, but when I play the tone in Cubase, the tone is not what I am supposed to be hearing.

 

Any ideas?

 

edit to be clear: for a couple of tones the wrong tone is being played when I applied the program change and MSB value in Cubase. I also want the FifthSawLead 0-6 in Synth but it sounds like a choir sound is being played instead. have double checked and made sure that I am inputting the right values.

 

edit 2: apparently a simple close and restart of the project was all it needed to refresh the tones I need to hear, and it's working perfect. I will post again if I have the same issue. I appreciate the help!

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I have discovered another issue that won't help on stage. I have a project with several tracks with the tones that I want(program change values) that is routed to the XW-P1. When I play the project the first time, all the tracks routed to the xw-p1 sound the way I want them to, but if I load another project with midi data and/or reload the previous track the tones get screwed up, either the octave is too low or simply the wrong type of tone is being used, and I have to refresh the tones being used to make the song sound what I want. Think that is a Cubase thing or is that a program change thing that I just have to live with?

 

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You have me stumped on that one. The program change messages are supposed to be embedded in the MIDI file or if playing direct from the DAW then issued when the song starts from the beginning and any time one is encountered in a track (for changing the instrument a track plays on-the-fly).. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Not much help from Steinberg, so I have bought the Social Entropy Engine and am giving it a try(I've been wanting to move to more hardware instruments than software instruments). Engine has 8 tracks, and each track is a midi output sound source. What I am trying to do is have Casio XW-P1 provide the sound source for multiple tracks. For instance, one track is the bass, one track is a lead, etc, since this is the only synth I have. But what I've come to find is that the XW-P1 has only one midi out global(I think), so if I try to change the lead track the bass track changes as well. Is it possible to do what I'm trying to do?

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Through the power of the XW-P1's mixer feature, I am able to achieve exactly what I need. Each part of a mixer is it's own tone and each of the Engine's track knows how to play the sound I want. Now the question is how to make other synthesizers that I acquire do the same - but that is for another day.

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